Comparing FUJIFILM DPII vs Crystal Archive (ADOX Color Mission)

@koraks, Hi I just read your full blog and found it extremely helpful, so thank you first and foremost.

Secondly, do you happen to know if these are both DPII papers below? I'm looking to purchase DPII paper and where I purchase from (B&H) has two listings for different sizes, I'm interested in the smaller size but want to make sure I'm not getting a different type of paper by choosing that.

Appreciate your help and any guidance!

I included links below if helpful.

FUJIFILM Fujicolor Crystal Archive Digital Pro II​

(10" x 354', Glossy)​

FUJIFILM Crystal Archive Digital Pro Type DPII Glossy Photo Paper​

(12" x 354' Roll)​

Thanks for your kind words @natec!
I assume that these papers are indeed the same as the paper sold as "DPII" here in Europe. That's about as clear as I can make it; sorry, Fuji has some unfortunate habits and one is to maintain subtly or sometimes radically different names and product numbers for the exact same product depending on the region where it's sold. Another unfortunate habit is to generally not answer to questions about this unless you happen to know someone within the organization and you're patient enough to keep bugging them about it and they're patient enough to keep trying to find an answer internally.

In your case, I would feel confident that when ordering those papers you found, I would receive the same DPII that I've been using mostly in recent years.

Those 10 and 12 inch rolls look like a Minilab product. I can't comment on it because all the labs around here are still using Fuji Supreme in those roll sizes, in lieu of discontinued Kodak Radiance. And I never buy rolls that narrow, so choose from different Fuji products. The labeling differences between the EU and US can indeed be frustrating to figure out.

The "P" in "DPii" indicates it's a lower-contrast Portrait paper that's already been around for awhile. Try to find Fuji's Tech sheet on it. But it is apparently distinct from Super C ii, which is going to be thicker, more contrasty, and not available in rolls that narrow.

Rather than going nuts over this myself, I'm simply going to order some Maxima next time around, since it's finally showing up in the US and is unambiguous per market labeling.

DREW WILEY said:

The "P" in "DPii" indicates it's a lower-contrast Portrait paper

Click to expand...

The "P" in DPII does not stand for "Portrait" and this is not a "lower-contrast" (than what, even) paper.

Fuji Crystal Archive Supreme is a lower-grade (compared to DPII) paper aimed at the amateur/mass market. It has thinner emulsion and interlayers resulting in lower dmax, smaller gamut and lower life expectancy compared to DPII. It can (and in practice, does) have the appearance of lower contrast as a result of the first two characteristics.

koraks said:

Thanks for your kind words @natec!
I assume that these papers are indeed the same as the paper sold as "DPII" here in Europe. That's about as clear as I can make it; sorry, Fuji has some unfortunate habits and one is to maintain subtly or sometimes radically different names and product numbers for the exact same product depending on the region where it's sold. Another unfortunate habit is to generally not answer to questions about this unless you happen to know someone within the organization and you're patient enough to keep bugging them about it and they're patient enough to keep trying to find an answer internally.

In your case, I would feel confident that when ordering those papers you found, I would receive the same DPII that I've been using mostly in recent years.

Click to expand...

Thank you!

Koraks - I think you're confusing the meaning of "P" in a Fuji product presently being manufactured in the EU with something apparently still around here in the US (it seems to be getting dropped from most lists by now) where it meant exactly that, even in the brochures. It was by design lower contrast than Commercial Super C papers, and tailored to the studio portrait market.

What makes it so confusing is that B&H shows the older green packaging characteristic of those previous papers, which had already gone "digital exposure optimized" at least 15 yrs ago. It doesn't mean they actually stock that. And there seems to have been an overlap on the B&H website with another product line - perhaps what you refer to as DPii in Europe, somehow showing up here for awhile as well on their website, but under what premise I cannot say. Super C ii now seems to be the predominant commercial product for larger prints, and its contrast can be tweaked post-scanning in those cases where large laser printers are involved - hence no need for a separate lower-contrast paper line anymore.

