From RC test print to FB final print

If you are now convinced that there is no way or at least no easy way to use Ilford RC MG paper as a test trip for FB MG paper which is your ultimate aim then that is the end of the matter.

All I would say is that on the matter of dry-down there is a way of testing the effect of dry-down with FB that then allows you to input that information into the FB final print even if you have made test strips with RC.

I cannot say that the Ilford curves for both sets of paper are the same although they look that way in Ilford's diagrams but the contrast settings seem to be the same. I have never printed the same scene on both RC and FB so cannot comment on tonal range difference or other differences that Oren believes exist but it might be instructive for you were you to write to Ilford and ask about whether the emulsions are in fact the same when Ilford's did its extensive research as it will have done.

The second thing I'd be tempted to do is what Matt has suggested. Attempt two prints and see what if any the differences are in the pictures' look to your eyes because it is how they look to you that matters

Frankly I do not think that there is any need to treat each box of the same kind of paper as being different and having to start over in terms of testing when you start on a different box

pentaxuser

NB23 said:

And what is OT?

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Off Topic.

Thank you ragazzi.

pentaxuser said:

The second thing I'd be tempted to do is what Matt has suggested. Attempt two prints and see what if any the differences are in the pictures' look to your eyes because it is how they look to you that matters

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Thank you for your post. Honestly I don't use RC paper, mine was only a curiosity. As I said before, I'll continue to buy FB paper maximizing the result that I have in mind; hopefully without waste a lot of paper.

InExperience said:

Thank you for your post. Honestly I don't use RC paper, mine was only a curiosity. .

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Fine, my curiosity has been sparked by your curiosity and still remains unfulfilled so I might write to Ilford myself about it.

pentaxuser

pentaxuser said:

Fine, my curiosity has been sparked by your curiosity and still remains unfulfilled so I might write to Ilford myself about it.

pentaxuser

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Yes please, and update this topic with the answer received.

pentaxuser said:

Fine, my curiosity has been sparked by your curiosity and still remains unfulfilled so I might write to Ilford myself about it.

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If you do that, be careful to explain precisely what you mean by "emulsion is the same". Do you mean the recipe for what gets poured into the coating machine is the same? (But the behavior of the resulting product when coated on different bases might be different.) Do you mean the design target is for the resulting products to have identical characteristic curves, ISO ranges and ISO speeds? (But in general they don't, even by Ilford's own reckoning.) If neither of those, what else could it mean?

FWIW, I raised my point about the "kinked" MGIVRC characteristic curve when I was on one of the APUG Ilford factory visits long ago - it came up during our stop in the lab where they do batch testing and quality control - and they acknowledged it.

InExperience said:

Hi Guys,

If I do test strip printers and decide the base time of the print (Dodging and Burning) using a RC paper, the result will be the same for a final print by FB paper? Maintaining same brand and, of course, same kind of paper (classic, cooltone or warmtone).

I didn't experimented that, have you tried it?

Thank you.

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worked reasonably well for me with Ilford Multigrade IV.

Hi InExperience, welcome to Photrio/APUG. Hope you find it to be a rewarding community as I have.

I'm suggesting to the mods that this thread be moved to the B&W: Film, Paper, Chemistry forum, since this particular forum is specifically for silver gelatin emulsion making, and this discussion seems to pertain to commercial products and B&W in general. I'm not trying to be a stickler, I'm just going through this forum piece by piece and trying to collect all of Ron Mowrey's postings on emulsion making and this type of task is much easier if threads are posted in their relevant sub-forums. Thanks!

Thread moved

None of this is an attempt by me to undermine your findings and experience, Oren. Clearly using RC as a test for ultimate transfer to FB is an interesting concept allowing for the known dry-down difference.

Whether it works well enough depends on what standards each of us might set and clearly there comes a point where the "hoops" that a user has to go through to make it work may outweigh any saving in money or outcome results but it remains an interesting idea

If nothing else Photrio should exist as a platform for ideas and methods that no-one on his own could possibly explore. Some ideas may not work at all, other may work to an extent but be generally "not good enough" and yet others may work well enough to be satisfactory to most users. For instance the use of C41 kits that allow users to develop at less than the standard 37.8C degrees is a kind of an example to me of this maple isers

As long as the findings are set out so that the end result is clear to all then each of us can draw his own conclusions.

What Ilford has to say should prove to be useful in the overall debate on this matter

Thanks

pentaxuser

pentaxuser said:

None of this is an attempt by me to undermine your findings and experience, Oren....

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Understood, no concerns, and apologies for coming across that way.

pentaxuser said:

What Ilford has to say should prove to be useful in the overall debate on this matter

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I agree, though I'm not interested in a "debate" so much as in understanding the products better. We'll all make use of that information in different ways to suit our respective purposes. But I do think framing the question is worth some thought. If you ask them "are the emulsions the same?" and they say "yes", we will not have learned anything because both the question and the answer would be open to multiple interpretations.

