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Ilford Art 300 - First Impressions

logan2z

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I recenlly picked up a box of Ilford's Art 300 paper as I was beginning to make prints for a project that I thought would suit it. I've made a couple of prints on it so far and I'm quite pleased with the results.

The paper has a beautiful texture and a nice warm tone. The warnings I received about it floating in a print washer were spot on - I had to improvise a solution in order to keep the paper submerged throughout the wash cycle. It does curl when drying, but not as much as Ilford MG fiber or Fomabrom Variant III, and it flattened easily in my dry mount press.

It's a pretty expensive paper so I plan to use is sparingly. I think it's only a good match for a small subset of my work anyway.

I've attached a photo of one of the prints below. At least on my screen, it closely matches the look of the real-life print.
 
The surface has a wonderful look to it. It's absolutely not everyone's cup of tea, but I keep a box or two around for those special images.
 
Looks great.
And I cannot resist - it appears that it "floats your boat".
Now I should Report myself.
 
I like this paper, but I find it very difficult to scan; the texture is exaggerated by the scanner. Your scan of the print looks good, though—did you do anything special with it?

-NT
 
ntenny said:
I like this paper, but I find it very difficult to scan; the texture is exaggerated by the scanner. Your scan of the print looks good, though—did you do anything special with it?

-NT
Click to expand...

I didn't scan it, I photographed it with my iPhone.
 
I’ve been curious about this paper. I was wondering, if anyone remembers Foma’s old 542 chamois paper? I know that paper had a yellow base color. Besides that I was wondering if Art 300 is similar to 542?
 
brian steinberger said:
I’ve been curious about this paper. I was wondering, if anyone remembers Foma’s old 542 chamois paper? I know that paper had a yellow base color. Besides that I was wondering if Art 300 is similar to 542?
Click to expand...

Very different things. Have used them both, and Fomatone 532 was much nicer than the 542 - to the point that I sometimes wish Foma would do a non dyed 132. They were/ are semi-matte with a small amount of sheen.

Art 300 has a very neutral to cool cotton rag base and no baryta layer, and coated with MGWT emulsion. It has a degree of surface sheen too.


ntenny said:
but I find it very difficult to scan
Click to expand...

Cross-polarised repro is the answer.
 
I can see why you used Art 300 for this capture. That sparkle in the dark regions must really make this image shimmer.
 
Emulsion coated directly onto cotton rag paper, lovely stuff. No barium sulfate between the paper and gelatin emulsion. The sparkle is the dried gelatin.

Looks are unique for current papers as far as I know.
 
Looks ok on the screen.
How does it compare to older papers such as Ilford Galerie and other classics?
My Galerie stock dwindles!
 
The best parallel to this is very likely some of the watercolor papers used by the Alternative Process printers.
 
Melvin J Bramley said:
Looks ok on the screen.
How does it compare to older papers such as Ilford Galerie and other classics?
My Galerie stock dwindles!
Click to expand...

Not even close Melvin. Galerie was a great paper with wide range of uses. Art 300 is very matte....great for portraits or enlargements from damaged negatives.
 

Attachments

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Melvin J Bramley said:
How does it compare to older papers such as Ilford Galerie and other classics
Click to expand...

Better than Galerie, if you like the texture of mould-made papers. There's a lot of unthinking and misplaced nostalgia for some vintage papers which has very limited basis in actuality for at least the last 25 years.
 
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