Paper: It’s a Question of Brightness

At Tembec, we use the same process and instrumentation to appraise each brand in our publication papers portfolio.

Each brand is distinguished by a brightness number, as well as other attributes.

2. Understand the difference between “brightness” and “whiteness.”

I noted earlier that a white sheet can have the same brightness value as a purple sheet. This is possible because, by definition, brightness is the light reflectivity of pulp or paper measured as a percentage in the very narrow blue range of the color spectrum. “Whiteness,” on the other hand, considers the entire color spectrum. Since, as was mentioned earlier, FWAs are added to enhance “perceived whiteness” (and we know now that perception will change depending on the light source), it makes more sense to evaluate actual whiteness in the paper you’re looking to use.