In terms of "amateur market", I can't think of anyone darkroom using Supreme. Maybe a few have tried it. It is being consumed in considerable quantities by high speed commercial automated digital printers up to 12X18 print size. I simply don't like the look now that digi automation has taken over, if I were prone to order snapshot prints.

And again, this goes back to another dispute you had with me, concerning the "ii" designation itself, which seems to have gotten promiscuously attached to a number of papers, at least marketing-wise in this country, to simply indicate "new and improved". Distributors could be out of synch with the Fujifilm USA website itself, which often seems to have been out of synch with itself, and their own warehouse inventory for that matter.

But I saw that same kind of nonsense in the company where I worked, when the Manager hired his own teenage daughter to take over the website; and she didn't have a clue what any of the product lines actually represented. To this day, 20 years later, the site is still showing lines which were dropped over 30 years ago, or have long been out of business. So it goes in the Misinformation Age.

Can I ask, Drew, what your source is or sources are that the P meant portrait in the U.S and was this source or sources Fuji based?

Thanks

pentaxuser

Oh, it was right on the brochures, either literal or Fujifilm US website, at one time, until quite recently. And calling them didn't do a bit of good. Customer service there was (possibly still is) an entry level position; one shouldn't expect knowledgeable help. I have managed to work around that at times with a fair amount of persistence and frustration over initially wrong guess-style answers, insisting on speaking to someone higher up.

But that "P" thing goes way back; now it has a potentially different connotation as "Pearl" surface, maybe even a third meaning. And how things get marketed might not be exactly the same as how the packages are labeled, especially if a third party private labeling arrangement comes into play. Think of all the confusion about specific films due to that. No difference.

The other problem has been certain distributors which are basically liquidators of old paper and film, some of it outright discontinued. Until they find out they have run out it, it still hypothetically exists for sale. I already mentioned web info issues. As a professional buyer for four decades, this kind of nonsense just came with the territory. Never assume you're getting good information unless you have an inside track. And Fuji can be rather inscrutable at times.

Fuji has used the "DP" initialism since 1961 with the release of the "Fuji DP Master S", their first mini-lab processing equipment. Over the years it has been used to refer to equipment, paper and chemicals that are intended for a commercial environment. For use with “DP” machines, Fuji sold Minidol and Finedol film developers, DP Papinal paper developer, and Fuji DP Fix.

Kodak uses "RT"

Thanks. Interesting. But that only explains some of the riddle. I started printing on Fuji paper with the first generation of Crystal Archive, though only intermittently, since my specialty was Cibachrome instead. None of the Fuji papers I ever used had "DP" anything on the label.

"C print" was once just shorthand for any kind of chromogenic color print (versus reversal "R" prints, or Ciba, or Dye Transfer prints). Then in certain marketing circles there was a bifurcation between C and P papers regarding contrast level and sometimes surface sheen too. Half of that equation still holds true, with the Fuji Super C lineup still available in a wide range of roll sizes (up to 50 inches) and at least two different surfaces; some of it is still older stock (probably questionable by now), but most of it is ii version. It would be interesting to know what the Euro equivalent of that is. I gave up trying to figure out all the later "P" differences, since I'm not much interested in any of those anyway.

Therefore, depends on what you mean by a "commercial" environment. The kinds of Fuji papers I have used don't have anything in common with minilab needs. Current "C" ("Commercial" paper, now mostly type ii) is too thick for those mini processing lines, and doesn't come in small roll widths anyway. Likewise, there were once lots of enlarging stations in full service labs catering to portrait studios which standardized on "P" (in the sense of "Portrait") papers - that is, not snapshots, but large lower contrast prints; and those were processed in big RA4 roller transport machines. But Kodak paper was mostly dominant back then - too bad; it sure faded faster.

"DP" designation is not specifically mini-lab. Mini-lab would fall under commercial designation in the Japanese Fuji literature though; "for sales" is generally the terminology directly translated. So, DP is "for sales" or "high-volume" or "high-capacity" etc.

