After spending a bunch of cash on a nice 13×19 photo quality inkjet printer it would be a shame to feed it cheap paper. You may save a buck or two, but you’ll be disappointed with the resulting prints. Man up and buy the good stuff!

If you have a Canon printer, buy Canon paper. Epson user? Use their photo papers. HP got your money? You guessed it: feed that thing HP paper.

Each manufacturer designs the paper and ink as matching products. You’ll get the most accurate color and longest print life by using inkjet papers specific to your printer and inkset.

If the manufacturer doesn’t offer a Canvas or Watercolor or other cool papers, don’t despair. Companies like Ilford, Red River, and Legion / Moab make all kinds of cool papers (I really like the Red River Linen) that are equally as compatible as the manufacturers stuff. And they have ICC profiles you can download so you get nice prints.

Make sure that you buy papers that are specific to your printer model. Some websites, like Red River, actually list by printer model which of their papers work. You don’t want to have a $50 box of inkjet paper become useless because you didn’t check it out first.

If it’s offered, buy a Sample Pack of paper to try out some of their stock. Or just buy a small package of 8×10 paper. You may find you like Moab Entrada better than Red River Aurora Fine Art, but you’ll have to try them out to see.

Don’t go crazy testing every single paper out there. Try a few and find your favorites. Then setup presets in your editing software (or in the print driver, as Epson lets you do) to simplify your print sessions.

There’s a whole new world of textured and fine art papers out there. Try a few and expand your printing options.