View Full Version : POP (Printing out paper)
Shan Ren
03-24-2009, 08:37 AM
I am new here and trying my way around the interface. Have tried search without luck. Does anyone here know the status of POP manufacture? I have heard rumours about it being discontinued as the factory was bought and closed. Any one know?
Kerik
03-24-2009, 09:01 AM
Ka-put. RIP.
Ian Grant
03-24-2009, 10:11 AM
Ilford can't make the Centennial POP paper that was formerly made by Kentmere. The reasons are in a thread last week concerning Kentmere products.
You can make your own, look on the Unblinkingeye website. There are quite a number of POP formulae around, the problem is if you want to coat a baryta paper support rather than a water-colour paper.
Ian
Anton Lukoszevieze
03-24-2009, 11:38 AM
Make salt prints! Cheap and easy. You can wax them too for glossy detail.
Trevor Crone
03-24-2009, 12:56 PM
Print on Lodima Fine Art silver chloride contact paper and selenium tone. This paper is capable of wonderful tonality.
Trevor.
Bob F.
03-24-2009, 01:05 PM
I am new here and trying my way around the interface. Have tried search without luck. Does anyone here know the status of POP manufacture? I have heard rumours about it being discontinued as the factory was bought and closed. Any one know?
Official press release and resultant discussions here: http://www.apug.org/forums/forum172/60144-kentmere-range-update-harman.html
Ian Grant
03-24-2009, 01:36 PM
Print on Lodima Fine Art silver chloride contact paper and selenium tone. This paper is capable of wonderful tonality.
Trevor.
Lodima Fine Art is very different to Printing out paper and so wouldn't be a substitute, POP's are self masking during exposure unlike most other papers.
Ian
Trevor Crone
03-24-2009, 02:30 PM
Lodima Fine Art is very different to Printing out paper and so wouldn't be a substitute, POP's are self masking during exposure unlike most other papers.
Ian
I know that Ian for I've printed on both and I'm not saying its an absolute substitute; in fact I still have 25 sheets of POP left:) Lodima selenium toned has a very similar look to POP when gold toned and Lodima has a wonderful tonal scale particularly when developed in amidol, again in my opinion equal to POP's self-masking properties. Seeing is believing.
Photo Engineer
03-24-2009, 02:43 PM
Most POP papers are considered to have limited lifetime and the formulas I have fit into that category. Anyone have any comments on the longevity of POP raw stock?
Thanks.
PE
Trevor Crone
03-24-2009, 02:48 PM
Most POP papers are considered to have limited lifetime and the formulas I have fit into that category. Anyone have any comments on the longevity of POP raw stock?
Thanks.
PE
I don't know about raw stock, but my stock of paper is about four years old which I keep refrigerated and just take out what I need. It still looks good, unlike stuff I've simply stored at room temp. (21C).
Trevor.
Photo Engineer
03-24-2009, 02:55 PM
Thanks Trevor. The article on unblinkingeye says that 24 - 48 hours is enough to cause the paper to go bad and this has been what I have gotten as experiences by friends. There must be something that goes into making a "better" POP.
One thing is that a POP is made with high silver wrt to salt and this causes fog. Published formulas are unwashed, but Ilford mentions that the Kentmere POP must be washed before coating. So, I wonder......
PE
Trevor Crone
03-24-2009, 02:59 PM
I assume mine is the old Kentmere POP as I purchased it from Retro Photographic here in the UK.
Trevor.
Chazzy
03-24-2009, 03:12 PM
Well, we certainly have plenty of people on APUG who like to experiment with home-brewing emulsions, so here's an opportunity for them to experiment with the old POP recipes and maybe even improve upon them.
dwross
03-24-2009, 03:45 PM
Well, we certainly have plenty of people on APUG who like to experiment with home-brewing emulsions, so here's an opportunity for them to experiment with the old POP recipes and maybe even improve upon them.
:) It's the next thing up on The Lightfarm ToDo list. Hopefully, our recipe will be joined by many others.
Denise
www.thelightfarm.com
Kirk Keyes
03-24-2009, 03:53 PM
Has anyone tried soaking regular paper with citric or acetic acid or the sodium salts of these acids?
I understand that POP papers used silver acetate or citrate in addition to silver chloride. The organic acid gives the released bromide something to be stabilized with during the long POP exposures.
Photo Engineer
03-24-2009, 04:09 PM
Kirk;
Most formulas have Sodium Citrate in them.
Chazzy;
POP is not a "classical" silver halide emulsion. It is more akin to albumen than a true grown silver halide and more properly belongs in the early years of photography in the 19th century.
PE
Ian Grant
03-24-2009, 05:07 PM
Surprisingly the most recent Patent (that I've read) relating to POP papers dates from 1956. It has to do with stability and improving keeping properties of POP's which is done using a Sodium Metaborate coating to the back of each sheet, which is in contact with the emulsion surface of the next sheet. An extension to this is to use Sodium Metaborate interleaving impregnated sheets of thin paper.
Kentmere use a thin interleaving sheet but whether theirs were impregnated with something I don't know.
It isn't that many years since Ilford stopped making their own POP paper, it wasn't sold to Photographers, instead it was packaged in education packs for schools for children to explre light sensitivity and make photograms etc.
There is still a need for POP's as it's one of the best methods for getting the best prints from many older pyro developed glass plate, although of course you could use digital I suppose :D
Ian
Shan Ren
03-24-2009, 06:02 PM
hmmmmm thanks for the info all. I wanted to do a series of images but no.
To the person who said salt prints, thanks, but you do realise it is a different look don't you? Albumen is closer.
Anton Lukoszevieze
03-24-2009, 06:19 PM
Not necessarily, check out Frances Scully Osterman's waxed collodion salt prints.
http://www.collodion.org/Sleep.html
RobertP
03-25-2009, 06:06 AM
Mark and Frances' waxed salt prints have no collodion. The wet plate collodion glass negative is where the collodion is involved, not on the actual print. But a waxed salt print has a different look than the sheen of an albumen print. Wax can be applied to almost any print from a platinum/palladium to an inkjet and it is as simple as it sounds and that is applying it to the surface. An albumen print on the other hand is albumenized before it is sensitized in silver nitrate which gives it a different look than a salt print that has been waxed.