Looking forward to hearing what they have to say!

I find that I can't even rely on exposures being the same for two sheets of the same brand and type of paper from different boxes. Yesterday, I ran out of one box of Ilford MG Classic fiber-base in the middle of a print and continued on with a fresh sheet from a freshly opened box of the same paper. Both boxes were purchased and shipped together. The exposure difference between the two was on the order of 20%. I used two sheets dialing the exposure back in.

If different batches of the same paper exhibit such differences, I hate to think how much two different types of paper would be...

Best,

Doremus

One information provided by the manufacturer you can look at to get you started is the ISO (R) data.

For instance, let's look at Ilford, MG IV RC: https://www.ilfordphoto.com/amfile/file/download/file/1952/product/743/

On page 2, you can see that grade 2 has an ISO (R) of 110.

Now compare this with Ilford MG FB: https://www.ilfordphoto.com/amfile/file/download/file/1748/product/733/

On page 1, you can see that grade 1 has an ISO (R) of 110. This paper's grade 2 has instead an ISO (R) of 95.

In theory, it means that something that prints perfectly on RC using a grade 2 will require a grade 1 on FB.

There are always further details, as was mentioned (drydown, developer, etc). But comparing the ISO (R) will get you started.

Doremus Scudder said:

I find that I can't even rely on exposures being the same for two sheets of the same brand and type of paper from different boxes. Yesterday, I ran out of one box of Ilford MG Classic fiber-base in the middle of a print and continued on with a fresh sheet from a freshly opened box of the same paper. Both boxes were purchased and shipped together. The exposure difference between the two was on the order of 20%. I used two sheets dialing the exposure back in.

If different batches of the same paper exhibit such differences, I hate to think how much two different types of paper would be...

Best,

Doremus

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exaaactly.

Exactly what I said, too, but for some reason people don’t care.

2 boxes can vary. Slightly, but a 1-2 second variance is still a variance.

Older boxes will sometimes have its top sheet fogged or very different than the rest of the sheets. The middle being he freshest.

Doremus Scudder said:

I find that I can't even rely on exposures being the same for two sheets of the same brand and type of paper from different boxes. Yesterday, I ran out of one box of Ilford MG Classic fiber-base in the middle of a print and continued on with a fresh sheet from a freshly opened box of the same paper. Both boxes were purchased and shipped together. The exposure difference between the two was on the order of 20%. I used two sheets dialing the exposure back in.

If different batches of the same paper exhibit such differences, I hate to think how much two different types of paper would be...

Best,

Doremus

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That's odd. I use the same paper and was just working on a print that also spanned two boxes. I did not have to make any exposure adjustments as I moved from one box to another.

logan2z said:

That's odd. I use the same paper and was just working on a print that also spanned two boxes. I did not have to make any exposure adjustments as I moved from one box to another.

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Sure, that’s the way it’s supposed to be. But each box shall be treated independently. I’ve just finished 4 boxes of forte polywarmtone matte; 3 boxes nearly identical (a few non-trivial variations) and 1 box was fogged.

So you see, one box went bad.

Doremus Scudder said:

I find that I can't even rely on exposures being the same for two sheets of the same brand and type of paper from different boxes. Yesterday, I ran out of one box of Ilford MG Classic fiber-base in the middle of a print and continued on with a fresh sheet from a freshly opened box of the same paper. Both boxes were purchased and shipped together. The exposure difference between the two was on the order of 20%.
Best,

Doremus

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Certainly 20% is a massive difference even for short time exposures. So a change for one box to the next can result in say a 2 second difference even in a 10 second exposure which to almost anyone of us even the most non discerning will show up. If this is a regular occurrence and Ilford know about this then they keep it under wraps so to speak as I have never seen this even hinted at by Ilford

Certainly I'd have thought that in any product a consistency much greater than this is a necessary goal. Translating this to film speed it suggests that one roll of HP5+ could be 400 and the next roll might be nearer 500 or 320 which I'd have thought is unacceptable for film. If this kind of difference doesn't exist for film then I wonder why this consistency cannot be the case for paper?

Looks like this should be another of my questions to Ilford

pentaxuser

Since we're all just piling on anecdotal reports here, I'll add mine: my experience with Ilford paper is that consistency in speed between boxes of same type and comparable vintage is excellent. I run test prints anyway, but I can't recall ever having exposures shift when I finished one box of a given Ilford paper and opened the next in the middle of a darkroom session.

