From: Jeff Buckels (jeffbuck@swcp.com)
Date: 02/03/02-04:11:52 PM Z
Printed with Lenox yesterday. Observations follow, all as compared to
Platine, the only other paper I've used to any extent:
For 25 to 50 sheets, Lenox is $1 a sheet (22/30) from D. Smith. Platine
is four or six times more expensive, depending on the vendor and
quantity.
I printed a 5x7 portrait that I had previously printed on Platine. I
was very happy with that print. Same everything but the paper (10 drops
FO, 5 drops pt, 5 drops pd, dev. in Potassium Ox., with contrast kicked
up "two stops" w/ sodium dichromate solution).
Lenox is just slightly creamy white, as compared to Platine's pretty
dang white.
Coating (w/ Richeson 9010 brush) very easy w/ both papers.
Both prints exposed for 10' in Edwards 11x14 inch black light oven.
The Lenox print is warmer. Not overwhelmingly so, just warmer. With
myself and three civilians voting, it was a tie as to which print had
the better color -- the relatively warm Lenox or the more neutral
Platine print.
The evaluators, including myself, felt there was something subtly
"clearer" about the Platine print. It is very hard to nail this down
but I believe the difference was real. I don't know if this is the
consequence of the difference in color, and I didn't have the chemicals
on hand to try and duplicate the color of the Platine somehow and see.
The vaunted "smooth tonal transition" of the Lenox was there. I found
it pretty much impossible to distinguish the Lenox from the Platine on
this basis.
The Platine had better dmax.
The Lenox paper retains a lot of moisture in development. My
development runs about twenty minutes: dev., rinse, clearing, rinse,
clearing, wash. Lenox gets quite soggy, esp. at the corners. You can
ding the edges by less-than-careful tray handling during the wet
processing. If you hang the print from a clothespin or whatever just
after wet processing, the pin will leave an indentation, maybe even
produce a tear. The Platine is tougher in this way. Cotton vs. rag
paper, I guess. Lenox takes much longer to dry than Platine. When dry,
it seems to handle about the same as Platine.
Lenox displays a curious shady pattern of parallel bars (like 15, let's
say, lengthwise of a 5x7) which is apparent upon coating and early
stages of wet processing. It disappears in course of processing. I
think it's a pattern laid down by the internal sizing, like the
"blotches" visible when processing Platine (mentioned recently).
That's all I can think of just now.
Jeff Buckels
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