Digital BW, The Print

Looking for a bright white paper for quadtone printing, I've run 
across an issue already familiar to me from 30 years in 
traditional photography--optical brighteners and permanence. 
Posts on this list and elsewhere take the position that optical 
brighteners soon fade or, worse, turn the prints yellow. Is this 
really true?

Most darkroom papers incorporate optical brighteners. Baryta 
itself, which appears in virtually every fiber-based darkroom 
paper, is a brightener. Titanium dioxide is normally used as a 
brightener in  "RC" papers, some of which have tested for well 
over a hundred years of display life in various accelerated aging 
tests. Its brightening effect is reportedly long-lasting, not fugitive. 
(RC papers have had other permanence problems in the past, 
but these do not seem relevant to the whiteness issue in inkjet 
printing.) Wilhelm's tests of Epson Heavyweight Matte, which has 
brighteners in it,  apparently revealed no yellowing of the paper 
for at least 66 tyears of simulated display life. I would expect that 
any degradation due to brighteners would have definitely 
showed up in these tests.

I'm not a scientist, but I had to study the issue of brighteners as a 
serious darkroom worker. I came to the conclusion that 
brighteners were not automatically bad for longevity. It depends 
on the specific brightener used, its possible interaction with 
silver or other substances present in the paper, etc.

I'd love to hear from others about  the permanence of Legion 
Photo Matte, Torchon, and other papers that use optical 
brighteners. What brighteners are used? Is there any hard data 
that supports future yellowing? What kind of life expectancy do 
these papers actually have? Can't an inkjet paper be as white as 
a darkroom paper without the threat of major deterioration?

--David Stock

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y..., daviddstock@e... wrote:
snip...
> I'd love to hear from others about  the permanence of Legion 
> Photo Matte, Torchon, and other papers that use optical 
> brighteners. What brighteners are used? Is there any hard data 
> that supports future yellowing? What kind of life expectancy do 
> these papers actually have? Can't an inkjet paper be as white as 
> a darkroom paper without the threat of major deterioration?
> 
> --David Stock

David, so you're still out there somewhere?
I wish I knew some answers too. The only possible useful comment I 
have is that Torchon, and it's equivalents, seemed to yellow faster in 
Steve Meyer's window tests here than the other Hahnemühle papers. One 
could assume that the only difference is brighteners, but who knows?
Since many seemingly harmless things occassionally degrade inkjets, 
I'm suspicious of all this stuff, I keep trying to make it work to my 
liking on uncoated art papers, rather than inkjet papers. I haven't 
done it yet.
It's interesting that many of the dead guy's prints that seem to glow 
off the museum walls, or platinum prints, have none of these things in 
them.
If you discover any useful info about this I hope you post it.
Tyler

Hi, Tyler, and all. Yes, I just bought a 7000, and am joining the 
arduous search for paper-ink combos for grayscale printing. 

One small piece of information: I just got off the phone with a 
Legion Paper rep. He says that their photo matte paper is being 
tested for permanence now. Listening between the lines, he 
meant at RIT, not Wilhelm's. They also have another lab doing 
"in-house" tests for them. He mentioned that six weeks in a 
south-facing window had revealed no image degradation. He 
wasn't making any promises, of course.....

--David

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y..., daviddstock@e... wrote:
> Hi, Tyler, and all. Yes, I just bought a 7000, and am joining the 
> arduous search for paper-ink combos for grayscale printing. 
> One small piece of information: I just got off the phone with a 
> Legion Paper rep.

Can anyone confirm that Legion Matte actually HAS optical 
brighteners in it? After reading this thread, I cancelled an order 
from MediaStreet for LegionMatte, for fear of fading due to the 
brighteners. Cannot find any info about it on Legion's site:

http://www.legionpaper.com/digital/media.htm

Are we in agreement that optical brighteners are bad news as a 
general rule? I do not know for sure.  -Mark Tucker

Mark,

Of course the easiest way to check is to see if that old black light 
is in the back of the closet somewhere. Black light will cause the 
OBA's (Optical Brightening Agents) to fluoresce like crazy and it 
would be easy to tell. Personally I think that LPM does have a strong 
dose of OBA's. It is just too bright to be plain paper and has a 
slight blue cast.

