Three papers for one white
How we proofed Salt Flat, Noon on three papers, and why the smooth cotton won.
Salt Flat, Noon is almost all white, which makes it one of the hardest prints we have made. The white of the salt has to be brighter than the white of the sky, and both have to be darker than the paper border, or the picture loses its edges.
The tests
We printed the same file on three papers: the baryta we use for Maren Holt’s fog, the textured cotton we use for Adaeze Kalu’s colour studies, and the smooth cotton we use for Ines Cardoso’s coasts.
The baryta had the brightest whites but a slight sheen that made the salt look wet. The textured cotton broke the fine cracks in the foreground into noise. The smooth cotton held the cracks and kept a matte, dry surface, at the cost of slightly duller whites.
The fix
We lowered the brightness of the sky by two per cent so the salt could stay at full white without merging with it. Tomas Reyhan approved the third proof, and that sheet is now the reference for every print in the edition.