NEW, New Oriental Papers?

[Kevin Crisp]

I noticed they had Oriental fiber based VC paper at Freestyle the other day. But now it has a II after it. I still have (not kidding) some in the blue box that is still good (1989?), and a bunch of the non-II in my freezer right next to the Forte.

How is the II version different from the white box non-II paper? Still as cold? How does it tone in selenium?

Thanks.

[Kevin Crisp]

Something is telling me Oriental isn't selling much paper.

[Drew Wiley]

There have allegedly been some serious quality-control issues. But neither version particularly impressed me.

[ROL]

Something is telling me Oriental isn't selling much paper.

Their local distributor in LA, International, was actively discouraging me from buying rolls of silver paper, trying to get me to buy Oriental digital papers 10 years ago. I guess they were right?

[Kevin Crisp]

Is there an Ilford product that has the nice cold tones of the original VCFB?

[Drew Wiley]

The new MG Cooltone is a very nice product, and much better in my opinion than any of the Oriental VC papers. Doesn't mean it will have the same look after toning;
but it is a premium product. Now the original Oriental Seagull G graded papers, those were something! The redux was a little bland, and the VC's even less stellar.
I've printed one 16x20 50-sheet box of the new Ilford Cooltone using various developers. My favorite combination was with amidol followed by gold toning, but good
results can be obtained with the other usual suspects. If we have lost some wonderful graded papers, the VC papers are better than ever.

[Kevin J. Kolosky]

The new MG Cooltone is a very nice product, and much better in my opinion than any of the Oriental VC papers. Doesn't mean it will have the same look after toning;
but it is a premium product. Now the original Oriental Seagull G graded papers, those were something! The redux was a little bland, and the VC's even less stellar.
I've printed one 16x20 50-sheet box of the new Ilford Cooltone using various developers. My favorite combination was with amidol followed by gold toning, but good
results can be obtained with the other usual suspects. If we have lost some wonderful graded papers, the VC papers are better than ever.

it would be educational to see some examples of your prints with the new paper.

[tgtaylor]

It's not "new" Kevin. It's been around at lest a year or two now and probably longer.

Thomas

[ROL]

it would be educational to see some examples of your prints with the new paper.

– almost fell out of my chair on that one!

[RJ-]

I noticed they had Oriental fiber based VC paper at Freestyle the other day. But now it has a II after it. I still have (not kidding) some in the blue box that is still good (1989?), and a bunch of the non-II in my freezer right next to the Forte.

How is the II version different from the white box non-II paper? Still as cold? How does it tone in selenium?

Thanks.

The blue box (or silver checkered box) versions produce very interesting cold tones in selenium. When the non Cadmium versions came out (black on white), I found these respond well to selenium toning with crisp whites (not creams). They do tone cool or neutral in Kodak Selenium toner. The graded papers still seem to work better than the VC or VCII variations, however this view reflects my own preference.

Ilford MG is fine as a standard paper, however much easier to work than the current Oriental Seagull VCII. It would be a shame to see Oriental Seagull disappear again...does your workflow for Oriental paper use cold slow developers like Eukobrom? Standard developers, which work fine for Ilford MG papers seem to produce muddy tones on Oriental -perhaps why some negative comments about Oriental Seagull's modern papers seem to surface?