Hey up Stone......
How are you enjoying printing ?
Simon ILFORD Photo / HARMAN technology Limited
It's amazing!!!
It's intense....
Is exhausting....
I've used EVERY Ilford paper you produce except the cool tone FB/RC stuff.
My favorite RC is the Satin, and the second would be the Pearl.
Sadly except the first semester, it's all FB and apparently FB is the only accepted "fine art" paper, so...
My favorite FB paper? I am having a hard time finding what I like...
Paper TEXTURE is very important to me with the FB... The FB glossy is the only paper that shows any surface texture but I don't like the glossy reflection, under glass it's 2 reflections, very distracting when looking at a print.
I REALLY like the Art 300 paper you make in conjunction with hahnemuhle, however it's the opposite problem, TOO MUCH texture.
I wish you could make something like the Hahnemühle rag paper but less texture.
I've settled on the Ilford FB warmtone semi-matte for now.
I hear the newer cooltone fixes faster and washes faster and develops faster? Or something like that, I know people don't want to change the WT at all, but faster developing times and fix/wash times would be great, hope they improve the WT times without changing the rest since I'm sure that would upset everyone (even though it would be nice if the speed of the FB matched the speed of the RC so cheap test exposures could be made on RC before using the more expensive FB.
I've tried using the paper speeds to adjust for time when switching and it's futile because even though one is 100 speed (with a filter) and one is 50, doubling the time (or halving the time) doesn't EXACTLY match the test.
Those are my thoughts.
As you can tell I've been printing a LOT.
Today I made 7 prints for school on Ilford FB WT and two prints for me on Ilford Art 300 paper, all 8x10.
I've also tested Oriental paper (which seems to be EXACTLY like Ilford... Just saying...), and a FOMA paper, sadly I bought the wrong kind, I'm waiting on another shipment of the correct FOMA paper that I wanted to test. FOMA is MUCH slower than Ilford which I don't like, but the texture seems to be kind of what I'm looking for, but it also needs SIGNIFICANT pre-ordering/planning because it's shipped from Germany direct so I'm told and takes 2-3 weeks to receive vs Ilford at 2-3 DAYS to get.
Also, care to donate a whole set of 12x12 variable contrast filters to my cause for my new 8x10 Saltzman enlarger that I just got?
