Copier/Printer Color Materials Usage Guide

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Contact your local authorized Xerox distributor, or call Xerox at 1-800-822-2200 in the USA,
or 1-800-668-0199 in Canada for our full line of media.
8 COLOR MATERIALS USAGE GUIDE
• Finish/Smoothness – Finish is the smoothness or roughness
of a paper’s surface. Finish may be controlled by the surface
(wire or felt) pattern used to carry the pulp mixture through the
paper-making machine, by adding coatings, and through the
calendering process which smooths and polishes the paper
surface. Calendering is a series of polished stainless steel
rollers which compress the surface fibers and add gloss to the
sheet.
The smoothness of paper has a significant impact on image
quality. If paper is too rough, image quality degrades; with
increasing roughness, expect a loss of image quality in solids
and halftones (grainy colors). Extremely rough paper does not
properly accept fused dry ink, which rubs or flakes off.
Mottle (light patches in solid color areas) will occur on rough
papers and on papers with poor or uneven formation. Paper
smoothness and formation generally become worse as the
paper weight increases
Since surface irregularities may not be filled in with dry ink, the
image on rough papers may appear lighter. A higher density
setting (use the Lighter/Darker setting on your copier/printer) is
required to achieve a density level equivalent to that on
smoother papers.
Xerographic papers for color are generally smoother than the
average xerographic papers.
Hint: Use smooth or coated
finishes for documents that
have fine detail, shaded
areas or halftone images.