New Arista RA-4 Color paper at Freestyle

[mikecnichols]

From what my minilab supply tells me, Mitsubishi is actually Dai Nippon or DNP and DNP (which is not manufactured in the US) just went out of business..

Did they go out of business or get bought out? My minilab uses DNP supplies and I haven't received any information about a change.

[frotog]

Unless it's the old stock that was being blown out of by the minilab supply houses some six months to a year ago this is news to me. When I first started using DNP about 3-4 years ago I was told the paper was the old mitsubishi stuff, rebranded. And then, just as I was settling in to use this stuff as my junk paper it gets discounted below 50% and I'm told by more than one distributer that this is it for DNP. I always assumed that this paper came from Japan. There was nothing not to like about it - not too hot like the Kodak commercial papers and not overly saturated. Has DNP risen from the grave or was I just misinformed?

[EdSawyer]

Cant' offer any more info re: DNP, just that I saw a box of the mitsu paper not long ago, and it looked fresh.

I haven't tried Supra Endura VC, I have a couple thousand sheets of cut-sheet endura I am hoarding, so will have to use that up first.

[frotog]

Hey Ed - don't diss the vc until you try it. It's really close to the old endura and considering that the old endura is now old and out of date, it's the best game in town.

[John Meyer]

For Fotog , May i ask what kind of roll paper cutter you have. Im trying to find a
way to cut a 32in roll of paper now..
Allso ,when i looked into the new Endura VC the High defenition paper, it was dicontinued
and the Kodak web sight said its VC paper is a digital paper only for laser printers.
How does it print optically? John

[EdSawyer]

frotog - I am sure I will try it someday. I actually still have endura that is in-date, barely. It keeps well, even 3-4 years out of date, non-refrigerated, and still prints great. I got usable (though not great) prints from some Supra II from 1994, that had shifted yellow a lot, but still worked. But anything within the last 4+ years is fine, I think. If I throw this in the freezer (soon!) I should be able to extend it even longer probably.

-Ed

[frotog]

Ed, I hear you about stretching out of date papers. I have an open-ended project the portfolio of which I add to as I continue to shoot more material. Having a uniform look to the prints is important to me so settling on a single emulsion type is key. So when supra was discontinued I stocked up on rolls of different sizes, cut sheets and different surfaces, storing them in a huge commercial chest freezer in the bathroom of my studio. Some of my stock is over a year old now and you're right, it looks just fine. And I know I should just leave it at that but then I notice the 3-5cc difference between the unexposed whites in the margins of the prints, the older stock producing the dingier paper white. Of course this should not be an issue if I mount and trim my print full bleed. But knowing that it's there can make a careful craftsman a little nuts

John, I have a couple roll paper cutters - a meteor seigen and a kreonite 52. I can cut rolls of paper from a 3" roll to a 52" roll and anything in between. They're kind of hard to come by these days for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the sheer size and weight of the units. They were designed specifically to dispense and cut rolls of photosensitive material to whatever length is dialed in. Some have manual rotary cutters, the fancier kind are totally automatic. They're no longer manufactured as the light jet process of exposing photosensitive materials cuts after the paper has been fixed making a pre-exposure, complex lightproof dispenser obsolete.

The current model supra color paper, "supra vc", despite kodak's tech manual warning, works brilliantly under the enlarger. The color palette and saturation are not only what you'd expect from a kodak paper but a very close match to the old supra. Contrast is a little hotter, though nowhere near ultra. My only regret is that the shoulder falls off a little too fast for my negatives. This is a minor quibble as it's easy to control with a general pre-exposure flash when a huge subject brightness range warrants this kind of trickery. Who knows what Kodak was thinking in discouraging traditional exposure when using their new paper.

[John Meyer]

Frotog, Thats good to know about the Supra vc paper.. I find the same is true for enlarging
Kodak Endura Metallic VC paper.. It says digital paper on the rolls ive been buying
but ive been getting great results printing with it. Exposure times are the same as with my
Fuji papers. I wish for an easy way to cut down my rolls, Ill look for some kind of cutting
service soon,if i cant get any better at it.
John

[maryparisi]

Just read your post and I wondered what kind of professional roll paper cutter you have and also if you could comment on how well it worked.