Digital BW, The Print

By the color ( same as Photorag ) you can tell that Innova Smooth Cotton  
does have some optical brighteners. I don't belive the Soft Texture does but 
I'm not sure about that. You can call Jim at Shades Of Paper and ask him. He 
is the expert. That is new to me that German Etching has brighteners. If it does 
they are very minimal.

I used to be afraid of even using Photorag because of this issue. But then it 
was pointed out to me that all the gelatin silver prints that my photo heroes 
used since the 1940's also had them as do many traditional Intaglio 
printmaking media. I do spray these ob papers  with the uv sprays which I 
believe will lessen the potential for problems down the line. However, if you 
look at Wilhelm's test results of Somerset Velvet that contains quite a bit of 
ob's, its stability ratings are as high or higher than other media that do not 
have them. So, apparently it is not a singular factor. There are other 
considerations. As someone pointed out on this group a while back, not all 
ob's are created equal. There are some that deteriorate more quickly while 
others are much more stable, just as in the situation with the ph of coatings 
and paper bases.

It would be nice to have a whole scientific paper describing these things 
though, wouldn't it. So to a degree we wouldn't have to speculate.

My personal feeling is that Innova is in this for the long haul, have done their 
homework, and they know the repercussions of mistakes and bad press. 

Paul Roark may be able to comment more fully on all this. He's actually done 
comparison tests of many papers in this regard.

John