Highest Quality Silver Papers today

[john dean]

Hey guys. I'm going to be doing some tests and experiments the next couple of months with analogue print media. My background is that I was a large format black and white photographer for nearly 20 years and was an expert in that kind of printmaking in the pre-digital era from mid 70s until the late 90s.

In those days I worked with all kinds of multi contrast developer formulas and produced prints of the highest quality on Agfa, Ilford, and later the Kodak Polymax Fine Art fiber media. After I started using Cones quad inks, K7 inks, HPZ Vivera inks, and the Canon 8300 with True Black and White and the newer Canson and Hahnemuhle media, I never had the desire to ever go back.

However, I am about to set up an alternative analogue lab using Cones new dual quad inks for printing on the OHP transparency film and will be making variations of platinum/palladum, monochrome gum dichromate and other updates of 19th century processes.

I am also considering offering some silver print contact print negatives to my clients who want to take digitally reotouched files and print them on silver.

What I am wondering is what are the highest quality silver papers being used THESE days? I'm looking for as much silver as possible of course and a neutralized print color. What concerns me is just how bad the Ilford Gallerie emulsions faired in the Aardenburg fade tests. Essentially their longevity was on par with the Fuji Chrystal Archive type c media, which in my opinion is junk from a longevity standpoint, especially compared to what I'm doing now.

The reason for this is not that the silver is fading, far from it, the problem is the cheap dye optical brighteners being used in the Ilford paper. He did many tests from various samples provided by various people and the results were the same, the whites of the paper go gray, and the more light that they receive the faster that happens.

Does anyone know of a great silver paper that doesn't use optical brighteners. If I can't find one I'm not going to encourage any of my clients to go this route. There would be absolutely no point in it.

Anyone not familiar with Aardeburg's tests you can read them for free here - www.aardenburgimaging.com

None of us expected these poor fade results for the Ilford papers which dominate the market now. But in a way it shouldn't have surprised me. I know an art collector who had two of the finest Ansel Adams 20x24 prints hanging up in her home. When I looked at them I was shocked and told her to take them down immediately. The white borders and all the highlight content had been severely compromised, and this was by someone who knew how to wash his prints ! They had turned horribly gray in the borders and were really influencing the characters of both prints. These prints were bought from the two major NY photo galleries in the 70s. These prints were printed by Ansel in the late 1960s, when optical brighteners were in all of the papers available. They had always been framed with glass and hung for 25 years in an apartment with moderate levels of daylight. Before that they had been in dark storage primarily. That really surprised me.

Does anyone even make silver papers without dye brighteners?

Thanks,

John

[jp]

Welcome. if you are making contact print negatives, then perhaps the Lodima azo paper would be a good choice. I don't know what brightening agents if any are used, but you can investigate.

I use Ilford/Foma/Seagull paper presently and think they all make some nice paper but don't like everything they make.

[Sal Santamaura]

Since you're worried about optical brighteners fading, a concern you have apparently developed long after using Polymax Fine Art (which was loaded with brightener), and have limited your search to current high-quality products, I am aware of only one choice: Ilford Multigrade Warmtone Fiber.

Unlike all the other Ilford fiber-based papers, Multigrade Warmtone FB uses brighteners that are not 'anchored.' That means they will be removed by an extended wash. Your interest in silver content is misplaced. Maximum density isn't reliably related to how many grams of silver are used per square meter of paper. Multigrade Warmtone FB has a Dmax as high as you've ever seen or will ever need.

As for print color, I have been able to achieve more neutral results with Multigrade Warmtone FB developed in Adox MCC developer and subsequently toned in Kodak Rapid Selenium Toner than with any other combination. I think your clients would be pleased.

[Tin Can]

What I worry about is your evidence.

Please post a direct link to http://www.aardenburgimaging.com/ studies on SG fade. It's a large site. I gave up looking. You are making big claims.

Your AA 20X24 'example' is unsubstantiated.

My 20-year-old Ilford SG FB prints do not exhibit the problem. They were hung in a similar environment without glass, recently posted on this site. Amateur work...nonetheless washed well.

...What I am wondering is what are the highest quality silver papers being used THESE days? I'm looking for as much silver as possible of course and a neutralized print color. What concerns me is just how bad the Ilford Gallerie emulsions faired in the Aardenburg fade tests. Essentially their longevity was on par with the Fuji Chrystal Archive type c media, which in my opinion is junk from a longevity standpoint, especially compared to what I'm doing now.

The reason for this is not that the silver is fading, far from it, the problem is the cheap dye optical brighteners being used in the Ilford paper. He did many tests from various samples provided by various people and the results were the same, the whites of the paper go gray, and the more light that they receive the faster that happens.

