photographic papers
 

I ran into too many problems with the Ilford Galerie Classic Pearl I have been using for some years thinking it was the best continuation of printing from film.

That caused panic buy of a pack of HP Premium Plus being the best I could get from local art/stationery shop. That in turn to studying the 'Canon ICC profiles guide' (pdf downloadable via http://photography-on-the.net/forum/...ad.php?t=29530) and deciding to follow general thrust of this rather than pedantic matching of profiles and papers. I went for the high end, starting in (Nikon) Adobe 1998, to Canon SP4 profile (for their top-end paper) and 'absolute colorimetric'. This despite dismal discovery that Canon IJ is sRGB in disguise and the <beginning and end> colour profiles I chose instead looked at in ColourSync nowhere match.

I found the result revelatory. It seems that these modern posh papers do achieve something appropriate to the digital age and also, maybe, bringing the quality of classic slide projection films onto paper.

It seems that the very bright white base covered with a transparent film and then with the further translucent film of the printing ink reflects the light from the room back up through the ink layer at least partially backlit as from a projected slide or good monitor?

Printing as I do direct from .nef (in NX2, but from .psd in CS would be the same), it is possible to do minor course correction of colour bias as a togglable step in the editing program; must be better than correction in printer dialogue?

Anyone, especially those of you who have been at it a while, have comments on this and further suggestions? And is it best to return to the Ilford paper for monochromes?

For years I used epson papers with a succession of epson photo printers and inks, with no problem at all. I let the printer manage all the colour, and had the print driver set to ICC matching. (I was using PS7 which doesnt have the option to overide the printer colour management).
Then after changing to lightroom as my main output software, and finding the hahnemuhle range of fine art matte papers, this system no longer worked. After a lot of trial and error, and help from memebers here, I ended up developing my own profiles for the matte papers I use, which has really improved my results.
For matte papers, the layers are a bit different to the glossy/semi-gloss finishes you use Chris - and the texturing of fine art finishes gives a different feel as well. I dont have that backlit glow that you describe, but do get what I can only describe as [i][i]depth of colour from the paper while preserving a lot of fine detail. The downside of matte papers - blocking of the shadows - doesnt seem to be a problem if you allow for it in the profile, and I can maintain pretty good shadow detail as well as a good dense black.
I used the syder3 print profiling software and colorimeter, which while a bit time consuming, was straightforward to use, and produced good results.