Fedrigoni Arena White Smooth 350g

Closer to book printing than to photographic printing

This sheet has no inkjet receiving coating. The pigment soaks into the fibre instead of sitting in a coated layer on the surface — which is how a page in an offset-printed book is made, and where the matt, papery, ink-in-the-paper look comes from.

The trade-off is colour gamut. The range of colours an uncoated sheet can hold is materially narrower than on a coated fine-art or photographic paper, and much closer to what a book press reaches. Judge this paper as book printing, not as a fine-art photographic print.

Saturated colours will not print as they look on your screen

Your monitor emits light; this paper absorbs it. The colours furthest outside what the paper can reach are the most saturated ones — bright reds and oranges, deep blues and purples, vivid greens, and anything fluorescent. They arrive softer, darker and less luminous than on screen, and two neighbouring saturated tones can flatten into each other.

Blacks are also lighter here. The maximum density an uncoated sheet holds is well below a baryta or coated matt paper, so deep shadows open up and fine steps inside them can merge. None of this is a printing fault — it is the material, and it happens on any uncoated stock, at any printer.

If a colour matters, ask for the ICC profile listed in the technical details below and soft-proof against it before ordering, or ask the studio for a small test print.

What this paper is for

Posters, zines, editorial pages and artist books — work where the feel of the paper and the ability to print both sides matter more than maximum colour fidelity. Uncoated stock is the only paper in the studio printed on both sides of one sheet, because ink has to key into the fibre from each face.

For photographic reproduction — portfolio prints, exhibition work, anything where saturated colour or deep blacks carry the image — choose a coated fine-art or photographic paper instead (Museum Standard, Collector Standard or Exhibition Standard on the Available Paper page).

How to order a double-sided print

A double-sided job is one sheet, one line, one price — the sheet plus a second-side charge for that size. To order one:

1. Send one single PDF with the front on page 1 and the back on page 2. Two files uploaded separately are never paired into one sheet — they are printed as two separate prints.
2. Both pages must be the same page size, and that size should be the size you want printed (at 100% scale) plus any bleed.
3. Upload the PDF on the Order a Print wizard and pick this paper on the Paper step.
4. On Size & Options the wizard offers to print the two pages as one double-sided sheet. Accept the offer — if you skip it, the pages stay two separate one-sided prints. You can undo it there too, and you can pair or split a line again later from the cart.
5. Choose which edge the sheet turns on — long edge like a book, short edge like a calendar. This tells the studio how to re-feed the sheet, so a wrong choice prints the back upside down.

A longer PDF pairs in order — pages 1+2, 3+4, 5+6, and so on — so a whole artist book can be uploaded in one go and the wizard will offer to make every pair a double-sided sheet. An odd final page prints single-sided.

Mounting, framing and hanging subframes are not available on a double-sided print — mounting a sheet to a board covers the reverse.