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Do "off-brand" papers have as much silver?

Lucky FB paper? Anybody who used it? Sounds interesting...
 
I suppose I would be failing due diligence as an emulsion booster if I didn't point out that for gorgeous, glowing, "silver rich", almost 3-dimensional papers, you can make your own. It isn't hard, it's less expensive than commercial, and you need never again worry about brands disappearing.
 
I'd also like to be growing all my own produce and raising all my own chickens and meat. Been there, done that. A lot of work that requires a
lot of time. But for you homegrown paper and film fanatics - I commend your commitment - but if the major suppliers of such products ever
do disappear, so will the supply chain for much of their leftover chem materials that you also need! Then there are people like me who
really do need a selection very predictable quality controlled, and need it right out of a box.
 
Handmade (anything) is definitely not for everyone and handmade everything is for no one. We picks out of life what we wants. I choose gorgeous papers, which up until I started making them were only to be seen in museum collections. I'm also partial to glowing ortho films. Fortunately, except for photo gelatin, the chemicals I use for my photography are common, multi-purpose items, used for more than photography.

To each, his or her own. I'm with you on giving up on chickens!
 
Don't get me wrong - I collect albumen prints, other vintage prints. Love em. Just don't have time for that, given I'm already printing black
and white but color as well, with four darkroom to manage different tasks, including my own share of home-made witches brew for wash-off relief printing (a version of dye transfer) - so kinda like raising dodos instead of chickens - still gotta be decapitated and plucked by someone, but no longer available at the Dodo Super Market.
 
Where can I find a good book for that, please?
 
chip j said:
Do "off-brand" papers have as much silver?
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Even if you did know, what would you do with the information? Lack of knowledge still gets one to the same place as having the knowledge.
 
How nice of you to ask!. No worries about places to learn from. It's only going to be two months late (I have a tendency to get distracted by actual photography ) but I'll have a book out in a month. I'm sitting here today, putting the finishing touches on it. There's The Light Farm website with free tutorials. Also, Christopher James's 3rd edition of Alternative Photographic Processes has a section with one of my paper recipes. Ron Mowrey ("PE") has a book, and George Eastman House has workshops. You're good to go anytime you decide to dive in!

Attached is a sample page from The Light Farm, Handmade Silver Gelatin Emulsions, Volume 1: The Basics
 

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adox, I love you!!! you guys are awesome. BUT, we have an increasing lower number of "users": of graded paper, of the traditional type. Most of those companies have gone under, SAD!!! I know. The reality is Most people do mot have a cold head light source for enlargers, nor choose to expose/develop for graded paper. If only we could bring back emaks paper. OH !!!!!!!!!!!! I wish I had 10 million dollars just sitting' around doin' nothin", But to bring back emak !!! ahhhhhh!!! The tragedy of it all!~!!!!!!!!!!!!! "I feel so ashamed" talk amongst yourself . I feel a little verklempt! ( for those of you not in the know review on youtube mike meyers, impersonating Linda {something or the other} Richman from SNL}. Barbra Streisand anyone. . . . . .
 
E-Maks. Well, that is a loss. I still have a good stash of it. One thing that VC papers don't do well is "snatch" development (in the conventional
sense, not as per lith printing). Unless the silver in them is pretty much fully developed, they just go blaah. Sometimes it's nice to surf ever
so endlessly on the midtones, allllll silvery the whole way. E-Maks and a few other graded papers were good for that. You need the right kind
of surfboard.
 
gzinsel said:
to date: slavich, ilford, foma are the only ones making graded chlorobromide papers. ( discuss)
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ADOX Fotoimpex said:
plus Lodima (sliver chloride)...
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Lodima doesn't "make" any paper. It's manufactured for them by someone else, possibly to Lodima's specifications, but not necessarily. I've never seen any definitive information, although if forced to speculate, I'd guess Lodima comes from Foma.
 