Does anyone know of a great silver paper that doesn't use optical brighteners. If I can't find one I'm not going to encourage any of my clients to go this route. There would be absolutely no point in it.

Anyone not familiar with Aardeburg's tests you can read them for free here - www.aardenburgimaging.com

None of us expected these poor fade results for the Ilford papers which dominate the market now. But in a way it shouldn't have surprised me. I know an art collector who had two of the finest Ansel Adams 20x24 prints hanging up in her home. When I looked at them I was shocked and told her to take them down immediately. The white borders and all the highlight content had been severely compromised, and this was by someone who knew how to wash his prints ! They had turned horribly gray in the borders and were really influencing the characters of both prints. These prints were bought from the two major NY photo galleries in the 70s. These prints were printed by Ansel in the late 1960s, when optical brighteners were in all of the papers available. They had always been framed with glass and hung for 25 years in an apartment with moderate levels of daylight. Before that they had been in dark storage primarily. That really surprised me.

Does anyone even make silver papers without dye brighteners?

Thanks,

John

[Leigh]

You're talking about silver papers and "inks" in the same context. ? ? ?

Are you making real wet prints in a darkroom, or digital prints on an inkjet printer?

- Leigh

[Willie]

Talking contact prints - Lodima from http://lodima.org/photographic-paper/

[Oren Grad]

You're talking about silver papers and "inks" in the same context. ? ? ?

Yes. In addition to many combinations of inkjet papers and inksets, Aardenburg Imaging has tested Fuji Crystal Archive II paper exposed in a Fujifilm Frontier 390 and Ilford Galerie Digital FB and RC silver halide papers exposed in a Durst Theta 51. The use of a standard measure set and consistent test procedure indeed enables valid comparisons across different print media. This is exactly how it should be done.

What concerns me is just how bad the Ilford Gallerie emulsions faired in the Aardenburg fade tests. Essentially their longevity was on par with the Fuji Chrystal Archive type c media, which in my opinion is junk from a longevity standpoint, especially compared to what I'm doing now.

After 100 megalux-hours of exposure the Crystal Archive samples were badly faded and color-shifted, whereas the Ilford Galerie FB and RC Digital samples maintained fully differentiated monochrome tonal scales but had yellowed a bit. In one case you have a print which is more or less ruined, while in the other you have a print that looks slightly subdued and shifted toward warmer tones but IMO would still be highly presentable.

[bob carnie]

I must point out that the Ilford Galerie Samples on fibre are supplied to Aardenburg by labs that use full automated process, which includes IMHO poor fix, hypo clear, and wash sequences.
When I first started doing this in 2002 I decided that doing the digital fibre process by hand was the only solution, I set up double fix, Hypo clear and wash vertical just like my enlarger prints.
Every single other lab that has taken on this service (Digital Fibre) after me used auto process. I think
in the first stages Picto Paris was chosen by Harmon to show the product, they use a machine to process and there was huge problems.

I am not surprised by the results, nothing short than proper sequence in the post development will be enough IMO.

[Oren Grad]

Even with optimal processing, it's to be expected that FB papers with optical brighteners will to some extent yellow and become less subjectively brilliant as the brighteners inevitably decay under extended light exposure. You can display the prints behind UV filtering, but then you'll lose the effect of the brighteners right away, so if one is concerned that a print look *exactly* the way it did in the darkroom, that would be no solution either.

[David Karp]

Since you're worried about optical brighteners fading, a concern you have apparently developed long after using Polymax Fine Art (which was loaded with brightener), and have limited your search to current high-quality products, I am aware of only one choice: Ilford Multigrade Warmtone Fiber.

Unlike all the other Ilford fiber-based papers, Multigrade Warmtone FB uses brighteners that are not 'anchored.' That means they will be removed by an extended wash. Your interest in silver content is misplaced. Maximum density isn't reliably related to how many grams of silver are used per square meter of paper. Multigrade Warmtone FB has a Dmax as high as you've ever seen or will ever need.

As for print color, I have been able to achieve more neutral results with Multigrade Warmtone FB developed in Adox MCC developer and subsequently toned in Kodak Rapid Selenium Toner than with any other combination. I think your clients would be pleased.

Sal,

When all is done, what do you have? Slightly warm blacks on a "natural" white paper? Or a slightly warm blacks on a more obviously warm paper base.

As an example, I am thinking of perhaps the paper base from the old Agfa MCC 110 with its slightly warm paper base. Or is it warmer than that?

Thanks.