Digital BW, The Print

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, Frank Jay
<frankjay02@...> wrote:

>

> What does one do if one wants to print neutral  prints and wants

> to have them keep the tone. Should they be printed on papers

> with no OBA's, acid etc, and just live with the warmer tone of

> the non-whitened paper or is there an alternative.

>



Some un-brightened papers are nearly as white as the brightened papers. 
See the left end points (the paper white measuers) on the graphs at
http://www.paulroark.com/BW-Info/R1800-No-OBA-Paper.pdf
<http://www.paulroark.com/BW-Info/R1800-No-OBA-Paper.pdf>  for non-OBA
papers and http://www.paulroark.com/BW-Info/R1800-OBA-Papers.pdf
<http://www.paulroark.com/BW-Info/R1800-OBA-Papers.pdf>  for brightened
paper.  In particular, the paper white of Moab Entrada Natural and Red
River Aurora Natural are very close to Photo Rag.  The brightened papers
will, of course, be brighter in the presence of UV, but if the lighting
in incandescent interior lighting, the differences among the papers is
not that great.  Outside, on the other hand, the high UV makes the
difference very noticeable.



While all OBAs are dyes that will ultimately fade, as others have also
noted, some are better than others.  For examplel, the Premier Art
Smooth BW that I use with the dilute Eboni approach I'm using with
my 7500, I'm told, meets the standards that were established for silver
prints.  I'd rather use non-brightened paper, but, unlike with the
Eboni 3-MK workflow for the R1800, I was simply not able to find a
non-brightened paper that I liked as well as the Smooth BW for the
dilute Eboni.  So, I've compromised, but doing so with a paper that
seems to have some of the better OBAs in it.



On a related point, I'm amazed when I hear people disparaging all
fade and age testing.  How quickly we forget the horrible reputation
inkjet printing, and including the expensive Iris "giclee"
prints, got from the use of dyes instead of pigments.  I think, in
particular, Wilhelm's testing and excellent reputation has done a
tremendous amount to move the industry to more stable materials and have
our inkjet photos accepted as a serious medium.



While it's true that the fading of the OBAs does not cause the image
itself to fade, my concern has been that not only does the print no
longer look the way I wanted it to, but also customers who buy a print
that yellows might think the materials were second rate.  That will not
help one's reputation.



Paul

www.PaulRoark.com <http://www.PaulRoark.com>



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