If you still hold, however tentatively, to the rather old-fashioned belief that a print is the necessary final product of the photographic process, and if, like me, you do most of your printing at home on an inkjet printer, you'll probably share my interest in the varieties of paper available: the surfaces, the weights, the sizes, and so on. Since investing in an Epson A3+ printer last year (the P400, see Now Available in Orange) I've played it safe as far as the ink is concerned and use Epson inks exclusively, but I'm open to experiment where papers are concerned. If I discover that, say, Ilford make a paper in the Japanese "washi torinoko" style, as I did recently, then I'll order a pack in a small size just to see what it can do, especially if it comes in a useful box or, if they really know how to get my attention, in a cute tin.
The trouble with most papers competing for attention at the top end of the market is that they are far too expensive for day-to-day use, which makes it difficult, if not impossible to really get to know their properties. They are also often far too thick for the delicate digestive system of a desktop printer, and will eventually give it unfortunate dyspeptic symptoms. Besides, a paper that costs several pounds for a single sheet and is approaching the texture and thickness of a beermat strikes me as a complete waste of money, if its intended destiny is to be mounted and framed behind glass on someone's wall. So my preference has long been for Epson's own Archival Matte and Premium Semigloss papers, which are a good compromise of weight, surface, and price: a sheet of A3 Archival Matte costs about 60p and at just 189 g/m² is robust enough without feeling that it needs to be sawn up rather than cut with a knife.
Recently it occurred to me that an A3+ printer, intended to handle a maximum paper size of 32.9cm x 48.3cm (really a US size, 13" x 19") would be able to handle A2 paper, if I were to cut it down to size, width-wise, from 42cm to make a sheet 32.9cm x 59.4cm. That extra 11cm in length could make quite a difference, when printing long, narrow images. Indeed, Epson used to make a "panoramic" size, now discontinued, which was simply a sheet of A2 cut in half, length-wise, to 21cm x 59.4cm. Which then prompted the thought: why waste the offcut, when a sheet of A2 could be divided into two useful sheets, one 30cm x 59.4cm, and the other 12cm x 59.4cm?
But why would anyone want the latter size, I hear you ask? Well, because it's the perfect size for a small concertina-style booklet, with a spare stub left over at the end to glue it into a cover. As a result, I've been having a fun week, seeing what can and cannot be fitted into the available space. Who knows, maybe even a "special edition" of Christmas cards could be a possibility this year for a lucky few?
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