Early on, I searched for "THE paper". Eventually I discovered what I really needed was "THE Printer". After I developed the latter to some degree, I developed some paper preference, but based on the prints I made as I learned how to use those papers, not what I read about the paper. I do have some "silver rich" paper around here, and I like the prints it makes with certain negatives, usually from certain lenses. In short, I prefer judging a paper by how I can make it work. I don't really care if it's manufactured using squid lips from outer Kalifornistan as long as I can make it print consistently. After that it is a matter of personal preference, and matching the negative to the paper using largely subjective decisions.
 
Old graded papers, regardless of how "silver rich" they are, are much more amenable to toning and bleaching. MO. The whole process of toning and bleaching is more predictable and repeatable in older graded papers. I prefer galerie to multigrade, fortezo over polywarmtone, and graded oriental to vc. Seems like the keepers I get from lith and toning vc papers are interesting mistakes that could take forever to duplicate. Lith and toning with old graded papers, usually have a few keepers to select from.
 
Are you suggesting the older papers have an inherient fogged base and therefore are more receptive to the bleach and toner.?
 
I keep "learning" new things myself on these kinds of threads, Bob, that seem to zero confirmation in relation to my own experience. Kinda like someone stating that all snakes are poisonous when someone only knows about a few species to begin with.
 
I believe that quite a few "old" papers had cadmium in the emulsion which gave rise much more vibrant toning. Cadmium is now barred from all european papers. Maybe the russian or other countries papers still contain it, I don't know.
 
Cadmium was indeed used to tone the silver image. But, it was also used for curve shape control. It was a matter of when it was added and how much was added. It was responsible for the glowing images from Medalist and Opal papers IIRC.

I have done silver concentration series in making coatings, and this governs both mid scale contrast and the sharpness of the toe and shoulder. However, the sharpness of toe and shoulder control detail in the highlights and shadows more than overall contrast does. So, raising contrast while lowering toe and shoulder contrast can make some very nice images where a "normal" paper would look dark in the shadows and would look light in the highlights.

This is why two different answers to the same question can both be true. It depends on curve shape. And of course, tone has a lot to do with our acceptance of any image. Warm tones tend to be most pleasing.

PE
 
Photo Engineer said:
Cadmium was indeed used to tone the silver image........ It was responsible for the glowing images from Medalist and Opal papers IIRC.
....

PE
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Kodak Medalist was, IMHO, the nicest paper ever: controllable, predictable, and as Ron says... it glows!
 
did the EPA make photographic Companies eliminate "this heavy Metals" from products?
 
Kodak began the process on its own AFAIK. Kodak started the conversion in the early 60s and the EPA was founded in about 1970.

PE
 
I don't really care if it's manufactured using squid lips from outer Kalifornistan as long as I can make it print consistently.
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The more consitant you want a product to be the less ingredients you shall use. Old papers used MANY ingredients such as chicken albumin or salt from the thing deer have on their heads (lack the english word). Also they used silver-bromide, silver-chloride and silver-iodide emulsions. All these things were used to achive certain characteristics of the paper (PE would say to match the curve to what I want).
Today you need neither of them. With modern emulsion making techniques you can make almost any curve from simple, fast and easy to control silver-X emulsion of your choice. This adds a lot to consitancy. With a modern silver bromide paper you can get identical results package after package and year after year. But if you want to be creative and use toning techniques or lith printing this consitancy is not always an advantage. If you look for unpredictable results some of the older papers with all their "strange" ingredients perform actually better.
You can observe the above a little bit if you compare Ilford and ADOX papers. Ilford´s are more consitant. You get always the same result. Even if you change from a coldtone to a warmtone developer the image does not change. Ours are a bit "older" in technique. We still use two different salts (silver-chloride/ silver-bromide mixture). This makes them a bit less controlable but allows a slight warmtone development in dedicated warmtone developers. Which suits better is up to the consumers preferences.

Mirko
 
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