I am near the end of printing an edition of prints on Luminos' paper
Charcoal R -- and there has been an unacceptably high failure rate with
the paper. Their paper arrives with black dots around the edges, the
occasional exposed spots two inches from the edge on several sheets per
box of fifty, a top sheet which is invariably marred with a curved
static exposure line. On other sheets there are mysteriously fogged
areas in the same place on several sheets in a row.
In addition, Charcoal R is too easily stained (and ruined) by
insufficient agitation (not none, just not constant) in the stop bath,
fixer and toner. It reacts especially poorly to any indicator stop bath,
a fact which is neither on the box nor contained in the directions, but
which Luminos will cheerfully tell you after you have opened a $150 box
of 16x20 paper.
If you know anybody at Luminos, you better warn them that an
extremely angry Jan Faul is going to call up tomorrow morning and demand
a refund if for nothing else, the enormous number of sheets of
stained/ruined paper.sitting here.
.
Jan Faul
-- http://www.digitalnation.com/faulphoto http://www.onlineartistleague.com/Faul/portfoli.htm http://www.agfaphoto.com/gallery/pf9707/index.html