RE: Kirkland redux and diginegs for BW

[EJN Photo <ejnphoto@sbcglobal.net>]

Chris, It is good to know that David's paper is still available. I had
written an article about using his paper for regular silver printing for
Photo Vision magazine back in 1999, or 2000. It is a wonderful paper. Green
and blue are the color we look at in MC printing. Cold light heads like
Aristo make this easy to see however you can use the opposite color as well
magenta and yellow. As the MC papers developed, the colors of the gels also
changed. If you look at gels from the 70's and 80's they are quite different
in color than those from the late 90's. 

Printing acceptable B&W prints from color negs got much easier with the
newer papers as well. 

Besides being a great bromoil paper, David's paper also works great for
those that still like to hand color their silver prints. I liked it better
than the Agfa 118 surface but his limited size, up to 11x14, kept me away
from using it all the time. It tones extremely well with sepia and selenium
toners too!



Eric

Eric Neilsen Photography
4101 Commerce Street, Suite 9
Dallas, TX 75226
214-827-8301
http://ericneilsenphotography.com
 
Skype : ejprinter> -----Original Message-----
> From: Christina Z. Anderson [mailto:zphoto@montana.net]
> Sent: Sunday, September 02, 2007 9:28 AM
> To: Alt, List
> Subject: Kirkland redux and diginegs for BW
> 
> I have absolutely no idea if the following interests anyone but
> if you are
> making diginegs for doing bromoil (an alt process) it should I
> would
> think...
> 
> 1.  After a full day in the darkroom yesterday I can report
> that Kirkland
> cheapy ink jet paper is just fine--it prints as sharp an image
> as does
> Pictorico which I printed side by side--not the white Pictorico
> which hasn't
> come yet but the clear, which I can use successfully on David
> Lewis' bromoil
> paper being a slow enough paper but it is pretty ineffectual on
> Ilford MGIV
> which is extremely fast.  Wow was that a long sentence.
> Needless to say  I
> was surprised that the paper negative was as sharp as
> Pictorico.  Don
> Bryant's link to another cheap ink jet paper--not as cheap as
> Kirkland at 12
> cents a sheet (his is 40 cents I think) but it may be thinner
> even than
> Kirkland and hence a better, maybe, digineg product for those
> who don't have
> Costco around.
> http://inkjetart.com/photo_papers/cheap/index.html
> 
> 2.  But I also discovered another interesting thing which
> didn't occur to me
> until printing a VC and a graded paper side by side.  I can
> admit I have
> never used a graded paper, preferring either Ilford, Berger, or
> Forte VCs.
> The Ilford MGIV VC was pretty darn grainy (I was printing tonal
> palettes a
> la Mark Nelson, hence squares of uniform color).  I assumed
> that was normal
> with diginegs until I printed the graded paper and suddenly the
> grain
> disappeared.
> 
> At the same time I also noticed another thing.  I had made up 4
> tonal
> palettes on one page to assess different color choices at once
> to save
> time--and when the chosen color moved toward Magenta, the total
> relation of
> tones switched within the tonal palette on the VC paper but not
> the graded
> (highlights got whiter and darks got darker).  And so I finally
> realized
> what was going on.  Printing BW we use yellow filters for low
> contrast,
> magenta filters for high contrast, and this is true of printer
> inks, too, on
> a variable contrast paper.  The yellow and magenta dots of ink
> were not only
> producing the grain because the paper is responsive to those
> colors
> differentially (in a chosen color that uses both of these inks,
> such as
> red), but it was producing a higher contrast image in total,
> the more I
> moved toward magenta in my tonal palettes.  None of this
> happened on the
> graded paper.  These are two reasons I will probably stick to
> graded paper
> when using diginegs.
> Chris
> _____________________________________
> 
> Christina Z. Anderson
> Assistant Professor, Photo Option Coordinator
> Montana State University, VCB 220
> Box 173350
> Bozeman Montana 59718
> 406.994.6219
> CZAphotography.com
> _____________________________________