Papers:It is not just the silver content that affects the range of grays. back in the 1970s chemicals such as cadmium were added to the emulsion. The addition of cadmium to photographic papers was disallowed by the EPA because of its toxicity to the environment.
The best (most luminous) photographic papers have a high Dmax and a long smooth gray scale. In recent years--recent here meaning at least 60 or 70 years, this has been almost impossible to achieve with all bromide and chloro-bromide enlarging papers. The only papers that achieved true luminosity were silver chloride papers, the last of which was Kodak's Azo.
To save Azo from being discontinued, we (my wife Paula Chamlee who is also a photographer) and I reluctantly (it is a long store) became dealers of Azo, the only paper we used.
About eight or so years ago Bruce Barlow wrote an article for View Camera Magazine about photographic papers. He made the best print he could on every paper then manufactured and then developed the paper in a number of different developers. He then asked a number of photographers which print they thought was the best print.
I asked Bruce if he had tested Azo. He had not. He volunteered to come to our home/studio in Pennsylvania and he brought with him the test negative. Before we printed on Azo he asked us to select which of the many prints he brought with him that we thought best. I selected the one that was the general consensus "best." Paula selected another. However, the selected prints were almost identical.
We then went into the darkroom and printed the negative on Azo. We developed the print in Amidol using the formula I had "developed" in the 1970s after serious testing.
Result: The gray tones were so beautiful that Bruce realized that all of his previous test prints were so inferior to the Azo print that none of them would have left our darkroom. The trashcan was the appropriate destination for them. Bruce purchased a 500-sheet box of Azo.
All of the great prints that Edward Weston made were printed on silver chloride paper. Ansel Adams best prints, from the late 1930s and early-to-mid 1940s were printed on silver chloride paper.
In 2004 Kodak discontinued Azo. Because of the articles I had written about Azo, hundreds of photographers were now using it. Paula and I had a 8'x14' freezer full of the Super XX film we bought from Kodak when it was discontinued in 1994 (bought with credit cards that took five years to pay off--we are committed !), and Azo. But we set about trying to get a new silver chloride paper made. After six years of R&D we were successful. We believe that our silver chloride paper, "LODIMA," is even superior to Azo. It has deeper blacks and a longer, smoother gray scale. We are now in the process of having the third run of the paper made. Admittedly, production has not always gone as smoothly as we would have liked.
We have had LODIMA made in Grade 2 and Grade 3 The original test run of LODIMA was incredible. The first major production run could have had a higher Dmax. It was beyond "okay," but not what we really wanted. The next run does have the higher Dmax. It has such a long scale, however, that the contrast for thin negatives could be greater. Photographers who make negatives for platinum printing have found the LODIMA Grade 2 to match their platinum prints. A few of them even prefer LODIMA to their platinum prints.
Because our Super XX film has an extremely high film base plus fog level Paula and I need a paper with greater contrast. So we are now having a Grade 4 paper made. We are also having a new run of Grade 3 made as our inventory is almost totally gone. We do have plenty of Grade 2 still in stock in our freezer.
The paper is made in Germany. The only way we can have the paper made is to ask photographers to place "pre-production" orders, as we cannot afford to buy the paper ourselves. We do not ask for payment until we need to pay for the paper, but we need to know what sizes and quantities people want. We can have these sizes made: 8x10, 9x11, 10x12, 11x14, 8x20, 12x20, 14x17, 16x20, and 20x24. We could also have other sizes made as well. We do not make 4x5 or 5x7, figuring that users can cut down 8x10, but we could have it made if the orders for those sizes are sufficient
Silver chloride paper is a "slow" paper. As such it is used to make contact prints. Some years ago a photographer who had taken our workshop developed a light for enlargers that was strong enough in the UV spectrum so that enlargements could easily be made on silver chloride paper. Others, those with patience for long exposure times have enlarged on it with conventional enlargers. Paula and I prefer to only make contact prints---in large part because of the results that can only be obtained with silver chloride paper. We make them in many sizes--from the 6x7 cm size that Paula sometimes uses when we travel overseas for short periods on up to the 18x22 that I have occasionally used.
It used to be said that "there is nothing as beautiful in photography as a contact print." This was not because of the sharpness and clarity of contact prints, although that is surely a factor. It is mainly because of the tonal quality of silver chloride paper.
Michael A. Smith On 11/30/14 7:17 AM, bobkiss @caribsurf.com wrote:
    I think the important phrase here is, "...certain qualities of richness in gray tonal values..." This is not referring to Dmax. It may be referring to silvery, subtle, separated, midtones. The problem is that it may be very difficult to quantify and measure these qualities. I feel the same about the silver rich papers on which I printed during the 70s and early 80s yet agree that it may not be measurable and therefore not provable. Is it the rose color of memory or was it true? "Tis a mystery!"         CHEERS!              BOBÂOn Sat, Nov 29, 2014 at 7:19 PM, Janet Gable Cull <janetgcull@xxxxxxxxx <mailto:janetgcull@xxxxxxxxx>> wrote:I'm reading an article Les Myers sent me (from Online Photographer) about Voja Mitrovic. Here is an interesting statement by Peter Turnley:  " It was also a time when the highest quantity of silver was in printing papers. Voja has indicated that there are certain qualities of richness in gray tonal values that he could never achieve with todayâEUR^(TM)s papers, that he was able to obtain in the late 'seventies and early 'eighties. Do any of you know which of today's papers are higher in silver content?  or most like the older papers he may have been referring to? He didn't say specifically which papers he liked using, but did refer to the change (down) at the introduction of multi-grade papers. Here is a link to the article, if you're interested. I found it most interesting to find that many of the "greats" didn't do their own printing. That's not what I'd have imagined. Anyway, I have enjoyed it, and hope you do, too. http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2014/11/top-classic-yoja-mitrovic-printer-to-the-greats.html Janet
