New black and white fibre-based papers from Ilford

I too will mourn the passing of MG-IV FB, but at the same time I am looking forward to using the new MG-Classic FB.

One thing that will be good for lovers of MG-IV FB, is that dealers may sell off existing stocks of it at lower prices to start selling the new papers more quickly.

I do like a bargain.

Dear Ralph,

We dont want to loose you !............

MGIV was a great product, so surely to launch a new product means that our product developers and technical services are confident that it is a better product, which of course we are.

As always, change can be challenging, but nobody ever asked us for MGIII after MGIV was launched.

I have printed with the new paper(s) and really like them, especially the COOLTONE as I prefer cooler images to warmer ones, but remember I'm really a graded guy and on FB usually only ever print with ILFOBROM GALERIE.

Simon ILFORD Photo / HARMAN technology Limited.

Long live GALERIE!

Over thirty years ago, the late writer, David Vestal, was appreciative of Ilford stepping up with this great paper to answer photographers paper concerns. Vestal lead the polling request for manufacturers to formulate the best paper.

Galerie is the best paper by far (new MG papers on the way soon) that I've printed with, so sharp, and great tonality. Adox MCC 110 was much better than MGIV - not sharp and I suspect the curve of my negatives is not well matched; but it will be interesting to compare to the Classic paper. Most excited about the 'Cooltone' product as this is a unique offering. I'd still be surprised if anything can beat ILFOBROM GALERIE.

Any chance of the Harman cool tone developer coming back, surely more rational than Pan F+ in 5"x4" ... ?

Tom

I would die if Galerie went away. I am just remorse that the new Coldtone doesn't have the same finish.

Tom Kershaw said:

surely more rational than Pan F+ in 5"x4" ... ?

Tom

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Really? That would be cool.

VaryaV said:

I would die if Galerie went away. I am just remorse that the new Coldtone doesn't have the same finish.



Really? That would be cool.

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Pan F+ in 5"x4" is one of the products that has been requested in the past but I don't think the emulsion is compatible with a polyester sheet film base and Harman wouldn't think it worthwhile to develop. Delta 100 and FP4+ are hardly lacking in large format anyway.

Tom

Tom, you got me going there for a minute. I just started shooting PanF+ again over the holidays, and jumped when I saw your comment. Drat!

I have packs of D100 and FP4+ in the frig.

I had only one long session with the new Cooltone - bought a box of 16X20 - printed large format negs with both a blue-green cold light and an additive
colorhead. An easy paper to use, and got superb results quickly. But it does print very fast, esp compared to MGWT. The tonal gradation into the high
tones and shadows was perceptibly much better than MGIV. With amidol and a tad of gold toner I got wonderful silvery true black rendition, with none of
that greenish residue inherent to MGIV. Responded well to modest selenium toning - I say modest, because this is a paper I bought deliberately for classic cool tones, not for some kind of antique brown effect. In a different session I'll try one of my MQ blue-black tweaks, just to see what happens. The surface of the wet paper is a bit fragile, and the gelatin dries somewhat glossy. Response to Farmer's Reducer was so-so. I don't know whether or not it will achieve the kind of bold graphic blacks characteristic of olden Seagull G or Brilliant Bromide, since I'm obviously still in the early stages of testing - but
anything where a long-scale sparkly silvery gradation is involved certainly seems like the domain of this particular paper. It will be interesting to compare
it with the "neutral tone" Classic product. I had a bit of an issue getting the overnite dried paper to lie flat (and the humidity here is quite low at the moment - a severe drought, in fact), so I just gave it half a minute in the drymount press before placing it under my big sheet of plate glass with the
other prints awaiting drymounting. That seemed to do the trick nicely. This paper is a very welcome addition to my darkroom arsenal.

Tom Kershaw said:

Galerie is the best paper by far (new MG papers on the way soon) that I've printed with, so sharp, and great tonality. Adox MCC 110 was much better than MGIV - not sharp and I suspect the curve of my negatives is not well matched; but it will be interesting to compare to the Classic paper. Most excited about the 'Cooltone' product as this is a unique offering. I'd still be surprised if anything can beat ILFOBROM GALERIE.

