RE: "New" Paper for Pt/Pd (and other iron processes, too)
I received some 22X34" sheets of the new Weston paper yesterday and made a few palladium prints today. It appears to be an excellent paper and lives up to previous billing. The paper gives excellent reflective density, the coating paper is fairly smooth and does not need a lot of sensitizer (about 2ml of coating for a 7X17" print was more than enough), it clears well (in fact, came out of the potassium oxalate almost completely clear), and has very good detail. The RH in my printing room was about 55%. Sandy King At 9:03 AM -0700 11/27/06, Richard Sullivan wrote: Kerik, This is interesting. We have tried this paper several times and found it wanting. Kevin was doing the testing and I am not sure what he didn't like about it but I'll ask him later when he comes in. It may be the batch you are testing is good. He usually runs tests from several different batches. We have found that paper can vary from batch to batch. We have all seen how this was the case with Platine. One batch good the next one was crap. When Dick Arentz was here we cut two pieces of Platine into 4x5's and coated them as one 8x10. We dried and printed them. One 4x5 piece was from our batch and one was from some the Arentz brought with him. The difference was like night and day. We have driven paper companies nuts with our testing and quality demands. One can see that what we need in a paper is not what 99.99% of their customers want. We have had the Cranes rep out to our place a number of times. They have spent a lot of time working with us on the black spot problem. One has to give them a lot of credit for flying a rep out to Santa Fe more than once. It does look like we should take another look at this paper. --Dick Sullivan Bostick & Sullivan www.bostick-sullivan.com -----Original Message----- From: Kerik [mailto:kerik@kerik.com] Sent: Monday, November 20, 2006 1:50 PM To: alt-photo-process-l@usask.ca Subject: "New" Paper for Pt/Pd (and other iron processes, too) I have some good paper news, especially for current and former users of Cranes Platinotype (aka Cranes Crest Natural White Wove, Cranes Business Card Stock, Artificial Parchment, etc.) With the recent problems with the "Platinotype Black Plague", many are looking for other options. There is a "new" 50-year-old paper that found me recently. I got a call a few weeks ago from John Zokowski from Butler-Dearden Paper Co., a Crane's distributor offering samples of Byron-Weston's Diploma Parchment paper for me to test with pt/pd printing. (Byron-Weston is a subsidiary of Cranes.) This paper has been made for 50+ years and is used for diplomas and other formal documents. This paper is manufactured a bit on the acidic side, which is a good thing for pt/pd and other iron processes. No pretreatment is necessary. To make a long story short, this is the paper Platinotype should have been but never was (at least not for a long time.) It produces a rich black and a nice warm tone with pure palladium. It's a bit on the thin side at 177 gsm, so for large prints, in needs to be handled with care. It's also a bit on the yellow side for my taste, but a whiter version and thicker version are in the works. It seems to clear very easily and also seems to be relatively black-spot-free. Finally, where it really shines over Platinotype is that the surface remains nice and smooth after processing. It doesn't take on the fuzzy surface of processed Platinotype. And, to top it off, it is very reasonably priced. Go here http://www.crane.com/business/weston...palladium.aspx for info. Contact John Zokowski for pricing and to place an order. Happy printing! Kerik Kouklis www.kerik.com
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