This must be my month for finding lost paper. I have three freezers for my photo papers and film and over the last few years have been trying to deplete my old stock so I can restock the freezers with some of the film and papers currently available. I always keep my large enlarger desk drawer filled with 8x10 papers, I'm currently printing with and yesterday I found a box of Orwo silk grade 3 paper I bought from Freestyle in the 1980's, stuck in the back of the drawer. It has never been refrigerated so I assumed it would be fogged to uselessness. Boy! was I surprised. It was perfect. I remember buying 10 boxes of it for wedding prints as kodak had stopped producing the y surface. This paper tones in selenium, beautifully and tonality looks very much like Portriga. Does anyone know what ever happened to Orwo and if any of their papers are being made by another manufacturer under a different name?
Denise Libby