Any chance of the Harman cool tone developer coming back, surely more rational than Pan F+ in 5"x4" ... ?

Tom

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Why do you think MCC 110 much better than MGIV? It responds less to selenium (though it does respond slightly) but I made direct comparisons and when dry was hard pressed to tell the difference between untoned MCC 110 prints and untoned MGIV prints. I could only tell them apart from the notes I wrote on the back.

'Much better' is probably an exaggeration but I found MCC 110 sharper with a tonality that suited my negatives, although I've printed XP2 super negatives onto MGIV with some success.

Tom

MCC110 has a kind of "depth" to it, a lovely microtonality characteristic of silver-rich papers. It certainly has its limitations in the cool direction. But I have comparison printed the same negs with it as with MGWT. The new Cooltone is richer in this respect (tonal separation) than MGIV, and will deliver a true black - which gets me past the inevitable purplish black of MCC and the greenish black of MGIV. Which is "better" really depends on the specific image. I work with all these papers. When I want a true warm tone paper, well ... I don't think it can get much better than MGWT. But I don't like comparing apples to oranges, esp VC versus graded papers, which are now nearly extinct, and are apparently more expensive to manufacture at a high-quality level.

I agree that MCC 110 has lovely tonality. I have an 11x14 hanging on my wall made on it, and a 15x15 (roughly) from a 6x6 Pan F+ negative on my mother and father in laws wall, also printed on it. I was surprised though when I made test prints, admittedly only to 8x10, and had a hard time telling the dry prints apart between MCC 110 and MGIV. The biggest difference, which gives it away on a very close look, was that the contrast couldn't be matched exactly using my filters. In and after toning they began to show more difference with the MGIV going more purple sooner.

I have not compared MCC 110 directly with MGWT as I use the latter for warm results and have been using the former (though mulling a change to MGIV until these new papers came along) for neutral results after light se toning.

The differences in microtonality certainly shows up better when printing something richly detailed to begin with, esp from an 8x10 neg. I did print one unsharp-masked 8x10 onto the new Cooltone, and that was definitely a gradation wow, though there are a few dodge/burn tricks on that particular image which warrant a re-printing in another session. As usual, one never knows the result exactly until a true dry-down, all toned. But this new VC cool paper has its own distinct personality - neither that of MGIV or Kentmere Fineprint. The image color reminds me more of Galerie graded, but might in fact be slightly cooler. I haven't used Galerie in a long time, and can't even buy it locally except in 11x14. My main question at this point will be comparing the new "neutral tone" VC to what Fineprint would do, which was also nominally neutral, but would go wonderfully cool with the right developer and toning regimen. It's probable that I'll keep all three of Ilford's VCFB papers
on hand, since I have such a wide range of negs to work from. ... but again, time will tell.

It was mentioned that this paper has a 50% less washing requirement. Does anyone here have an opinion on this, and if so how would this be possible?
Asked this question on another site without a good answer on how this is possible.

I'd ask them directly about that, Bob. I often use more than one type of paper in a printing session, with different kinds of toners. So, even
though I use "archival" TF4 fixer for all of them, still give my standard one-hour wash, regardless. I might have to rethink that, now that water
rationing is a possibility - we're having by far our driest year on record here in California.

Looking at the data sheets the washing details (with washaid) are the same across the 'old' MGIV, Classic, Cooltone and ART300 papers. Possibly someone on a forum got surprised by the "optimal permanence" procedure which is suggested by Ilford??

The newer papers are a bit shorter on plain-water washing than the MGIV (15m less), but not surprisingly different.

Thanks for explaining that Martin. I thought it might be because the Cooltone, I noticed, is so much glossier than other papers I have worked with outside of rc. I thought the finish might almost be sort of a 'cross' between rc and fb, (just the finish) but I don't know that much about the finishing process.

