Quite a while ago and perhaps not even on this forum I was lamenting the loss of my favorite paper! Freestyle's "Europes Finest Warmtone Graded #2".
Happily, it's back! Hopefully for a good long run!
I had bought some of the J&C Classic Museum Triple weight in Normal contrast and finally got to give it some testing this weekend. It didn't take long to recognize an old friend. And a favorite to boot.
This paper requires an extremely long scale negative. More like what you would dismiss as a development error that would want a #1 filter in VC paper. Since I try to develop my negs as dual purpose for both PT/PD and AZO, I had tailored many negs to that standard, and was getting sumptuous prints on the old Freestyle papers. Then Freestyle dropped them and I was looking elsewhere.
The J&C Paper is simply gorgeous. Triple weight, it behaves marvelously and tones almost too quicly in selenium. I was giving about 75 seconds in 1:20 and snatching them out just as the oil green/black begins to turn to purple. Blacks on this paper will register way above 2 on the densitometer. About 2.2 if I recall, after toning.
I've posted 3 pictures at the standard gallery with all the usual caveats about poor scans and smallish .jpg's. Still you may be able to get a sense of what the 12X15's look like.
Happily, it's back! Hopefully for a good long run!
I had bought some of the J&C Classic Museum Triple weight in Normal contrast and finally got to give it some testing this weekend. It didn't take long to recognize an old friend. And a favorite to boot.
This paper requires an extremely long scale negative. More like what you would dismiss as a development error that would want a #1 filter in VC paper. Since I try to develop my negs as dual purpose for both PT/PD and AZO, I had tailored many negs to that standard, and was getting sumptuous prints on the old Freestyle papers. Then Freestyle dropped them and I was looking elsewhere.
The J&C Paper is simply gorgeous. Triple weight, it behaves marvelously and tones almost too quicly in selenium. I was giving about 75 seconds in 1:20 and snatching them out just as the oil green/black begins to turn to purple. Blacks on this paper will register way above 2 on the densitometer. About 2.2 if I recall, after toning.
I've posted 3 pictures at the standard gallery with all the usual caveats about poor scans and smallish .jpg's. Still you may be able to get a sense of what the 12X15's look like.
