Basic Info from Manufacturer
Description
Made in the USA using 100% cotton, Aurora Art Natural 300 brings elegance, warmth, and nuance to your photography and art prints. This acid-free paper features a pleasing natural white tone and smooth surface. Plus, Aurora Art Natural 300 contains no optical brighteners. This is a benefit because the paper will remain its original shade over a long period of time. As an added bonus, you can print on both sides of Aurora. At 300gsm weight and 18 mil thickness, Aurora Natural 300 feels sturdy and professional and can easily handle heavy ink coverage.
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Reclaiming What Would Have Been Waste
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Aurora is 100% fiber made from cotton linters. These linters are considered "recovered fibers" by the EPA. By using linters, Aurora production is putting to use what would have become waste. It's a win for the environment and a win for you!
Thickness
Weight
Paper type
Coating
Acidity
Certifications
Back
18mil
300gsm / 80lb
100% Cotton rag content base stock.
Microporous coated both sides
Acid free
This paper can be printed on both sides
BSLprints Evaluation
Disclaimer: Data presented here is for informational purposes only, to aid our clients in selecting from among our media offerings. This data is not intended to be an exhaustive, or even necessarily technically correct, evaluation. Take everything here with a huge grain of salt. Nothing below has been evaluated or endorsed by the paper manufacturer, or manufacturer of any tools or printers used in the testing process. We welcome feedback on our results and evaluation procedures.
The following data was collected internally by BSLprints using a combination of the following tools:​​
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X-Rite i1 Pro2
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Variable Spectro1 Pro
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Print Factory
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BabelColor CT&A
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BabelColor Patchtool
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Chromix ColorThink
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Canon Pro-4100 using OEM LuciaPRO inks
BSLprints ICC Profiles
Canon Pro-2100, 4100, 6100
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Created in-house from 2,132 patches using PrintFactory Calibrator (RGB Fine, Normal) and X-Rite i1Pro 2 in M2 measuring mode.
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Canon Pro-1000
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Created in-house from 2,132 patches using PrintFactory Calibrator (RGB Fine, Normal) and X-Rite i1Pro 2 in M2 measuring mode.
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Brightness and Color
This paper has a warm, reasonably natural tone - as demonstrated by the graph below with its gentle slope that indicates the paper reflects more light the closer the light is to the red end of the spectrum.
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This paper has a brightness of 87.7
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This paper does not contain any fluorescent brighteners, so the color of paper itself and the printed image will better maintain their color in a variety of lighting conditions and over time.
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It is also worth noting that this paper contains occasional random small dark spots - about the size of an ink droplet. This seems to come from the cotton linter recovery process. This may make this paper less suitable for large, high-value prints as they can be perceived as print imperfections if they happen to land in an image border or area of low ink density.
Deepest Black and Density
The deepest blacks on this paper have an L* value of around 20.
For most of our artist clients this is perfectly fine and is pretty normal for a matte cotton art paper.
It may not be the best choice for images with a lot of detail in dark areas, such as certain black and white photography or some digital artworks.
Gamut Chart
3D
2D compared to sRGB and Adobe RGB
Comparisons to Other Papers
vs Plain Paper
Compared to plain old printer paper (we use Alliance 20lb Bond):
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Aurora is much thicker and heavier-weight, as one would expect for a heavy cotton art paper.
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Aurora Art Natural gets a noticeably larger overall color range.
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Aurora Art Natural performs much better than plain paper in dark areas. The blackpoint of Aurora is about L*=20 compared to L*=24 on plain paper.
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Plain paper contains fluorescent optical brighteners, so the colors will change depending on the amount of UV light present. The colors on Aurora Art Natural are consistent regardless of the lighting conditions.
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Plain paper is not archival. Prints on plain paper can be expected to last a few months to maybe a couple years. Prints on Aurora Art Natural, however, can be expected to last several decades with proper care - even 100+ years with ideal conditions.
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Plain paper prints should not be marketed as "giclée prints" even when using pigment inks.
vs Arches 88 Smooth
Here we have a case where the graphs don't tell the whole story.
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Despite it appearing that the Arches paper has only a slightly better color gamut, in actual practice its quite noticeable when you get to the more saturated and darker colors.
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Compared to the Aurora, honestly, its easy to see why the Arches 88 Smooth costs around twice the price. This is where its important to evaluate your actual color needs and target price point.
vs Red River Arctic Polar Luster
Here we are comparing this paper against one of our largest color gamut papers.
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Its normal for a luster paper to have a much larger color gamut in both saturated and dark colors, compared to a matte cotton paper.
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Generally speaking, all the stuff that is outside of the paper's gamut will get brought up to the nearest color that it can reproduce. This has the effect of flattening out details in colors that fall outside of the gamut.
Sometimes this is desirable - large dark areas in original paintings often show more variation in the color than the artist intends, and this can help smooth those out.
Other times, as in certain black and white photography or digital artworks, it could cause your prints to look blocky and flat.
vs Red River Palo Duro Smooth Rag
Coming soon
vs Red River Palo Duro Soft Gloss Rag
Coming soon
vs Breathing Color Signa
At first glance these papers would appear quite similar. The paper itself is nearly identical in terms of weight and paper color. Here the black is Aurora Art Natural and the red is Signa.
Aurora Art Natural, though, appears to have a slight edge in terms of color gamut, especially in darker areas.
Here the outer ring is Aurora Art Natural.
In this 3D view, the wireframe is Aurora Art Natural.