Well, I'm just making a guess at how the short-washing meme started !! For example, the ART300 has a different base to it (it feels different and it floats more) , from Hannemuhle, and has some limits on maximum wet-time which aren't repeated in the leaflets for the newest papers, so they certainly aren't exactly the same in that respect.

I've counted my heap of Kentmere and am wondering whether to use it all up, or not, before ordering some Cooltone . . . Probably it is sensible to print a couple of negs on both papers, so I get a clear idea of the differences and advantages, so I'll be commenting first-hand in a couple of weeks

FWIW I don't like the finish on the Cooltone at all. I DO like the cold tone of the paper and it looked great in Edwal, but I'm used to using Galerie (and Foma MG) and I just don't like the texture or the finish at all. I haven't tried Galerie in Edwal yet, to get similar ultra blacks, but if I can come close I won't need to use it.

Let us know how you like it.

Thanks. But I haven't seen any evidence of brighteners washing out within a reasonable work session of several hours. Obviously, a batch of prints gets washed together, and just sit in a tray prior. Overnite would be another issue, though the emulsion itself risks frilling at that point.
Generally when I work with Warmtone the glycin itself or maybe a sulfide toner will stain the base a bit anyway. ... At least that seems to best explain the slight difference between the base color of specific prints on MGWT, even from the same printing session. The whole question of added brighteners seems a bit questionable in an "archival" context. I'd like to see that subject addressed by someone, and not just in relation to washing. One more whatever.

Martin - Cooltone and Fineprint are quite different in a number of respects; and according to my initial results, I anticipate using Cooltone for
what it seems to do best, and not as a substitute for Fineprint. My bigger question is whether or not the new "neutral tone" Classic paper will
develop and tone more analogously to Fineprint. I particularly liked the way I could obtain a subtle but very rich split tones on Fineprint using a combination of both gold and selenium toners, after amidol development. It was nothing artsy/craftsy or obvious, like most people might visualize split toning, but allowed a very subtle kind of "depth" control that was at once stunning yet not readily identifiable. When I want something more conspicuous, I go straight to Warmtone, which splits or tri-s conspicuously. I still have a fair amt of 20x24 Fineprint on hand,
but due to budget reasons, couldn't really load up on the smaller sizes on its last run. I was an odd duck with that nutmeg-tinged silver idodide in conventional developer, and took a bit of experimenting to unlock its greater potential. That always seems to be the case. And I
enjoying learning new tricks with new papers anyway. The gloss level of the Cooltone doesn't bother me at all. ... in fact, I like it.

This will be interesting then, when the order arrives

I have used the Kentmere as a non-warm paper, if that makes sense. Sometimes with selenium, but really I haven't ever used toners adventurously. However, I was thinking of saving what Fineprint I have left for some exploration of lith printing (using Moersch EasyLith probably), but then I'd have to move to Foma papers if I liked the results I suppose.

At the moment,the Cooltone sounds more intriguing than the Classic, so I'll be looking at that first. It will be nice to see how the higher gloss and, perhaps, higher micro-contrast look together. Thank you for the good qualitative description of what can/could be done with the Fineprint.

Michael R 1974 said:

Roger, you might want to look at the comparative contrast test I posted for Classic vs MGIV. I haven't yet completed the test with MCC, but Classic is a very different paper than MGIV, especially if you are using a colour/VC head.

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I saw them. Excellent work and thanks for doing it. I am using a condenser head with filters in the drawer, but with an LED lamphouse. I can change back to the incandescent with PH211 or PH212 at whim though so I could try it both ways.

Well, this is a bummer. I had fresh MG developer, Wash Aid and 25 sheets of 8x10" of this paper arriving today, but UPS pulled it because the box was leaking. So much for this weekend's try-out.

My sequence is selenium tone , hypo clear five minutes, wash 1/2 hour - 1 hour.

Or 1 hour minimum without hypo clear.

I am very hesitant to reduce these times by 50%.