In the "Files" section under Paper Data I put up a file with some 
information Robert Rex of Crane posted on in a reply awhile back, 
that may help.

I suspect that the brightness of the OBA's will be so appealing they 
will be very popular. They help to off set the weak blacks of the 
pigmented inks on matte paper. The life of the OBA is going to be 
dependent upon exposure to light so in dark storage it may last a 
very long time. In sunlight or other high UV lights it will lose its 
ability to fluoresce and the paper will no longer be as bright. The 
OBA's may yellow with age as well. Jerry has reported the EAM in his 
window tests yellows slightly but objectionably. This is probably the 
OBA being exhausted.

If you want to stay away from the OBA's then you are going to have to 
settle for a paper that is not as white. Silver fiber paper is about 
as white as Museo for instance.

Then of course there is the whole question of the life of the inkjet 
receiver coatings being used and how they will hold up with time.

I think there may be too many unknowns and we are going to drive 
ourselves crazy trying to predict what is going to happen to these 
papers over the decades, hopefully centuries. Put some of the papers 
you like in the sun and see what you think after a few weeks.

Martin



--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y..., "Mark Tucker" <mark@m...> 
wrote:

> --- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y..., daviddstock@e... wrote:
> > Hi, Tyler, and all. Yes, I just bought a 7000, and am joining the 
> > arduous search for paper-ink combos for grayscale printing. 
> > One small piece of information: I just got off the phone with a 
> > Legion Paper rep.
> 
> Can anyone confirm that Legion Matte actually HAS optical 
> brighteners in it? After reading this thread, I cancelled an order 
> from MediaStreet for LegionMatte, for fear of fading due to the 
> brighteners. Cannot find any info about it on Legion's site:
> 
> http://www.legionpaper.com/digital/media.htm
> 
> Are we in agreement that optical brighteners are bad news as a 
> general rule? I do not know for sure.  -Mark Tucker

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y..., "Mark Tucker" <mark@m...> wrote:
Can anyone confirm that Legion Matte actually HAS optical 
> brighteners in it? 
...
> Are we in agreement that optical brighteners are bad news as a 
> general rule? I do not know for sure.  -Mark Tucker

Mark,

if Joshua Levine doesn't pick up this thread, email him directly:
levij@ legionpaper.com
He is a member of this list and has been helpful in the past with these 
questions.

Antonis

> 
> Can anyone confirm that Legion Matte actually HAS optical 
> brighteners in it? After reading this thread, I cancelled an order 
> from MediaStreet for LegionMatte, for fear of fading due to the 
> brighteners. Cannot find any info about it on Legion's site:
> 
> http://www.legionpaper.com/digital/media.htm
> 
> Are we in agreement that optical brighteners are bad news as 
a 
> general rule? I do not know for sure.  -Mark Tucker

The Legion rep confirmed on the phone that there are optical 
brighteners in the paper. Pretty much any paper that white has 
brighteners in it, including Archival Matte. My own opinion, as I 
said at the top of the thread, is that  brighteners are not all  the 
same in terms of permanence. 

My impression is that the main fear with some brighteners is that 
they may lose their effectiveness and leave the paper looking 
relatively yellow, not that they will fade the inks.
  
One thing to also be aware of is that optical brighteners may 
achieve their effect by radiating UV light. (I have read that this is 
true of titanium dioxide.) In this case, framing behind glass will 
counteract the effect. People who plan to frame their prints 
routinely should look at brightened papers behind glass before 
betting the farm on them.

All things considered, I think each paper has to be evaluated for 
permanence the best we can, based on limited information. I'm 
at least as worried about coatings as about brighteners. (Look at 
what Somerset Photo Enhanced does to Lysonic inks!) My 
experience with photo papers leaves me open to the idea that  
brighteners are potentially long-lasting and stable components 
of art papers. I'll be very interested in how the Legion Matte tests 
out.

--David Stock