Matte colour paper

koraks

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I'm not familiar with Superia paper. Does it exist? AFAIK the product name 'Superia' is only used for consumer grade color print film.
Crystal Archive comes in many roll sizes depending on the specific product. For instance Crystal Archive DPII comes in rolls up to 50", while e.g. Crystal Archive Supreme HD only comes in rolls up to 12".
 

DREW WILEY

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Per those links - That's all undoubtedly just regular CAii cut sheet product. "Superia" is a higher grade (thicker) CA paper with more snap, but yes, unfortunately sized for the premium photofinisher market in only narrow rolls. DPii is an entirely different product. DP apparently stands for "digital portrait" paper; but it apparently works fine with ordinary optical enlarging too, and is said to be easier to get in the UK. None of these are top of the line Crystal Archive papers.
 

koraks

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I don't see any listing of Superia paper on originalphotopaper.com. I've never seen it listed at any retailer here in Europe either. Is it a relabeled product for the American market? Or are you talking about "Supreme", which is indeed one of the CA types?
 

DREW WILEY

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oops ... you're right. My typo. Superia is one of their films. It is Supreme, the paper.
 

sillo

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Does anyone know if the line of Fuji Professional papers (Type P, PDN, CN) are suitable for darkroom use? Fuji seems to heavily emphasize the "digital" compatibility on the overview/specs of these papers. On other papers that are marketed as digital they'll also mention it's also suitable for optically enlarging. I'm looking for rolls of something better than Crystal Archive Type II. There's also Supreme, but I can't tell if that's actually a better paper or just essentially a thicker version of CA type II.
 

lantau

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DPII (Roman II) is Fujis Digital paper in my market. Maybe a touch thicker than CA-II premium? Only Maxima is more premium and not available in rolls small enough for a home user.

DPII works very well for optical enlargements. I guess all their RA4 papers work. Drew Ailey seems to use them all.
 

sillo

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Ended up ordering a roll of Fuji PDn lustre so I'll report back once I make some prints. I was looking for the type Cn matte originally, but like all the other good stuff it's sold out everywhere in the sizes I was looking for.
 

DREW WILEY

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It took me 7 months to finally get delivery of the big roll of Fuji paper I ordered. Just the way things are at the moment. Fortunately, my RA4 chem is still good.
 

mshchem

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B&H has no stock of Fuji CA cut paper in 8x10 or 11x14. I ordered a box of 8x10 glossy from Unique. Sounds like Fuji is trying hard to keep paper coming.
I suspect that cut sheets are a low priority.
 

DREW WILEY

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Freestyle still has most of the CAii cut sheet selection currently in stock.
 

brbo

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I don't know if I posted this on Photrio already.

CA Supreme:



Maxima:




(from 35mm Kodak Ektar 100 negative of obviously a fairly high contrast scene)
 

koraks

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brbo said:
I don't know if I posted this on Photrio already.
Click to expand...

If so, I hadn't seen it and it's very useful, many thanks!

I notice that:
* You use an additive light source - that's nice, so do I.
* The Maxima does give higher contrast which was probably (?) the main reason why you chose to adjust exposure for the Maxima print.
* You adjusted both color filtration between the prints, but I do note that the reduction in Blue is accompanied by an overall cooler tone in particularly the sky on the Maxima print - would you say that the color balance itself matches fairly well between Supreme and Maxima, but that Maxima gives more saturation?

In any case, this gives me some not entirely welcome food for thought - it appears that Maxima might be the replacement for the Endura I can't get anymore, and that means I might have to seriously start thinking about manhandling larger rolls than I'd like with higher unit costs than I'd prefer as well. Darn.
 

brbo

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koraks said:
* The Maxima does give higher contrast which was probably (?) the main reason why you chose to adjust exposure for the Maxima print.
Click to expand...

In this case I tried to match the prints as best as I could but in trying to do that I found out that going for a perfect match I was ending up with a print that was not that good judged by itself. If that makes any sense (it was also already dark outside and my poor kitchen lights certainly didn't help either). Same times just wouldn't work for both prints.


