Digital BW, The Print

Thanks for this, Clayton. As one of the jargon-challenged I really
appreciate your explanation.

Jim Kish

Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 18:33:43 -0000
From: "Clayton Jones" <cj@...>
Subject: Re: Will we be obsolete - it's the papers

>Peter: Since I know Ansel Adams' work more via some
>exquisite book reproductions, which were on rather
>glossy paper, I don't think of his work as being on
>matte paper.  I think of it as having the jet black
>blacks that I love

>Scott :Why is matte paper associated with "fine art?" Not a
>rhetorical question. I really don't understand the nature of
>this association.

There is some confusion here because of the term "glossy", plus modern
paper technology is blurring the distinction.  In the silver world the
opposing terms were "RC" and "Fiber", with fiber papers being
considered archival and RC papers not archival.  Fiber papers had
glossy and other surfaces to choose from.  The main distinction was
archivalness, but there was also a clear difference in appearance.
The glossiest fiber papers were not nearly as shiny and plasticky
looking as RC.  The phrase that is being used today for that paper is
"Air Dried Fiber Based Glossy", or ADFBG.  The air dried part is to
distinguish from ferrotyped prints (an ultra shiny machine drying
technique).  These were the most popular papers used by the fine art
folks, AA and all the rest.

In the Digi world the distinction has still been between archivalness,
but the archival papers were all cotton with matte surfaces, and the
non archival papers were the glossy ones, the equivalents of silver's
RC papers.  So in this world "glossy" has meant "bad" and "matte" has
meant "good".  Hence, Fine Art became associated with matte paper.  In
the silver world "glossy" didn't necessarily mean "bad".

However, some of the new "glossy" papers, and this includes the
semi-gloss/luster whatever papers, anything not matte, are testing out
to be archival (assuming good inks).  But they still look too shiny
and plasticky for most fine art folks who are used to the ADFBG look,
 and they prefer matte (which can resemble platinum print finishes,
not a bad thing).  With ink on paper prints, the archivalness is a
different equation than with emulsion prints, so everything's changing.

Anyway, sorry for the confusion, I was taking these things for
granted.  I think we all need to be more thoughtful in how we use
these terms.  There are more and more folks making the leap from
silver to digi BW and they often aren't familiar with the jargon.

Regards,
Clayton


Info on black and white digital printing at
http://www.cjcom.net/digiprnarts.htm