Forte Polywarmtone

[walbergb]

I've never used PWT (probably discontinued before my "time"--photographically speaking), but I have heard great things about it. I would certainly buy some 8x10 & 11x14.

 

[clayne]

Awesome.

 

[Oxleyroad]

Thanks for the update Mirko. I'll be in the line for some of this paper when it is ready.

 

[viridari]

I'm new to making enlargements and I'm excited at the prospect that there are still new products being developed in this area.

 

[L Gebhardt]

I'm still using up some of my existing stocks, but I would love to be able to buy new. Then I could do all my work prints on PWT again. It was, and still is, my favorite paper.

Keep up the good work.

 

[Xuco Martin]

To me interest me too much, but I like the matte hate gloss
I hope good news

 

[Wayne]

I hope it's on track for a 2014 comeback. That just might coincide with my doing a lot of photography again that I haven't had time or money for lately.

 

[Mark Fisher]

Almost out of my old Fomatone which was my Forte replacement for lith......sure would like some soon!

Mirko - have you checked out it's "lith-ability" yet?

 

[Zelph]

If it does not contain Cadmium for the really rich tanned leather look, not interested. Many others will like it but compared to the older papers with Cadmium it just doesn't cut it.

 

[L Gebhardt]

If it does not contain Cadmium for the really rich tanned leather look, not interested. Many others will like it but compared to the older papers with Cadmium it just doesn't cut it.

I love the old Forte PWT. I don't know if it's cadmium that gives it that special look, but if the new PWT looks the same without cadmium I'll be very happy and buy lots of it. Seems prudent to not dismiss it before seeing the final results.

 

[naaldvoerder]

I don't think Forte Polywarmtone did contain Cadmium

 

[Mark Fisher]

I don't care if it has Cd or not. As long as it liths like Forte or the old Fomatone, I'll be quite happy.

 

[ADOX Fotoimpex]

If it does not contain Cadmium for the really rich tanned leather look, not interested. Many others will like it but compared to the older papers with Cadmium it just doesn't cut it.

Cadmium and Mercury were banned by the European Comission in the late 90ies only to be allowed again by the same politicians a few years later in lightbulbs (but not in photographic products).
All manufacturers had to take all Cadmium out of all photographic papers. Polywarmtone was cadmium free since 1998.

Cadmium may not be intentionally used anymore. The amount of Cadmium we would need in order to stabilize a photographic emulsion is so low that in the final product there is actually less Cadmium than exists naturally in the environment.
Yet we may not use it anymore even at such low levels.
There is nothing we can do. These people in Finland apointed by the European commission are not elected nor controled and make a more than decent living on forbidding substances. This is their purpose of living. It does not matter if a substance is actually bad. We are past the really bad substances for over a decade. Now they ban substances of which someone once said they might possibly be bad. They cannot be held liable even if they make the worse mistakes and destroy whole industries or cause other severe trouble. Also they don´t care and do it all behind closed doors not talking to anyone and publishing only what´s absolutely necesary in a cryptic way trying to avoid all contacts to the public who might be struck by their actions. Never will a decison once taken be revoked no matter how much harm it does and how useless it may be. The process is to complex to be rolled back.
It will never stop. They constantly need new substances to forbid. There are thousands of more than well payed jobs attached to this spinning wheel.
Welcome to what comes past democracy. Welcome to Eurocracy!

 

[Barry S]

Cadmium was banned by the European Comission in the late 90ies only to be allowed again by the same politicians a few years later in lightbulbs (but not in photographic products).
All manufacturers had to take all Cadmium out of all photographic papers. Polywarmtone was cadmium free since 1998.