So, I can consider that if I do a pre-final print, with all the information of time to burning and dodging it can't be replicate for the future, using same procedure, because the ream of paper could be different, isn't it?

hi inexperience
you can practice with rc paper make beautiful prints on rc paper that some experts say will last as long or longer the fb paper
but you can't transfer your results from rc to fb.. they rhyme ...

jnantz said:

hi inexperience
you can practice with rc paper make beautiful prints on rc paper that some experts say will last as long or longer the fb paper
but you can't transfer your results from rc to fb.. they rhyme ...

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Hi @jnantz, I got that. My assumption was the following... if I take note of my procedure, time, all the stuff to do a print, it will fail in future because we are not certain that a new ream of paper print, bought 5 years after, has the same characteristics (even if same kind) and behaviour as the past one, isn't it?

InExperience said:

Hi @jnantz, I got that. My assumption was the following... if I take note of my procedure, time, all the stuff to do a print, it will fail in future because we are not certain that a new ream of paper print, bought 5 years after, has the same characteristics (even if same kind) and behaviour as the past one, isn't it?

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Over the course of 5 years? Who knows what manufacturing changes can occur over that length of time. Will you still be using the same developer with the exact same formula, same enlarger, same bulb etc? There are many variables that can affect exposure times. But IME there is not a wide variability in the exposure times across relatively recent boxes of paper of the same type from the same manufacturer. Obviously that doesn't include fogged paper as mentioned by @NB23 (not sure if that was one of his attempts at humor )

InExperience said:

So, I can consider that if I do a pre-final print, with all the information of time to burning and dodging it can't be replicate for the future, using same procedure, because the ream of paper could be different, isn't it?

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If you apply the same burning and dodging to the future print, like as not it will be very close to your original print.
It may be effectively identical, though your subjective preferences are vulnerable to change.
And of course other things can change over time as well, including the brightness of your enlarger's illumination.
Mostly though, good notes mean that replication is a lot easier.

That's why I did not keep burning notes (I did little dodging)...I wanted to treat a reprint as a new image and usually would not have a copy around. Of course, it meant that sometimes when I'd compared the first printing with the second printing, I'd toss out the second printing...so it goes. If I felt I matched or improved on the first printing...groovy!

A lot of good advice and info here. Some thoughts from a 'vintage' printer (in the darkroom since 1961 and still sane, I think).

Trying to match exposure times and dodging/burning with same brand RC and FB papers (even fresh stock) is, I've found, an impossibility. To go even further, it can easily drive you crazy if you let it.

The two will never ever match evenly. It's best to accept this and devise a new workflow to suit your way of printing.

I do 80%-85% of my printing on RC (usually Ilford Multigrade but generally with any new paper I can pick up at good prices down here in Australia where anything and everything labelled 'photo' or 'photographic' means floating a new mortgage loan on one's house to buy) for quick-easy prints and 20%-15% on FB, the latter as final prints for clients or to frame and hang on our walls at home. My supply of the latter was acquired about ten years ago when I cleaned out a closed photo studio in a country town, so is well and truly vintaged. So in my case, trying to match the two for printing from RC to FB would be insanity-inducing.

I work to a realistic (= low) darkroom budget and I dislike throwing out printing paper. Even test strips. It's all needless waste of good resources. Those darkroom printers who throw away half their prints at the end of a session should be forced to give up film and use digital gear for rest of their lives.

I have two Ilford exposure meters (small battery-powered contraptions from the 1980s) which induced equal feelings of madness and homicide but after much testing turned out to be reasonably (this is the keyword) accurate in predicting the basic exposure with any paper AS LONG AS you stay with the same one or two papers for the printing session. If you change papers, new tests must be done. At my age, hours and hours in the darkroom is too much time taken from my other life's pleasures and I'm leery and weary of new endeavors to eat up yet more of my smalls stock of remaining life, so I tend to stay with my known tried-true techniques.

A Patterson test strip maker (not sure if still available new but you can usually find them on Ebay) has made my darkroom life much easier. For my RC printing I cut a small strip off a 5x8 piece (half 8x10 cut sheet) about one inch/three centimeters off one end, leaving enough on the big sheet for an almost 5x7 print without borders, and use this strip for my test, with three second exposures between the strips, which produces quite accurate time/tone differences. Now and then I do a second test with two second or one second bursts, but not often.

When I print FB, I accept that I must work much more carefully and usually make several tests. Also I use larger test strips, often 4x5 cut sheets.

After more than half a century of printing I've come to dislike taking too much time to dodge and burn, but this is somewhat off-topic so I'll say no more. My aim is to get as good a print without too much manipulation as I can do with the least effort. Careful attention to my film exposure and watching the lighting is of course a prerequisite.

To return to the OP's original point, evenly matching the final print tones when moving from RC to FB is something I've found to be rather a devil's endeavor. Sometimes you get it right in the first test print. Mostly you don't. It's best to establish a new workflow in printing to deal with all this as quickly and painlessly as you can, and go with it.