Digital BW, The Print

Clark,

>You state: "Carbon on cotton" is now my medium of choice 
> for the most archival B&W images."

> But then I find a page where you pitch Matte BW from Premier 
> which is alpha cellulose, ...

Cotton is cellulose.  Alpha cellulose should also be pure cellulose.  The
point is really to avoid papers like EEM that are acidic due to them not
being pure cellulose.  The other problem is that with non-cotton papers you
have to put more faith in the seller that they really have gotten virtually
all the lignin out.  Unfortunately, there does not seem to be any good,
simple test for lignin.  So, yes, cotton is the safest, but economic reality
and the need to produce prints reliably that look good must also be figured
in. 

> and state that you always have a roll on board in 
> your 7500. 

Well, not always, but for now that is what is on the 7500.  I would rather
have pure cotton there but at $0.30 per sq. ft. v. $1.66 per sq. ft. for
cotton that prints as well, I'm just not willing to pay that difference.
Wet darkroom, silver print paper was/is alpha cellulose.  It's not bad
paper.

>Also you have a paper there on the MIS ink set that is dated 
> 11-24-06 ...

Strange how a mistake like that can get through the legions of editors ...

Paul
www.PaulRoark.com