In other words, what we used to call "machine prints" (versus optically custom enlarged by hand at the time, and fed into big processors one at a time). Some of the latter might be commercially starting up again in the neighborhood (that is, besides individual RA4 printmakers like me). It never really stopped with respect to black and white enlargements; a limited number of commercial enlarger stations are still reserved for that upon demand.

I rarely enlarge color for others, and don't if anyone else in the area is equipped and willing to do it either. The paper itself is probably cheaper than inkjet options; but the going labor rate would sure need to be higher, especially if supplemental unsharp masking is needed. The last local LightJet service retired recently; but that is still going strong in the LA area down in SoCal.
Gosh, what am I going to do with my 8x10 enlargers once I'm too old to manage them?

But all this has pretty much convinced me that current "DPii" paper is not in the same quality league as "Super C" paper. But it allegedly is at least somewhat superior to cut sheet and roll version of "CA ii". Asking prices pretty much tell it all : CAii is the cheapest; then there's a significant price jump up to Super C ii in the same roll size; then another distinct jump into Maxima;
and finally way up there in the top tier, Fujiflex Supergloss.

But maybe in the case of the paper it just stands for "Digital Paper" and there are naming changes based on Fujifilm divisions legal rights to sales and naming across the world. Fuji is never clear about anything except Instax. And its 18 layers.

Fuji_Bro said:

But maybe in the case of the paper it just stands for "Digital Paper"

Click to expand...

In a sample kit I have here Fuji themselves list the paper as "Fujicolor Crystal Archive Digital Paper Type DPII". It's the only product in that sampler that has the word group "Digital Paper" in its full name. So IMO a reasonable guess is that DP does indeed stand for Digital Paper. Which is of course a little silly, since all their papers are "for digital".

DREW WILEY said:

Oh, it was right on the brochures, either literal or Fujifilm US website, at one time, until quite recently. And calling them didn't do a bit of good. Customer service there was (possibly still is) an entry level position; one shouldn't expect knowledgeable help. I have managed to work around that at times with a fair amount of persistence and frustration over initially wrong guess-style answers, insisting on speaking to someone higher up.

But that "P" thing goes way back; now it has a potentially different connotation as "Pearl" surface, maybe even a third meaning. And how things get marketed might not be exactly the same as how the packages are labeled, especially if a third party private labeling arrangement comes into play. Think of all the confusion about specific films due to that. No difference.

The other problem has been certain distributors which are basically liquidators of old paper and film, some of it outright discontinued. Until they find out they have run out it, it still hypothetically exists for sale. I already mentioned web info issues. As a professional buyer for four decades, this kind of nonsense just came with the territory. Never assume you're getting good information unless you have an inside track. And Fuji can be rather inscrutable at times.

Click to expand...

Thanks So the U .S brochure actually used the word Portrait in its description of DPii ? Did it also mention it was a lower contrast which was why it was designated "Portrait"?

Was this a paper, made specifically for the U.S market and was the word "Portrait" used to differentiate it from the letter "P" in "DP" used for the European and possibly the rest of the world where "P" meant something else?


Has that "DP" paper, sold in the U.S. market, to which you refer now been replaced by the current DPii paper where the "P" no longer refers to "portrait" and is the current DPii paper sold in the U.S. now different and no longer a lower contrast like the old DP paper?

Unlike what the narrator said in the "Soap" series of the late 70s early 80, "its confused I still am"

pentaxuser

It is always important to remember that in many cases it is the local distributors who actually write/put together materials like brochures. So naming inconsistencies between support materials often occur when you review different markets.

Pentaxuser - I'm not certain any paper being sold in the US corresponds directly to DPii in Europe; but one major lab distributor lists something they call "CA Digital Pro" in the same small roll sizes; so that probably does equate to it - one more thing which could fall into "DP"nomenclature. I have no interest in trying it. But it does confirm in my mind that Euro DPii is NOT equivalent to Super "C ii" or "Super C Digital" or "Super CD" as variously and inconsistently marketed.

