Kodak paper surfaces history

[sun of sand]

http://notesonphotographs.eastmanho...ter_1:_Kodak_Alphabet_Soup:_What's_in_a_name?


Just found this
Kit Funderburk come on here for a minute offering his photographic paper booklet for free about a year ago
Always meant to e-mail him for one but never got around to it


Anyway, just kind of neat

 

[bsdunek]

For those of us that have been around for many years (I won't say how many), remember all the great Kodak supplies. I still have a 50's book of Kodak papers. They had so many that we don't have today. I miss them.

 

[Jeff Kubach]

Interesting!

Jeff

 

[jgjbowen]

Thanks for posting this info.

 

[Mike Wilde]

It is nice to see it on the web. I bought the publications from Kit last year, and have read through them. My dad managed a factory that was once part of the Dorr Oliver group that made pulp and paper and mining/milling and sewage treatment equipment (all surprisingly have common characteristics, at an abstract level) and I have similar publications of what they did.

To some degree these publications fit to my desire to do document when we actually made physical things here in our local economy. Today I see so much that we here locally just want to create paperwork and be entertained with devices produced in a foreign land and brought ot our shores on the backa os cheap oil. Perhaps with the possibility of oil getting more pricey the concept of local manufacturig will return.

 

[Michel Hardy-Vallée]

If one also needs concrete examples of Kodak surfaces, my recommendation is to get an edition of the Darkroom Dataguide, especially the older editions with colourful dials and charts. They contain paper samples for all major Kodak products at the time the guide is produced.

They're a dime a dozen around eBay, and worth the read.

 

[Clay2]

Still have my 1960's editions of Kodak B&W Darkroom guides with sample of their papers.

/Clay

 

[nworth]

An interesting history. Kodak papers were once available in a huge variety of surfaces - many colors an textures. I have attached a table from an old Photo Lab Index (late 40s or early 50s) that shows what was available near the peak. There was pretty good demand for this variety at the time. Eventually, the selection diminished, probably due to lack of demand and to the discontinuation of Opal. But even in 1971 there was a large number to choose from. The second attachment is from the "Kodak Professional Papers" booklet of 1971. The number of surfaces available today from all manufacturers is only a fraction of what we have here. Also, we used to have paper colors - white, cream white, old ivory. There is nothing like that now. Ink jet papers give you some choice, but not the rich variety of the old photo papers. And ink jet prints are not like silver-gelatin.

 

[Photo Engineer]

Azo paper alone came coated on 19 kinds of paper support. They have samples at George Eastman House.

Kit has done a wonderful job compiling this history for us all.

PE

 

[sun of sand]

Dataguides are great for their paper samples but the large official samplers are on a whole other level
I got to meet a local daguerreotypist and avid collector who has many of those books by numerous makers
I would never pay the prices those go for -$200 or so? but awesome

I see Opal was discontinued in 72
I've read what seems to be saying Opal is Kodak Athena -contact paper- but with higher speed for enlarging. Is it possible to maintain all characteristics of a presumably chloride contact paper with bromide added to the emulsion for greater speed ..or is that just marketing? Close but not quite?
I've never read anything about Athena cept for people saying they really liked it when available. Opal seems to have had a great following. Karsh used Opal V suede surface ..I just picked up a 1972 box of the same paper to check out.

Read Ektalure replaced Opal but not sure of that myself. Not a direct replacement, anyway.
I have a warm and very slow selective contrast paper Portralure -matte- which is a beautiful paper. Never see that paper talked of but it's in the dataguides frequently.
Portralure is slightly slower than Opal but I don't believe it's touted as a slow contact the way Opal is. ?

Base paper tints would be great to have a selection of ..seems that accounts for a lot of warmth. Emulsions seem to depend more on developer ?


But yeah
Thanks Kit

..onedaygeorgeeastmanhouse

 

[Photo Engineer]

I used to use Opal G for enlarging and Medalist Vellum for enlarging. They were beautiful papers.

Kit is one of our regulars at our GEH lunches.

PE

 

[Rlibersky]

thanks for the link

 

[sun of sand]

sure ..figured you'd be one of those interested.

Kit went by papermaker here if anyone ..maybe he still gives his booklets away


Tried out my Opal V suede just now as it came today
Contact printed an overdeveloped negative with 100wt bulb 20 seconds in D-55 w/ extra bromide added
No fog that I can tell and this was top sheet

I'm not sure the surface does a whole lot for the rocky creek waterfall scene but perhaps it did suit faces very well
It feels great but not sure the tactile means much
to me feels more like a wet/dry sandpaper ..maybe 400 grit ..or a very rough suede.

 

[Neanderman]

I used to use Opal G for enlarging and Medalist Vellum for enlarging.

I miss the old A surface. It was a favorite for photos to bind into books, primarily theses and dissertations, I think. I got to print some photos for my brother-in-law's dissertation on it. I always figured it would be fun to make a book with it sometime.

Ed

 

[papermaker]

http://notesonphotographs.eastmanho...ter_1:_Kodak_Alphabet_Soup:_What's_in_a_name?


Just found this
Kit Funderburk come on here for a minute offering his photographic paper booklet for free about a year ago
Always meant to e-mail him for one but never got around to it


Anyway, just kind of neat

Thanks for mentioning this. I didn't comment earlier because the version on the web site at that time was not yet complete. It is now complete and has been publicly announced by the George Eastman House -- www.notesonphotographs.org -- if the second edition does not come up on the first page, go to Resource References, Authored Articles, and look for my name.

For anyone who asked for copies of the first edition of the B&W book, you might want to take a look at this one as it has additional info, illustrations, schematics of papermachines and baryta coaters, examples of surface textures, and some corrections to things I didn't get quite right the first time.

There is both an on-line edition which has links to a glossary and illustrations that can be enlarged and a PDF version which can be printed out in book format.

Kit Funderburk

 

[Tim Gray]

Cool. I snagged the pdf - very nice work!

 

[sepiareverb]

Where is the pdf version? I'm not finding it, but I really want to print this out.

 

[willrea]

Where is the pdf version? I'm not finding it, but I really want to print this out.

It can be found Dead Link Removed.

 

[sepiareverb]

Fantastic. Many thanks Willrea.

 

[Ronald Moravec]

Kodak Darkroom Data Book. Samples included of simply georgeous papers you will never see otherwise.

Mine is from 1965 about.

 

[Clay2]

Yup, I still have my 1960's Kodak Darkroom Guides with paper samples.
Miss Kodabromide paper a lot.
Best regards,
/Clay

 

[Jim Chinn]

I have a Data Guide from the 70s and a larger Kodak book that a dealer gave me when he was going out of business. It was from the early eighties and had 8x10 samples of all of Kodak's papers at the time. I have to admit I get somewhat melancholy when I look at both and think about all the papers that used to be available.

While at a used book sale I picked up Ilford publication from the early 60s similar to the Kodak Data Guide. I'll have to check, but I don't recall it having any paper samples.