Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1997/04/11

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Subject: Re: B&W Printing Papers
From: ireland@blazenet.net (Robert Brummett)
Date: Fri, 11 Apr 1997 18:50:59 -0400

>>One of the prime difficulties in finding 'good' b&w printing papers is that
>>the production of such is an environmental disaster.  Thus, large-volume
>>producers such as AGFA and Kodak have been forced to reduce the silver
>>content in their papers to comply with environmental regulations, and this
>>has led to greyer blacks and muddier whites in a lot of papers.
>>
>I do not have any figures about the actual silver content in papers old and
>new, regulated or not.  I do have, however, sensitometric values from my
>densitometer. I must say that all modern papers (fiber based and RC coated
>(Kodak, Agfa, Ilford,Guilleminot and Oriental)) I have tested (when
>developed in top class paper developers)  got deep blacks around D= 2,20
>and clean whites around D=0,05. These values are in the same league as any
>readings I have collected from the papers produced in the seventies and
>even earlier.
>Deep black is generally equated with densities around D=2,10 to D=2,40.
>Grey black is normally positioned around D=1,70. Every paper I know of can
>easily surpass this value. Only papers with a nonglossy surface are around
>D=1,60 and could be interpreted as grey black.
>That grand master,Ansel Adams, reported in his books the same values and he
>was quite critical about the blacks and whites.
>So I have no factual evidence that the silver content of the newer papers
>is less than it used to be and if this were the case then the correlation
>between silver content and the visual impression of 'blackness' is less
>straight forward  than proposed.
>Erwin Puts

Very interesting, and no doubt scientifically sound. Why not try printing
images with them?

Robert