Cadmium may not be intentionally used anymore. The amount of Cadmium we would need in order to stabilize a photographic emulsion is so low that in the final product there is actually less Cadmium than exists naturally in the environment.
Yet we may not use it anymore even at such low levels.
There is nothing we can do. These people in Finland apointed by the European commission are not elected nor controled and make a more than decent living on forbidding substances. This is their purpose of living. It does not matter if a substance is actually bad. We are past the really bad substances for over a decade. Now they ban substances of which someone once said they might possibly be bad. They cannot be held liable even if they make the worse mistakes and destroy whole industries or cause other severe trouble. Also they don´t care and do it all behind closed doors not talking to anyone and publishing only what´s absolutely necesary in a cryptic way trying to avoid all contacts to the public who might be struck by their actions. Never will a decison once taken be revoked no matter how much harm it does and how useless it may be. The process is to complex to be rolled back.
It will never stop. They constantly need new substances to forbid. There are thousands of more than well payed jobs attached to this spinning wheel.
Welcome to what comes past democracy. Welcome to Eurocracy!

Uhh, ok...besides that, how is the PWT production going?

 

[ADOX Fotoimpex]

Uhh, ok...besides that, how is the PWT production going?

As usual. No production yet. Reseach going on. Two steps foreward, one step backwards ;-)

 

[NB23]

The consumer in me understood "forget about it, guys. It's never gonna happen".

 

[miha]

ADOX hasn't disappointed so far.

 

[NB23]

We're all hoping...

 

[TheToadMen]

We're all hoping...

"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."

So, keep faith ...

 

[pentaxuser]

ADOX hasn't disappointed so far.

Miha as the saying goes "you have taken the words out of my mouth" Adox have done well. It resurrected Agfa paper just as an example when a lot of people never expected to see it again after Agfa's demise.

I must check what we said on APUG about Ilford when it declared bankruptcy in 2004/5. I'll bet there was a strong feeling that another analogue producer had sunk without a trace and with no hope of resurrection.

Well a lot of people will be going on a tour there next week

pentaxuser

 

[ADOX Fotoimpex]

The consumer in me understood "forget about it, guys. It's never gonna happen".

In respect to Cadmium this is correct but we always stated that we would only bring back the version of PW which was produced last.

We also made very clear that there is no difference between ADOX and the rest of the industry in respect to what can be done and what can´t.
We are not in the position to outrun the given market situation.

The others are not bringing new products to this market of it´s given size because sales of a new product will take out of the sales of existing products and will not add.
Our aproach is to use a large part of the income stream of all exsting sales to develop new products and eventually bring them to the market.
So we try to give you back something to say "thank you" because we know you want it.

But if obstacles occur it WILL TAKE LONGER. There is no possibility to speed up things by employing more people or meet internal tagets because there is no budget as no substantual ROI will occur which prohibits the acquisition of third party capital.

Essentially remanufacturing PW in another factory is almost like developing it entirely from scratch.
This is also our first research project done completely in house so a lot of the time is spent on working out ways how to do things for the first time.
Following projects will hopefully be faster.

If we were to stop the product development I´d comunicate this. But we haven´t. Currently we have samples in the artificial aging. In 2 weeks they will come out and then we´ll inspect them and go on from there

What could be released to the market immediately (if coating went well) would be a paper like the old one with the problems the last batches had (sudden pink stain in certain developer/fixer combinations) or a version without sufficent multigrade control or a fixed grade.
Naturally this is not what we want to do.
Fixed grade is not an option due to low demand and high coating volume requirements.
If we were able to coat low volumes at bearable prices this would be OK.
We are also trying to work on this end (coating dilemma) but it does not look like there will be a fix coming soon.
At least not for paper (wide roll coating).

 

[Mike Crawford]

I had the pleasure to meet and interview Mirko at the Adox works for an article a few years ago, (unpublished so far), and was very impressed by his dedication to the brand, his commitment to traditional photographic film and paper and research into producing new materials, or in the case of PWT, bringing older products back to market. There's some serious testing going on in Bad Saarow! If it can be done, he will do it, but I would think it will take time unless anyone wants to contribute some tens of thousands of Euros to speed things along.

Contrast tests seen on line look very promising so looking forward to trying out the new paper when it happens. Also, the cadmium free PWT was fine for lith printing. Recently printed some for a client on some of the last batches.

 

[Barry S]

I hope R&D is going well this winter. As ever, we wait patiently.

 

[miha]

It's moving forward: http://www.polywarmtone.com/Blog/English.html

 

[Simon Howers]

Mirko, if you are able to manufacture this paper, I would certainly buy it.