Again, this was a balancing act. I would prefer to dial out the cooler (cyan) cast of the sky in Maxima print, but that would lead to an odd rendition of the grass and ground. It might be that there is a slight cross in Maxima or just that the combination of high contrast/saturation of paper and negative is very unforgiving.


Here is Endura (this was before I learned that I need to use stop for Endura to give me purer whites - the scan makes the difference quite pronounced when in reality and good light the print looks much closer to Maxima if you let the eye adjust for the fact that Endura will never have as pure whites as Fuji papers):

 

koraks

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brbo said:
If that makes any sense
Click to expand...

Yeah, absolutely. I get the problem of the balancing act and also the issue of trying to shift the sky away from cyan only to have problems emerge in the grass.
If it helps - sometimes what looks 'natural' in the final print wasn't the actual palette in reality. I.e. perhaps the sky was slightly cyan (it does that, sometimes quite vividly!) and/or perhaps the grass was really quite yellow (it does *that* even more often it seems). You get my drift...

Thanks for the Endura follow-up. Endura seems to age rather badly, at least that's my experience. Based on your images, I'd say that the Maxima really is an interesting paper. If I hadn't just gotten two smaller rolls of Supreme a few weeks ago I might have jumped the gun already.
 

pentaxuser

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Yes, I agree. I do I feel that more often than we realise the sky is closer to cyan that we think was the case when we look at a print at a later date

Certainly in the U.K. the sky often is as close if not closer to cyan than what our faulty memory permits us to believe. It's as if our memory is conditioned to a form of deep azure blue that often is just not the case even on bright sunny days It is certainly not the deep blue of "Monument Valley" that seemed always to be the case in the John Wayne Westerns

pentaxuser
 

sillo

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Anybody with a roll of fuji paper or with knowledge of fuji paper know the opening size in the core? I want to make a simple dispenser out of pvc pipe to hold the roll while cutting it down and just want to know what size pipe to buy.
 

DREW WILEY

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I dunno. I only work with large rolls, which have about a 2 inch diameter inner cardboard tube. I just use a length of 1-5/8 inch diameter ordinary wooden handrail to support the roll beneath the cutting table. Outside diameters of the rolls vary.

Pentaxuser. There are two issues. Ektar is not artificially warmed like most color neg films are with their "portrait" color bias, and can go too cyan unless warm filtered at the time of the shot. It's fantastic with truly turquoise tropical waters. The sky itself has distinctly changed to less blue than it once was. That cleared up a bit somewhat during the pandemic due to greatly reduced airliner flights. But I've got a high altitude shot from the mountains in one of my color enlargers right now, taken during a storm a few years ago, with the sky such an intense blue as I haven't seen for decades, even at high altitude. Most people would probably accuse me of artificially saturating it with PS; but it's a straight optical enlargement of real film.
 

foc

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sillo said:
Anybody with a roll of fuji paper or with knowledge of fuji paper know the opening size in the core? I want to make a simple dispenser out of pvc pipe to hold the roll while cutting it down and just want to know what size pipe to buy.
Click to expand...

IIRC the cardboard core for roll paper, as used in a lab, is 3 inch. Sometimes they also come with plastic core adaptors but they can be removed easily.

Just remember that roll paper can be heavy, depending on the size and roll length.
 

DREW WILEY

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My rolls are way too heavy for realistic use of PVC pipe as an inner support. Need something stiffer.
 

sillo

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Thanks guys. It's only a 10"x275' roll so its pretty light in the grand scheme of paper rolls.
 

koraks

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sillo said:
It's only a 10"x275' roll so its pretty light in the grand scheme of paper rolls.
Click to expand...

PVC pipe will work just fine for that I think. From experience I can say that it really helps to have a spindle that is not too small. I'm using one that really is too small (just because I had it lying around anyway) and it prevents the roll from rolling off smoothly. It works, but it's not ideal. A proper spindle on a proper axle would be nicer.

I'll try to remember to save the spindle of the current roll I'm on which will probably be finished over the next few weeks or so. I can then give a measurement. 3" sounds about right though.
 
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