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  #11  
Old 26th June 2017, 11:35 AM
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dsallen dsallen is offline
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Originally Posted by JOReynolds View Post
What is 'depth'? If you can't write about it, and examples produced under verifiably identical conditions don't demonstrate it, it probably doesn't exist.
I believe in densitometry, which can, for instance, prove the tiny difference between variable-contrast and graded paper processed under standardised laboratory conditions. But while measured disparities between RC and FB prints can be shown to exist, they are mostly due to a slight variance in surface textures.
There is an exception, and that's Agfa Portriga-Rapid, but I haven't been able to get a sample to measure because it hasn't been manufactured for some time. I got a hint that Adox might coat some - I would be really interested to test it.
I have been around photography long enough to have experienced there being no resin paper, a period of time when the manufacturers tryied to kill off FB paper (just like the big breweries trying to force us into drinking fizzy ale) through to the maturing of RC papers that made them a fantastic tool when I worked commercially.

However, the key point is that the convenience of RC papers comes from them being encapsulated in plastic and that gives them a plastic appearance that is, IMHO, inferior to FB prints (just as I find digital prints also inferior to wet prints). I personally can tell if a print is on FB or RC paper even if it is framed for an exhibition.

In my experience, most people can tell the difference when you present an RC and FB print side by side (I have tested this very often with both people that I teach plus friends and family). Curiously, most make the comment that the FB has more ‘depth’ or ‘richness’ and that is true for when I lived in the UK and here in Germany. It may not be ‘scientific’ but my personal empirical experience over very many years makes me firmly believe that well printed photographs on FB represent the absolute pinnacle of the quality that can be achieved in B&W photography.

Bests,

David
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  #12  
Old 27th June 2017, 07:31 PM
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maltklaus maltklaus is offline
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Peronally, I feel RC paper feels "cheap" and thin. As if you scanned the film and had you local Minilab print it or sent it away to a lab online. When you give away or sell prints, it feels just like ye olde colour paper and people treat it like that. Nearly everybody instantly gets the haptic feel of FB paper as something more valuable.
I only have one box of RC paper left (which I use for contact sheets since it's cheaper and easier to process for that purpose).

I feel FB paper has a quality of its own. Air-dried it has a very nice sheen which I've never seen from any RC paper. The base is also thicker and it feels much more valuable in your hands. As far as tonality is concerned, there's a far wider range of FB paper which can achieve looks you can't achieve with RC paper simply due to it being unavailable. Think the new Ilford Cooltone, which I quite like. When you get into toning, the warmtone FB papers are where the fun starts.

Oh, and then there are the archival qualities, where FB still rules supreme over RC.
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  #13  
Old 27th June 2017, 09:52 PM
EdmundH EdmundH is offline
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Originally Posted by maltklaus View Post
Peronally, I feel RC paper feels "cheap" and thin. As if you scanned the film and had you local Minilab print it or sent it away to a lab online. When you give away or sell prints, it feels just like ye olde colour paper and people treat it like that. Nearly everybody instantly gets the haptic feel of FB paper as something more valuable.
I only have one box of RC paper left (which I use for contact sheets since it's cheaper and easier to process for that purpose).

I feel FB paper has a quality of its own. Air-dried it has a very nice sheen which I've never seen from any RC paper. The base is also thicker and it feels much more valuable in your hands. As far as tonality is concerned, there's a far wider range of FB paper which can achieve looks you can't achieve with RC paper simply due to it being unavailable. Think the new Ilford Cooltone, which I quite like. When you get into toning, the warmtone FB papers are where the fun starts.

Oh, and then there are the archival qualities, where FB still rules supreme over RC.

This is the one problem with my recent expansion into colour printing; Fuji Crystal Archive paper (the only paper routinely available in cut sheets) is so thin that it's hard to make a print without a kink in the surface. At some point I'll get a roll of Kodak paper which I'm assured is better.
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Old 28th June 2017, 10:14 AM
JOReynolds JOReynolds is offline
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Originally Posted by maltklaus View Post
Personally, I feel RC paper feels "cheap" and thin. As if you scanned the film and had you local Minilab print it or sent it away to a lab online. When you give away or sell prints, it feels just like ye olde colour paper and people treat it like that. Nearly everybody instantly gets the haptic feel of FB paper as something more valuable.
I only have one box of RC paper left (which I use for contact sheets since it's cheaper and easier to process for that purpose).

I feel FB paper has a quality of its own. Air-dried it has a very nice sheen which I've never seen from any RC paper. The base is also thicker and it feels much more valuable in your hands. As far as tonality is concerned, there's a far wider range of FB paper which can achieve looks you can't achieve with RC paper simply due to it being unavailable. Think the new Ilford Cooltone, which I quite like. When you get into toning, the warmtone FB papers are where the fun starts.

Oh, and then there are the archival qualities, where FB still rules supreme over RC.
RC paper does feel 'cheap and thin' because it is cheaper and it is thinner. I wrote this in a 2013 post...

Some users have complained of the relatively poor gloss of prints on RC paper, and therefore poor blacks. This is true of air-dried RC prints, which have a slightly misty, veiled appearance. But if they are dried instantly under the searing heat of a radiant element (such as in the Ilfolab 1250/5250 RC dryer) the glaze matches traditional hot-glazed gloss paper.

As for storage, display and handling, this Photo.net posting from Kelly Flanagan (27 September 2006) indicates, RC paper may actually survive better in extreme conditions.
“At my summer house that got flooded by Katrina, the RC prints are the majority of ones that survived, and the so called ‘archival’ traditional non-RC stuff mostly became a mess with the entire image gone. Many of these RC prints were from late 1960's, old Luminos stuff, the old 9 dollar per 100 sheets of 8x10 that was not suppose too last long. In some friends’ houses that turn into slabs, they lost all their stuff. What’s weird is that I found images that they had emailed years ago still in my 'saved from XYZ' folders, and ABC folders used to sort my mail. With salt, a lens that has aluminum usually gets stuck, diaphrams rust, you find a lens in the rubble with salt water in it from a year ago. Some of the RC prints just required rinsing off, while the traditional stuff all became a stuck together wad of prints where the image is a bunch of black goo.”
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