Digital BW, The Print

Maybe a little background into what has happened to Ilford is in order!

Just this morning I had a nice extended conversation with Gregg LaNoue
of Ilford, and he gave me a brief history of what has happened to
Ilford lately.

It was bought by a Japanese company called Oji. Then the British part
was sold off to a management group and is known as Harman's. They
stricktly market B&W films, papers, etc under the Ilford name. Any
inkjet products are marketed under the Harman brand.

Gregg told me that Ilford, Switzerland has had over $10 million spent
on coating plant improvements/expansion in Switzerland. Ilford is
planning to once again start marketing Ink Jet papers in the US under
the "Galerie" lable.

Ilford's Bingham, NY & New Jersey locations have been closed, and a
new office has been opened in Springfield, Mass.

They are also exploring a Baryta product, and will have a presence at
PMA with the product. This product is still under development, and is
a different product than what the Harman company is showing.

I should note, that about 5 or six years ago, Ilford developed an
inkjet paper that had the "air-dried" look, but was only 4 mils in
thickness. 

Gregg promised to send me some sample product when it becomes available.

John Nollendorfs
--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "dmdctusa"
<dmdornctusa@...> wrote:
>
> I think that after a week of testing I have found Nirvana (or maybe 
> Near Nirvana, time will tell).  As background my wet darkroom 
> printing was 99% glossy paper which was air dried and my develper of 
> choice was and still is Harvey's 777.  This paper has gotten me 
> closer to the "look:" than any I have tried.
> 
> According to Harman's info, the coating base is Baryta, the same as 
> used for the base of high quality silver emulsion paper.  The 
> increase in sharpness and depth of the blacks when compared to other 
> matt papers is amazing.  NOTE: this is not an ILFORD injet product. 
> The Ilford injet paper business was acquired by another company from 
> Ciba-Geigy.  The Harmon injet paper shows the Ilford technology in 
> silver based papers.
> 
> For the record,  my work flow:
> 
> Computer: Custom Duo Core 1.8ghz PC, AOpen mb with Intel chips, WinXP 
> Pro.
> 
> Scan: color neg or B&W film with Nikon Coolscan 4000 (with Nikonscan 
> or Vuescan, whichever is better on the given day)
> 
> Edit: Lightroom v1.0 for initial conversion and edits. Final levels 
> set in Lightzone v2.1 and then back to LR for final printing.
> 
> Printing: Epson 2200 - a) for black only straight to the printer from 
> LR (UC inks) or b) export image for printing with Quadtone RIP.
> 
> For me the key to this flow is the use of LZ from within LR to set my 
> black and white levels; the plus is that LZ lets me work on regions 
> as well as the overall image.
> 
> Finally, the LR/LZ edit interface seem to work well.  It appears that 
> if I open the LZ edit image from the LR file I can still access the 
> LZ levels etc and save the image back to the LR file with the changes 
> reflected in LR.  I would appreciate someone else confirming this is 
> in fact happening.
> 
> Comments from anyone who has tested this paper would be most welcome 
> and of interest to other members of the forum!
> 
> David Dorn
>