Another factor for determining if a paper is particularly suitable for printing is its roughness. While open-pore, absorbent papers may appear excellent for printing, the relief of the paper to be printed on should not be too deep, so the paper can provide enough surface when passing through the machine and adhere to the ink when the print drum imprints the surface. Very rough papers appear to store less ink in the deeper areas of the surface, although the open paper structure allows the ink to spread very well.

Esther McManus of Ditto Press Ltd, another famous Riso publishing house with an attached printing business, recommends open, smooth paper: “I tend to think that Colorplan is a bit too textured to get an overly consistent ink coverage with Riso. Munken produces a wonderful range of papers, and I am a great fan of Popset and Colour Action (as I am of all coloured papers).” ¹ While the general impression about the quality of Munken’s papers seems correct, experimenting with Colourplan’s paper during the process of creating this publication yielded positive results as well. Especially Metapaper branded paper, such as their Rough and Extrarough type of paper produced extremely satisfying results.  Colour coverage is very dense with these substrates with drying times as short as they can be for Risograph printing.