Hi everybody,

I am currently collecting information on the permanence of b&w RC papers for an article in a German magazine (www.sw-magazin.de, follow link to "Wollsteins Kolumne"), with special consideration given to the aspect of permanence of prints under glass. Unfortunately, most manufacturers leave it at statements like "sufficient for most applications" which leaves us guessing what the respective manufacturer finds "sufficient". If any of you knows a source of reliable information, to which I could send a enquiry, I would appreciate the information. So far, I have sent mails to the manufacturers whose names immediately came to my mind, and whose e-mail addresses I could easily get hold of, i.e. to Agfa, Fotospeed, Forte, Ilford, Kentmere, Kodak, Maco, Oriental, and Tetenal. I'll be happy to report on the resonance and consumer-friendlyness I will experience (in English on this forum, in German in my column).

Sincerely, Thomas Wollstein

-- Thomas Wollstein (thomas_wollstein@web.de), November 03, 2000

Answers

There were two articles by Ctein in Creative Camera Techniques about a year or two ago on this very subject. E-mail me directly and I will try to find them for you. I also found an article on the Wilhelm Research site at http://wilhelm-research.com/6/6.html--the headline reads "Traditional black and white RC prints have a history of serious stability problems and should be avoided."

-- Ed Buffaloe (edbuffaloe@unblinkingeye.com), November 03, 2000.

Ctein has a web site and email address; I have no idea what they are but they shouldn't be difficult to find.

-- John Hicks (jbh@magicnet.net), November 03, 2000.

Greetings,

Perhaps the articles by Ctein were reprinted or repeated, but my recollection was that they appeared in Photo Techniques.

Regards, Pete

-- Pete Caluori (pcaluori@hotmail.com), November 03, 2000.

Paul is correct about Photo Techniques--I'm always getting their new name confused with their old name. Here's Ctein's web site, but I didn't see anything on RC: http://plaidworks.com/ctein/.

-- Ed Buffaloe (edbuffaloe@unblinkingeye.com), November 04, 2000.

Ctein's article is reprinted in a _Photo Techniques_ special issue no. 11, which is called something like "Fine Black and White Printing." I just picked it up at a newstand a few days ago, and I presume you could order it from the magazine as well.

-- David Goldfarb (dgoldfarb@barnard.edu), November 04, 2000.

Here is another article on this topic:

http://palimpsest.stanford.edu/byorg/abbey/an/an21/an21-4/an21- 405.html

-- Paul Swenson (paulphoto@humboldt1.com), November 04, 2000.

Thanks everybody for the information. I followed all of the links (plus a few more I obtained from other sources), so now I have a pile of paper to read through when I will be spending a few hours in trains while on a business trip this week. The material will eventually serve to draw up an article on print permanence for the above-mentioned German b&w journal, but I guess I am somewhat indebted to those who contributed information, so I will try to produce an English version, too, which I will post somewhere.

As was to be expected, you guys were much faster to react than the paper manufacturers, but at least some of them did react within a couple of days. The most informative reply so far came from Ilford who mentioned that the Technical University of Delft (Netherlands) has conducted some comparative research on the ageing of RC and FB materials. I am currently trying to get hold of the results. There has also been a reply by a person from Fotospeed, who estimated that an optimally processed and stored RC print on their material should last some 60+ years. All replies so far agree that nowadays, no guaranteed life can be specified when a print is not protected from the atmosphere and from light.

Well, the topic seems complex, and I hope to be able to boil all of the stuff down to some readable and informative article.

-- Thomas Wollstein (thomas_wollstein@web.de), November 07, 2000.