Ilford Galerie Smooth Pearl

Ilford Galerie Smooth Pearl

This smooth pearl paper falls into Ilford’s Galerie Prestige range and has a similar finish to PermaJet’s Oyster 271 media. The key difference is its base weight. It’s fractionally thicker, but is also available in 310gsm if you’d prefer. It features Ilford’s latest nanoporous coating that’s intended to produce prints with greater clarity, better sharpness and an excellent colour gamut. Ilford recommends the best results will be obtained with pigment inks, though it’s suitable for use with both high-quality dye- and pigment-based inkjet printers; and it has the advantage of being instant drying, which we discovered when running out our test prints.

In the hand this resin-coated paper has an extremely smooth feel. It’s easy to tell which is the printable side, and as with most papers, the printable side is face up when you open the box. It’s available in sizes from 6x4in to A2, and rolls for large format printers are also available. A box of 25 sheets in the A3+ size costs £30, equal to £1.20 per sheet. As we discovered, the ICC profile is also quick and easy to download.

Summary

Weight: 290gsm
A4 x 20 sheets: £11
A3 x 20 sheets: £26
A3+ x 25 sheets: £30
ICC profile: www.ilford.com/en/support/printer-profiles
Website: www.ilford.com