Digital BW, The Print

Doug,

> ... I am on a quest to get my BW prints to be like what I remember
> our old darkroom prints  looking and feeling like ...
> I use paul roarks curves with my 1280 and ut2/glop inks.
> 
> Results with kirkland are great ...
> Epson prem semi-gloss is good if I use print sheild spray,
> but not quite the right surface...

Sorry I never did get to the PSM in the 1280.  I'm not sure when I will
given your report.  It sounds like it's not doing as well as the Kirkland.
I'm not surprised.  I always spray my PSM prints.



> So now I just remembered that i have a whole box of ilford smooth pearl
> 13x19 sitting here, also have some in letter size. WOW, the image
> quality is as good as kirkland, and with glop, there is a perfectly
> bronzing-free finish. ...

> So now my main question:
> I know that ilford smooth papers are not acid buffered like kirkland
> and epson premium semigloss, but what does that actually mean in terms
> of years? The Epson papers have a really long rating like 200
> years.....so would the ilford papers last 50 years?

I've read something where they rated them at 30 years.

I'd wait a couple of days and look again at the Ilford prints.  Maybe it's
just me, but I had the impression some of the bronzing came back.  In
general, my impression is that Glop is only 100% successful with Kirkland.

Paul
www.PaulRoark.com