With a smooth matte surface finish that will ensure images look great in a wide range of lighting conditions, Canon's PM-101 Photo Paper Pro Premium Matte, available here in a 50-pack of 8.5 x 11" sheets, is a great option for fine art printing. It offers a basis weight of 210 gsm that is highly manageable and a thickness of 12.2 mil for supporting the image when hung, as well as a brightness of 92% for a natural white base.
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This has become my go-to standard matte paper to use with my Canon Pixma Pro-200S. Colors are vibrant and blacks are especially rich. The B&W performance has really impressed me with the Canon ChromaLife ink - I did not expect to have such deep velvety blacks without having a separate matte black ink, but it looks every bit on par with the matte black I have gotten with an Epson P700 and larger wide format pigment printers from both Canon and Epson. I think this speaks as much to the quality of the ChromaLife inks as it does for this paper. The paper isn't perfect. I have detected some very minor flaws. Of the many prints I've made so far with it, one of them had a tiny little speck break off the surface in an area with alot of black, which reveals a tiny white spot in its place. This is on the print of the skulls shown here, do you even see it though? I don't know if this was due to a paper surface flaw or maybe it was some dust? Another thing I have noticed is that there is very occasionally a very small discolored spot or two on the paper's surface. This was concerning at first, but I found that the ink prints right over it no problem, so it's not a deal breaker for me. I would only worry if I were wanting to print something with alot of white space, then I'd probably be careful not to use a page that shows any spots. Still...shouldn't be any spots ever! This is why I can't give it 5 stars, even though results generally are certainly in the 5 star range. Canon's ICC profiles for this paper work perfect for me. I have my monitor calibrated with a Datacolor Spyder and the results match about as close as you could ever want, which gives me the confidence I need to just get on with the work on screen and not worry about the print. Hardest printing decision usually comes down to whether to choose matte or gloss! Highly recommend for anyone with a Canon printer, especially if they use ChromaLife ink, like many of the Pixmas do.
I have concerns about this paper. First, I found it difficult to determine which is printable side. I found that even a daylight light source did not easily provide the distinction advertised on the package, although window light was better. Even though printing on Canon Pro Lustre did not show a color cast, even using Canon ICC Profile gave a decided magenta color cast, which I could not see on the compute screen. Software to remove color cast was required to get a neutral black & white print. One of the sheets I used also showed an imperfection in the form of a pinpoint white dot. Finally, even sharpening my printer output didn't give me the degree of tone separation that I saw on the screen, particularly in the sky. Disappointed!