POP (Printing out paper)

Shan Ren · Mar 24, 2009

I am new here and trying my way around the interface. Have tried search without luck. Does anyone here know the status of POP manufacture? I have heard rumours about it being discontinued as the factory was bought and closed. Any one know?

Kerik · Mar 24, 2009

Ka-put. RIP.

Ian Grant · Mar 24, 2009

Ilford can't make the Centennial POP paper that was formerly made by Kentmere. The reasons are in a thread last week concerning Kentmere products.

You can make your own, look on the Unblinkingeye website. There are quite a number of POP formulae around, the problem is if you want to coat a baryta paper support rather than a water-colour paper.

Ian

Anton Lukoszevieze · Mar 24, 2009

Make salt prints! Cheap and easy. You can wax them too for glossy detail.

Trevor Crone · Mar 24, 2009

Print on Lodima Fine Art silver chloride contact paper and selenium tone. This paper is capable of wonderful tonality.

Trevor.

Bob F. · Mar 24, 2009

Shan Ren said:
I am new here and trying my way around the interface. Have tried search without luck. Does anyone here know the status of POP manufacture? I have heard rumours about it being discontinued as the factory was bought and closed. Any one know?

Official press release and resultant discussions here: (there was a url link here which no longer exists)

Ian Grant · Mar 24, 2009

Trevor Crone said:
Print on Lodima Fine Art silver chloride contact paper and selenium tone. This paper is capable of wonderful tonality.
Trevor.

Lodima Fine Art is very different to Printing out paper and so wouldn't be a substitute, POP's are self masking during exposure unlike most other papers.

Ian

Trevor Crone · Mar 24, 2009

Ian Grant said:
Lodima Fine Art is very different to Printing out paper and so wouldn't be a substitute, POP's are self masking during exposure unlike most other papers.

Ian

I know that Ian for I've printed on both and I'm not saying its an absolute substitute; in fact I still have 25 sheets of POP left Lodima selenium toned has a very similar look to POP when gold toned and Lodima has a wonderful tonal scale particularly when developed in amidol, again in my opinion equal to POP's self-masking properties. Seeing is believing.

Photo Engineer · Mar 24, 2009

Most POP papers are considered to have limited lifetime and the formulas I have fit into that category. Anyone have any comments on the longevity of POP raw stock?

Thanks.

PE

Trevor Crone · Mar 24, 2009

Photo Engineer said:
Most POP papers are considered to have limited lifetime and the formulas I have fit into that category. Anyone have any comments on the longevity of POP raw stock?

Thanks.

PE

I don't know about raw stock, but my stock of paper is about four years old which I keep refrigerated and just take out what I need. It still looks good, unlike stuff I've simply stored at room temp. (21C).

Trevor.

Photo Engineer · Mar 24, 2009

Thanks Trevor. The article on unblinkingeye says that 24 - 48 hours is enough to cause the paper to go bad and this has been what I have gotten as experiences by friends. There must be something that goes into making a "better" POP.

One thing is that a POP is made with high silver wrt to salt and this causes fog. Published formulas are unwashed, but Ilford mentions that the Kentmere POP must be washed before coating. So, I wonder......

PE

Trevor Crone · Mar 24, 2009

I assume mine is the old Kentmere POP as I purchased it from Retro Photographic here in the UK.

Trevor.

Chazzy · Mar 24, 2009

Well, we certainly have plenty of people on APUG who like to experiment with home-brewing emulsions, so here's an opportunity for them to experiment with the old POP recipes and maybe even improve upon them.

dwross · Mar 24, 2009

Chazzy said:
Well, we certainly have plenty of people on APUG who like to experiment with home-brewing emulsions, so here's an opportunity for them to experiment with the old POP recipes and maybe even improve upon them.

It's the next thing up on The Lightfarm ToDo list. Hopefully, our recipe will be joined by many others.

Denise
www.thelightfarm.com

Kirk Keyes · Mar 24, 2009

Has anyone tried soaking regular paper with citric or acetic acid or the sodium salts of these acids?

