Help Me Pick a New Fiber Paper/Developer

[Ole]

Whar about Ilford Galerie? Graded paper, wonderful tones, in selenium it just goes warmer and "deeper", not plummy at all.

[Silverhead]

If you don't mind working with a graded paper, I would highly recommend Kentmere Kentona. Great for both straight printing and lith printing, it has gorgeous tones and is (AFAIC) a great high-performance paper.

[Paul Howell]

You might want to buy 25 sheet packs and try out all of the contenders. So far I like Ilford VC, Forma #2 and 3, and Salvich #3 and 4, I just tired the Salvich slik, a very nice look for portatures. All seem to work in Zonalpro, Ansco 130, and Clayton P20.

[JBrunner]

If you don't mind working with a graded paper, I would highly recommend Kentmere Kentona. Great for both straight printing and lith printing, it has gorgeous tones and is (AFAIC) a great high-performance paper.

What developer do you use? Does it repond to a water bath, or what other methods can/do you use for tempering contrast a bit when needed?

Regarding developers, LPD is available here last I looked. I generally use 130 with VC paper, but I have used LPD, and found it to be reliable, predictable, and enjoyable to print with. However, I never got it to offer the tone control advertised on the bottle, with the paper I was using.

[TheFlyingCamera]

Jason-

it is my understanding that Kentona is very responsive to water-bath development. I haven't used it myself, but several friends of mine who were Azo-heads have switched.

[hywel]

Ilford Multigrade IV Gloss in Ilford Multigrade Developer followed by ten minutes in KRST 1+5.

Selenium makes that green tint go away, takes it a lovely rich black, and should be pretty archival.

Trouble with warmtone is it goes red. Can look lovely with just the right picture in a split tone sort of thing but for full permanence, with every picture, I'd rather have B&W than Red & White. Personally. But if it's what you want...

When I do want something warmer now my choice is to Sepia tone the MGIV. Just lovely. With the right print.

As to Developers. I finally got my hands on the Ilford Warm- and Cool-tone developers. Spent an entire night testing all combinations of them and plain jane Multigrade and the MGIV and MGWT papers. And, oh yes, the differences were dramatic. Until I dunked them in Selenium, after which there was barely a difference between the developers. So as it does its work in two minutes rather than three and comes in five litre bottles I decided to stick with the Multigrade.

But whatever choice you make, welcome back to the darkroom and hope you have yourself some fun.

Hywel

[schroeg]

Oriental and Kentmere with Dektol work wonderfully - I tend toward the cooler look with deep blacks that are important in my work. You can search far and wide and never find a better and more nimble developer than Dektol.

[Don Wallace]

I just returned to the darkroom recently and started with Ilford MGIV fiber. I really wanted to try selenium toning but it seems to have very little effect on this paper. I used Kodak selenium mixed 1:9 and left it in for 5 minutes. It has more of an effect on the warmtone version but it is not dramatic (same time, same dilution).

[Mark Fisher]

Oriental is my new love. With my negatives, it is about the nicest I've used (neutral tone variable contrast). I also recently tried out Arista EDU Ultra (FOMA?) and found it similar to Forte neutral paper. Nice stuff and almost as good as Oriental.

Mark

[Curt]

Kodabromide with Dektol and Selectol Soft... Oops, wrong Century...

How about Oriental and LPD?

Or stay with one manufacturer like Ilford?

It's still a wide field of choices out there.

How about Azo and Amidol?