I can not believe I am posting in the shopping category - photo paper question...

July 29, 2009 7:51 PM

Do I care, in the slightest, that the photo paper I ordered is not what I received and seems to be older and thinner?

I have an hp photosmart 375 and I use it for making prints of photos usually to send as postcards, nothing fancy. I bought some new paper recently from here, this paper. I had done some research and knew I was looking for the Q1990A paper and not the Q1989A paper because I guess it's newer and better? I don't know why I was looking for it, but that's what people were all asking the ebay sellers about who were selling photo paper.

I get the paper today and three things are weird.

1. instead of getting one pack of 100 sheets, I get two packs of 60. Hey that's 20 extra sheets!
2. instead of getting Q1990A like the listing said, I got Q1989A which they also sell.
3. the paper I get is 9 mil. thickness not the 10 mil. advertised (for either type of paper)

So, I know I can get an RMA and go through the back and forth and say "you sent me the wrong stuff!" but I'm wondering, from people who know something about photo paper, do I care a lot about this? What is likely to be the difference between what I have and thicker, newer paper? Is it the sort of thing only fancy photographers will care about, or would I notice the difference? I did a little bit of Googling but had a hard time sifting through the shopping sites and I figured someone here might just know. I'm inclined to just keep this paper unless there's a compelling reason not to. Thanks!

posted by jessamyn to shopping (6 comments total)

Well they are both listed as 64#, which I see is about 9.5mil so it's probably just a difference in unit conversion.

Indeed, hp's site lists them both as 10mil (Q1990A, Q1989A).

I'm 99% certain this is the same paper in different packaging. Presumably they were out of stock of the 100-packs, so they sent you two sixties.
posted by aubilenon at 8:06 PM on July 29

Yeah, there's no compelling reason not to keep it. I've also seen 9 mil as equivalent to 65# card stock, which is plenty thick for mailing. Enjoy the extra postcards!
posted by The Deej at 8:11 PM on July 29

So older doesn't really matter? I assumed people on ebay were just being fussy but I wanted to make sure I wasn't missing something. Thanks guys.
posted by jessamyn at 8:38 PM on July 29

Where are you getting that one is older from?

Are you interpreting their catalog numbers as years? They're not years, they're just arbitray numbers. (e.g.)
posted by aubilenon at 9:07 PM on July 29

Older won't matter, as long as it's within reason. Actual photographic paper for darkroom use is sensitive to age, but inkjet paper has way more shelf life. If it doesn't look discolored, or curly or wavy, it should be fine.
posted by The Deej at 9:13 PM on July 29

Ah okay, it looks like the difference is basically a 60-pack vs. a 100-pack. I was getting misled by the item numbers thinking they were dates, thanks!
posted by jessamyn at 9:59 PM on July 29