A study was carried out to investigate such optical properties of coated papers as brightness, opacity and gloss affected by the coating pigment composition and coat weight using clay, ground calcium carbonate, precipitated calcium carbonate, and plastic pigment as pigments. The effects of drying methods and supercalendering on optical properties were also evaluated. Gloss increased abruptly while brightness and opacity decreased slightly by supercalendering due to surface smoothing and consolidating effects of the coating layers. Optical properties changed little by drying methods. Pigment composition showed significant influences on optical properties. Brightness of coated papers decreased or increased linearly as the coat weight was increased depending on the pigment composition, while opacity increased linearly for all formulations. Gloss increased abruptly at low coat weights for all formulations and approached a plateau value at coat weight of 15-20g/$m^2$. Third order polynomial regression equations relating the coat weight with gloss have been derived and tabulated.