But that has nothing to do with what I was referring to in terms of old brochures and distributor listings, when "P" "portrait" papers were being sold in large roll sizes for sake of optical enlargement, in distinction from snappier "C" multi-usage "commercial" papers. Neither were adapted to rapid machine print applications or minilabs. And although large format digital printers had arrived, the results were often disappointing due to so-so blacks and an overall anemic look. Hence these papers started getting tweaked to improve their digital exposure performance.

Matt - all the brochures and sites I saw were official Fujifilm USA, or distributor links to the same thing, with quite a bit of confusion of their own. When I wanted to special order a Fuji paper, I had to twist some fingers to let me look at the ACTUAL mfg dealer price list with actual product numbers. For obvious reasons, retailers are reluctant to show that. Now very few even have the purchasing clout of knowhow to buy directly from Fuji. But I got a pass as a known buyer for a far larger business right down the street - I could make more profit in half an hour than a even a busy local camera shop could make on film, paper, and darkroom supplies in an entire year.

The huge pro lab right across the RR tracks from my office bought all their papers directly from Kodak or Forte or whatever, including in mural sizes, so that was a different story. But Fuji wasn't on their menu; and different labs specialized in Ciba. And at one time, cut sheet sizes up to 30X40 inches of both Fuji Super C and Fujiflex were readily available, just like Cibachrome had been.

Oh Dear. Looks like I'll just have to stay confused about what "P" really means. I had a terrible feeling that might be the case

pentaxuser

I think the ADOC paper is simply European Fuji DP II cut by them in sheets. There is no other product called DP II in the European market. ADOX is based in Germany, and they will buy their stuff most likely from Fuji im the Netherlands. Names of Fuji products are different in US market. I would still assume the paper sold as DP II in the US is the same product. Digital Pro II is unknown to me.

Samu said:

I think the ADOC paper is simply European Fuji DP II cut by them in sheets.

Click to expand...

No, it's plain/regular/entry-level Crystal Archive, not DPII. https://tinker.koraks.nl/photography/on-a-color-mission-comparing-two-ra4-color-papers/

koraks said:

No, it's plain/regular/entry-level Crystal Archive, not DPII. https://tinker.koraks.nl/photography/on-a-color-mission-comparing-two-ra4-color-papers/

Click to expand...

OK. I would not recommend buying that, if this is the case. "Green" Crystal Archive is not a very good paper.

I personally prefer DPII as well, but the entry-level CA paper has a more muted contrast and saturation that can work better for some images. It's technically a good product, but this should be regarded within the intended market segment and economic constraints imposed on it.

koraks said:

I personally prefer DPII as well, but the entry-level CA paper has a more muted contrast and saturation that can work better for some images. It's technically a good product, but this should be regarded within the intended market segment and economic constraints imposed on it.

Click to expand...

Yep, but considering the small price difference, this is not where I would like to save money. For a photofinisher, who does a lot of prints for consumers, this is of course an argument.

By the way, I am just starting to cut this in sheets, to be put in my freezer. It is a 21cm x 167-6m roll of DP II. Should last for some time.

Confirming what Koraks stated, from our side of the pond, at least - I've seen at least four different brand labels of cut sheet RA-4 paper pop up here in the US. ALL of it is the same entry level thin Fuji "CA ii". But roll sizes of it also exist under the Fuji brand itself, up to quite wide rolls. It's easy to distinguish from Super C ii by the significantly lower price point.

The cut sheet product really isn't bad at all. People complain about its handling quality, being so thin; but heck, I had to deal with 40 inch roll stock in Cibachrome, which was drastically harder to handle without crinkle marks in any size, compared to this Fuji RC (resin-coated) paper, which is only available up to 20X24 inch cut sheet size anyway.
Color repro wise - all depends on the specific image and your personal expectations. Distinctly better than some of the earliest Crystal Archive products. Lacking a bit of hue gamma breadth compared to their current premium paper lineup. But potentially, just the right thing for a variety of images. Certainly good enough for learning and proofing purposes.