Digital BW, The Print

Tyler-

I feel your pain. I know you've consider this, but I just believe its a 
mistake to literally compare any one media against another. Nothing new 
about that opinion; but I do find it interesting that people relentless 
compare inkjet to other media--especially silver gelatin--in a manner 
that is almost entirely absence otherwise. No one expects a silver 
gelatin to look like a platinum/palladium, for example; well, expect 
for the photographers who got caught in that transition (they all 
thought silver gelatin was cheap and "hard" looking).

Some of the OBA (supposedly) overuse reminds me of silver gelatin 
printers who used the Spring Brightener (I think that was the name of 
the product) back in the day. Talk about blue whites!

Bill Kennedy
K2 Press
Austin, Texas


-----Original Message-----
From: Tyler Boley <tyler@...>
To: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Mon, 4 Feb 2008 5:12 pm
Subject: [Digital BW] paper bases- rant






since I've been experimenting a lot with these new baryta and gloss

papers, both with UCK3s, and the new Selenium MPS set, a few things

have become very obvious.

We've been out of the darkroom for so long now we've become acclimated

to some new trends, not seeing the forest through the trees.

These new papers are all seriously blue, I've mentioned it before.

Many won't mind this, but to me it manifests itself in B&W prints that

are not harmonious throughout the scale, and color prints that lack

richness and subtlety in bright warm colors.

Just to get my bearings I dug up a lot of old prints last night, Azo,

Brilliant, Seagull, Portriga, Kodabromide, Gallery, and many were 
matted.

Except for Gold Fiber Silk (and probably Silver Rag, but I have none)

they were far bluer than any of these old prints. Even GFS was

visually no warmer than Oriental Seagull, but it was brighter. There

was a serious disconnect between them and any matte board I have here,

even the Ilford was brighter though the hue ok.

Interestingly, the Gold Fiber Silk is described in all the on line

reviews by users as very warm. In fact it's neutral.

I don't think we should be trying to imitate those old materials, but

they have a look that we have responded to positively over many

decades, while at the same time many consider these new products a bit

unconvincing, seeming to lack "beauty", that illusive something extra.

I'm becoming more and more convinced this quality is part of the

problem. Also, since it is obviously connected to the questionable use

of a lot of OBAs, it would be nice to see this trend tamed

considerably. I've said in the past I have no big problem with OBAs,

but now it just ain't pretty...

OK, back to work.

Tyler







    




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