Leaflet
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8 COLOUR MATERIALS USAGE GUIDE
• Finish/Smoothness – Finish is the smoothness or roughness 
of a paper’s surface. Finish may be controlled by the surface 
(wire or felt) pattern used to carry the pulp mixture through the 
paper-making machine, by adding coatings, and through the 
calendering process which smooths and polishes the paper 
surface.  Calendering is a series of polished stainless steel 
rollers which compress the surface fibers and add gloss to the 
sheet.
The smoothness of paper has a significant impact on image 
quality. If paper is too rough, image quality degrades; with 
increasing roughness, expect a loss of image quality in solids 
and halftones (grainy colours). Extremely rough paper does 
not properly accept fused toner, which rubs or flakes off.
Mottle (light patches in solid colour areas) will occur on rough 
papers and on papers with poor or uneven formation. Paper 
smoothness and formation generally become worse as the 
paper weight increases 
Since surface irregularities may not be filled in with toner, the 
image on rough papers may appear lighter. A higher density 
setting (use the Lighter/Darker setting on your copier/printer) is 
required to achieve a density level equivalent to that on 
smoother papers.
Xerographic papers for colour are generally smoother than the 
average xerographic papers.
Hint: Use smooth or coated 
finishes for documents that 
have fine detail, shaded 
areas or halftone images.










