First public Kodak Alaris statement on the backing paper issue

Aside of the paper quality it is a matter of volume. Think of a more simple paper, basically even readily available, photographic base paper. Why are there so few choices? The major paper mill for these states the photo paper manufacturer just would not order, those manufacturers again argue the mill had absurd high minimum volumes.

Eugen Mezei said:

Can somebody explain the difficult part of producing backing paper?
I hear film producers whining they can't get a supplier and I don't understand what is the part stopping any random papermill producing it.

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As I understand it, it (was/ is?) laminated in production from two different paper machines before pressing/ drying/ calendaring - and the papers & inks must be totally photographically inert. There are plenty of paper mills that can fulfill some of the requirements, but few that can satisfy all.

AgX said:

Aside of the paper quality it is a matter of volume. Think of a more simple paper, basically even readily available, photographic base paper. Why are there so few choices? The major paper mill for these states the photo paper manufacturer just would not order, those manufacturers again argue the mill had absurd high minimum volumes.

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I think this has a lot to do with the baryta coating - while the mills that operate cylinder moulds might be happy to make 500kg of suitable substrate, we don't know what their toll-coater's MOQ for applying the baryta layer is. I looked at this a few years ago in the context of a custom inkjet paper & was informed that while the mill would be more than happy to make 500kg of paper, the coater demanded an MOQ of 6000kg of substrate to coat. I'd suggest that Zerkall, Hahnemühle, Arches & St Cuthbert's Mill (and several others) are more than capable of producing a base that is easily as good, if not significantly superior to that currently in the market, but until someone offers a more appropriate baryta coating scale, our options will continue to be limited.

The paper mill in question barytate themselves.

And the minimum quantity I was told did not seem over top to me, but seemingly detering enough for the photo paper manufacturers. (We should keep in mind that less people print than take photos on film, and even less lust for special paper surfaces etc.)

The backing paper supply issue did not come over night. I was already busy with designing alternative solutions about 10 years ago.

AgX said:

The paper mill in question barytate themselves.

And the minimum quantity I was told did not seem over top to me, but seemingly detering enough for the photo paper manufacturers. (We should keep in mind that less people print than take photos on film, and even less lust for special paper surfaces etc.)

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Schoeller? What was their MOQ? My own quick calculations suggest to me that a minimum 1600-2000m coating run at 50-60" would clear the 500kg minimum of the mould-made mills, but if you have to buy (say) 10 years supply of a specific baryta coated lustre substrate for an emulsion that might be coated once a year at minimum coatable quantity it might be a bit of a deterrent - and having to buy multiples of that for all the texture variants wouldn't help - irony being that most of the textures apart from gloss, matte, lustre were trying to rather poorly ape the 'look' of mould-made papers anyway!