Digital BW, The Print

I've read with interest the posts about optical brighteners in inkjet 
papers. I have just a comment or two to add.

The absolute safest thing in terms of permanence is probably to 
use papers with no optical brightening agents. However, this 
comes with a trade-off in terms of how white the paper can be.

I think that in the long run, brighteners will be routinely used in 
fine art inkjet papers. I base this on the history of darkroom 
papers. It may be true that the Library of Congress wants its 
storage materials to be OBA-free. Why not? There's nothing lost 
for them if the paper is a little less white. But I wonder what their 
position is on the photographs that may be inside those very 
storage materials? Optical brighteners are in the prints of 
virtually every black and white photographer since the 1960's. Are 
the prints by Ansel Adams, Brett Weston, Paul Caponigro, etc,. 
etc. now to be deemed "non-archival?"

We are in a shake-out period for inkjet papers. We should be 
cautious, but not panic.

I'd like to know whether the brighteners used in, say, Legion 
Photo Matte, are the same ones that are used in Oriental Seagull 
or Agfa Brovira. Or are they something new and untested? I do 
feel leery about trusting a paper with unknown brightening 
agents unless it has at least been lab-tested. But this doesn't 
change the overall fact that bright whites are a major aesthetic 
issue. And in the case of fine art photography, the decision was 
made long ago that brighteners could be safe enough, and were 
valuable enough, to include in archival materials.

--David