Kodak Endura Premier vs Premier Digital

Hi all,

I'd like to know what would be the difference between Kodak Professional Endura Premier (pub. E-4070) and Kodak Professional Premier Digital papers (pub. E-4075).

1) Are they completely different emulsions?

2) From publications it seems they both are optimized for optical printing. Which one would be more friendlier to a color head enlarger?

3) Which one is better in terms of color reproduction, rendering whites, d-max - d-min, etc?

I'm using expired Endura Premier (about a year out). Works perfectly. Beautiful whites and dark blacks, the color is perfect. The nice thing about endura is that it is archival and should last as long as a B&W print if properly stored. Kodak says 200 years. I have not tried the minilab stuff but my understanding is that it last 20 years and a smaller gamut.

All this is being done optically, but with with a LIFX color LED bulb. Not sure about the experiences of others, but I get perfect prints on the same color settings over any emulsion. It took some time to reach this, a lot of testing. I love this combination.

I'm sure you would be happy with both papers, being modern products, but Endura Premier is the best.

1kgcoffee said:

I'm using expired Endura Premier (about a year out). Works perfectly. Beautiful whites and dark blacks, the color is perfect. The nice thing about endura is that it is archival and should last as long as a B&W print if properly stored. Kodak says 200 years. I have not tried the minilab stuff but my understanding is that it last 20 years and a smaller gamut.

All this is being done optically, but with with a LIFX color LED bulb. Not sure about the experiences of others, but I get perfect prints on the same color settings over any emulsion. It took some time to reach this, a lot of testing. I love this combination.

I'm sure you would be happy with both papers, being modern products, but Endura Premier is the best.

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Thanks for your reply. Too bad Endura is not easily available at my place, I guess I'll stick with Premier Digital or check Fuji Type DP II, but personally I find Kodak colors more appealing.

There's tons of stuff available on ebay. I personally would not go for the Fuji, CAII is lower quality stuff that crinkles when you try to print. Endura has meat to it and does not easily crease.

Anyone who claims any of these chromogenic papers is "archival" for 200 yrs is confusing someone's marketing BS for reasonable fact. Yes, some of these papers
have improved in this respect, but C'mon, get real ! And Fuji CAII papers are easy to handle. If you want a thicker version, use Fuji Super C for the big roll sizes.

I have used Fuji CA and CA DPII, and Kodak Endura Premier with standard dichroic color enlarger. In my experience all of them have the same tendency to form crinkles during handling, and my favourite paper is Fuji CA DPII. Higher contrast and saturation than the others that are in the médium-low range.

It's too bad the latest Endura is not available in cut sheets anymore. :-/

1kgcoffee said:

There's tons of stuff available on ebay. I personally would not go for the Fuji, CAII is lower quality stuff that crinkles when you try to print. Endura has meat to it and does not easily crease.

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The paper mentioned by Yuriy is Fuji DPII and it is a high quality paper, certainly as high quality as Kodak EP. Also the thickness of the base material is identical.

Also, regarding your claim to get "perfect prints" with your LED bulb light source. This is a very bold statement and I would like you to finally show us examples of these perfect prints. You have already made this claim in a different thread and then only presented prints of very poor quality that exhibited terrible color casts. I am actually kind of surprised that you are still making such claims after the earlier thread.

EdSawyer said:

It's too bad the latest Endura is not available in cut sheets anymore. :-/

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+1

DREW WILEY said:

Anyone who claims any of these chromogenic papers is "archival" for 200 yrs is confusing someone's marketing BS for reasonable fact. Yes, some of these papers
have improved in this respect, but C'mon, get real ! And Fuji CAII papers are easy to handle. If you want a thicker version, use Fuji Super C for the big roll sizes.

Click to expand...

Yes, 200 years at 50°F 40% R.H. in the dark, stored in flat files between archival pure unbleached paper. CA II was a steep learning curve for me. 16 x 20 sheets, I crinkled.
It's like going to the doctor. "It hurts when I do, this!" , the reply "Well stop doing that!"
Crystal Archive is beautiful paper, sure I wish Kodak still cut sheets, but I wouldn't buy it expecting better aging characteristics.

mnemosyne said:

The paper mentioned by Yuriy is Fuji DPII and it is a high quality paper, certainly as high quality as Kodak EP. Also the thickness of the base material is identical.

Also, regarding your claim to get "perfect prints" with your LED bulb light source. This is a very bold statement and I would like you to finally show us examples of these perfect prints. You have already made this claim in a different thread and then only presented prints of very poor quality that exhibited terrible color casts. I am actually kind of surprised that you are still making such claims after the earlier thread.

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Your criticism is welcome and helped me greatly to refine the process. I'll try to post some results tomorrow. I can tell you that the prints I'm getting now are much better. I haven't replied to that thread because of the demand that I stop posting images unless I have more scientific results. I simply don't have the time or budget to throw on damn expensive color cards to prove to other people on the internet it works. Someday I would like. I've been using scanned images in photoshop as a substitute to examine the color and am now happy.

First issue, colour casts over the image - this seems to have something to do with the bulb being too close to the condenser. Pulling it a little higher up seems to even things out. I posted a thread about this recently. The issue disappeared when I went up in enlarger lens sizes so I didn't notice it until stepping back down. I think I've always had it down too low, but never noticed. Red shadows are gone now that correct color has been found.

For grain, that has to do with two things. First the scanning resolution. So the images posted were much larger than real life, and second, this is is on a condenser so grain will obviously be pronounced, along with higher sharpness and contrast.

I also understand your skepticism without having seen any great results, but keep in mind I've been printing for less than a year, color for a few months and self taught everything from the internet. Why bother with LED bulbs when I can just go halogen? Well I have been asked the same question with regards to wet printing, why not just go inkjet? I have found a niche that works for me in the creative process and want to share it with others. One person has already contacted me via email ecstatic that such a bulb exists and is using it to build a custom 8x10 enlarger. There is definitely interest out there.

I want to post a guide but it's taking much longer than I had hoped.

So who has actually examined what current Kodak or Fuji paper looks like after 200 yrs? Taking an accelerated aging test or a tiny slice of time and wildly extrapolating it to the exclusion of any number of untested variables is, yes, what I call marketing BS. Chromogenic paper in general hasn't even been around a third that time; and all the older varieties faded or at least yellowed rather badly. Such testing might have real advantages in terms of improving a category of product; but we're talking about relative permanence. Putting hypothetical numbers of years on such things is simply unethical. Don't go for that snake oil talk.