Well, that's where I'm starting to take a departure from the normal course of thought. I have been printing from negatives that I originally printed on Azo. One of them was one that was so dense and contrasty that it took a lengthy exposure on the Canadian grade 2 azo and a water bath. Yet, about the only difference I can see between the Kentmere Bromide print and the Azo print, is a slight difference in tone. I'm starting to believe that some of these modern enlarging papers can do just as good. Its not that I don't still long for a silver chloride paper. But -----.
Examining David G's point of view on this, I would need to agree (to a point) with what he said. Of course if one has a negative scaled to a 1.65 ES material it will print better on a 1.65 ES material than it will on a material that has a ES of 1.10...that seems pretty much a non brainer. But let's take this a step further, if we may.
When I step back to four years ago and look at what MAS himself wrote about Azo and printing on it, he clearly and repeatedly said that you needed a dense negative. That was where a lot of misinformation began. Azo does not need so much a dense negative as it needs a negative with an density range of optimally 1.65 to print on Azo grade two. Taking MAS at his use of the english language, one could have a negative that had a shadow density of .45 and a peak density of 1.65...the negative darned sure would be dense but it would like like unmitigated crap on grade two Azo. For those of you who wish to question this use of the language, I encourage you to visit the Azo forum archives.
Which brings me to my point, you can tailor make a negative to a given paper's scale and optimize your procedure to the point that you can make some very nice prints on several alternative papers. Will they be better than Azo with Amidol? Good question, that depends on who is doing the printing. A good printer with a conventional graded material will produce better prints than a marginal printer using Azo. Taking the same printer working with both materials, will produce prints that will be fine or bad with either material.
So far as Azo being an easier material to print on, I can't buy that in my experience. A good bit about the ease of printing with Azo is that you can get by with a negative with an extended DR on Azo where it would be more problematic with a conventional enlarging paper...the reason is the difference in the scales of the materials.
Now there are other factors to consider in a paper. One is the dmax of the material. There are several enlarging papers that will equal Azo on this score. Nuance and Ketona are two that do. For that matter, Azo does not exhibit any greater dmin than any number of papers. That leaves the color of the material. There are several papers that are as appealing to me as Azo.
Now please understand that my purpose in writing the above was not to diminish Azo. Nor have I sought to elevate any papers. My purpose has been to lend a degree of objectivity to an often mythical and emotionally charged matter. A matter that often has relied on a lot of arm waving and not much in
way of objective factual analysis. I have tested each of the papers that I have mentioned and so I have not attempted to portray a "mine is better than yours" subjective viewpoint into this matter.
Azo is gone...so is another of my favorite papers (PW Classic) and for the moment at least another as well (Nuance)...It is time to move on...let's use what we have at hand to the best of our abilities...for it is as true today as it has ever been, "the characteristics of the materials far outstrip our ability to use them optimally".
Thanks for allowing me to voice my opinion.