I understand that POP papers used silver acetate or citrate in addition to silver chloride. The organic acid gives the released bromide something to be stabilized with during the long POP exposures.

Photo Engineer · Mar 24, 2009

Kirk;

Most formulas have Sodium Citrate in them.

Chazzy;

POP is not a "classical" silver halide emulsion. It is more akin to albumen than a true grown silver halide and more properly belongs in the early years of photography in the 19th century.

PE

Ian Grant · Mar 24, 2009

Surprisingly the most recent Patent (that I've read) relating to POP papers dates from 1956. It has to do with stability and improving keeping properties of POP's which is done using a Sodium Metaborate coating to the back of each sheet, which is in contact with the emulsion surface of the next sheet. An extension to this is to use Sodium Metaborate interleaving impregnated sheets of thin paper.

Kentmere use a thin interleaving sheet but whether theirs were impregnated with something I don't know.

It isn't that many years since Ilford stopped making their own POP paper, it wasn't sold to Photographers, instead it was packaged in education packs for schools for children to explre light sensitivity and make photograms etc.

There is still a need for POP's as it's one of the best methods for getting the best prints from many older pyro developed glass plate, although of course you could use digital I suppose

Ian

Shan Ren · Mar 24, 2009

hmmmmm thanks for the info all. I wanted to do a series of images but no.

To the person who said salt prints, thanks, but you do realise it is a different look don't you? Albumen is closer.

Anton Lukoszevieze · Mar 24, 2009

Not necessarily, check out Frances Scully Osterman's waxed collodion salt prints.
http://www.collodion.org/Sleep.html

RobertP · Mar 25, 2009

Mark and Frances' waxed salt prints have no collodion. The wet plate collodion glass negative is where the collodion is involved, not on the actual print. But a waxed salt print has a different look than the sheen of an albumen print. Wax can be applied to almost any print from a platinum/palladium to an inkjet and it is as simple as it sounds and that is applying it to the surface. An albumen print on the other hand is albumenized before it is sensitized in silver nitrate which gives it a different look than a salt print that has been waxed.

Anton Lukoszevieze · Mar 25, 2009

Robert
my grammar was not clear, yes of course there is no collodion on the print, I make salt prints from wet-plate collodion negatives myself, so I should have been more precise.
How would you describe the difference between a waxed print and an albumen print?

Rolleiflexible · Mar 25, 2009

I am interested in this "waxed
salt print" process. Are you
talking about a salt print with
wax applied to the surface?
Can you elaborate, or point
me in the direction of an online
description of the process?

Anton Lukoszevieze · Mar 25, 2009

Sanders,
Yes, a salt print with applied wax to surface. The wax is gently applied to the surface of the print with a cloth and rubbed in carefully.
I only have texts about waxing prints in books I have. Online, you can look at salt prints that are waxed at Mark Osterman's site http://www.collodion.org/Sleep.html, by his wife Frances, as I posted earlier. A typical wax is bees wax mixed with lavender oil. I don't believe that salt prints are inferior to albumen prints in image quality, others may disagree! A useful book is any good artists book on encaustics, there is also a 19th century book on silver printing I have which is also online http://albumen.stanford.edu/library/monographs/reilly/chap1.html

Photo Engineer · Mar 25, 2009

Having seen France's work (as well as Mark's) I can say that they are very good. Mark and France do salt prints, albumen prints and POP prints. Mark teaches all 3 in his workshops at GEH.

PE

Rolleiflexible · Mar 25, 2009

I've been fishing around for an alternate
process for printing my portraits. I usually
print my negatives with a 3 or 3 1/2 filter
onto Agfa MCC 111, or on Grade 4 Emaks,
using an Aristo cold light head, so I gather
they aren't dense enough for POP, and by
extension probably not dense enough for
albumen papers. Would a waxed salt paper
work for my negatives, do you suppose?
(Apologies for hijacking the thread.)

POP (Printing out paper)

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