That's right. Glory Mills was bought out by Felix Schoeller and Schoeller's range is not what it was.
Cadmium is (entirely understandably) illegal in paper and film, and was dropped long ago. That's what killed Super-XX, incidentally. The risk in use is trivial. The risk in manufacturing is another matter.
Cheers,
Roger
Ah well
I guess all the old process printing done with Cadmium Yellow will soon be condemned. Come to think of it there should be some cheap old master paintings around if we question their content. It depresses me to think that my generation is now considered dangerous and discardable.
Mark
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Mark Layne
Nova Scotia
and Barbados
Surely there is a method. Foma can produce a similar variable contrast version of a textured art paper. I haven't opened my Bergger "silver supreme" pack yet, but from what I read it's on a textured cotton base.
Some didn't like the strong texture, but the rougher the better for me! It offered something unique which is a refreshing change.
Like everything to do with coating emulsion, it don't come easy. The Foma products 542 & 532 both used the same base as the old Kentmere Art Classic, the base was discontinued but Foma's stock lasted longer than that of Kentmere. Although at Silverprint we still have good stock of the finished Foma products, there is no immediate replacement - get it while it lasts!
Going back some years, before Art Classic was conceived we worked with Kentmere to attempt coating an art paper. They got beyond testing small scale coating but the experiment failed at the point of coating full width 40-50" rolls; the dimensional consistency of the paper was not up to running through the large scale coating process. Bergger seem to have been unique in producing a consistent material on 'art' cotton rag paper - maybe it was coated on a narrow width system?
What I'm curious about is why it seems that all paper with anything other than a gloss, dead matte, or ugly pearl seems to be vanishing. Is there anything to do but horde or coat? Neither is particularly attractive to me.
That's right. Glory Mills was bought out by Felix Schoeller and Schoeller's range is not what it was.
Cadmium is (entirely understandably) illegal in paper and film, and was dropped long ago. That's what killed Super-XX, incidentally. The risk in use is trivial. The risk in manufacturing is another matter.
Cheers,
Roger
With present technology the risk in manufacturing Cadmium is certainly less than what is used to produce a Lithium-Ion battery. The major danger from Cadmium during processing is inhalation and that is not terribly difficult to counteract as it's a concern with many different materials. Most iron ore processing spews cadmium dust all over the place, frankly.
In any case, you'll find that Cadmium use is still very extensive in specialized, commerical batteries and is very heavily used in electroplating and in the production of PVC.
I suspect the real reason that Cadmium may have disappeared is that you can't easily store large amounts of it and the price volatility tends to be ridiculous. It can swing 300% in a quarter in either direction.
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Digital Photography is just "why-tech" not "high tech"..
What I'm curious about is why it seems that all paper with anything other than a gloss, dead matte, or ugly pearl seems to be vanishing. Is there anything to do but horde or coat? Neither is particularly attractive to me.
I think the "texture" was produced by a set of texturizing rollers the paper stock was run through, and these rollers are a sort of "die" which has a limited life span and very expensive to maintain, and with the limited sales of special surface papers and the volume requirements of a coating run, it just got too cost-prohibitive for manufacturers to offer these special textures in photo paper.
I am sure you wouldn't want to be paying $5 to $10 an 8x10 sheet for photo paper.
My recollection is that the demise of these papers was based on the fact that the suppliers who made the base paper were no longer producing that stock. Kentmere didn't have a choice in the matter.
Therefore, asking Kentmere to start making it again is futile - it just ain't gonna happen.
What I'm curious about is why it seems that all paper with anything other than a gloss, dead matte, or ugly pearl seems to be vanishing. Is there anything to do but horde or coat? Neither is particularly attractive to me.
Not quite sure what surface(s) you would like, but Foma have just sent me a sample of a new product in their FB Variant, code 123. To quote;
"Fomabrom Variant 123 is manufactured using a heavy spar loaded paper base material (unprepared photographic paper) with square weight of 280 g/m2, surface finish of velvet type and of semi-mat gloss degree."
That should cover all tastes! However it seems to be coming in close to the discontinued Agfa Classic 118, slightly warm with a reasonably subdued stipple, slightly more gloss sheen than the Agfa paper. Not on the Foma Foma website yet, I'll PDF the datasheet if anyone is interested.
It seems not everyone appreciates "ugly pearl", but I think it looks quite tasteful! I'm very interested in this new product Martin, do Foma plan to mass produce this or is it a test sample? Are the samples for sale?
If Foma are looking for feedback, I'm hoping they will use a neutral white looking base for the paper...more like Art deluxe.
Well they're taking orders and have a full data sheet prepared. I've ordered 9.5x12" and 12x16" for stock at Silverprint, so should have it next month. It's slightly misleading that they have put it into the Variant range - the base colour is warm unlike the brilliant white of the other Variants, and is actually slightly warmer than Fomatone. So it's close to Agfa 118 or even Ektalure G.
Correction, Foma are field testing, and the paper is not yet in production. If interested contact your Foma distributor. I'll put the data sheet on the Silverprint website.
Linear Mode
