Paper: It’s a Question of Brightness

Conclusion

Please don’t misunderstand: A paper’s brightness can be a good indicator of its degree of lightness and/or darkness, which is really the degree of grayness/dinginess you see in it. But the introduction of FWAs really has clouded the entire brightness issue.

In short, the role brightness plays in the specification of paper may be overrated. There are other attributes that are much more important, such as smoothness, ink gloss, uniformity and runnability. After all, if the paper doesn’t perform on press, what have you got?