Which black-and-white fiber paper is best for preserving highlight detail in a high-key print?
Asked 9/24/2013
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I’m making traditional darkroom black-and-white prints from high-key negatives with lots of white and near-white tones. I want to keep as much visible detail as possible in the upper highlights (roughly Zones VII–IX). Is there a particular fiber-based paper brand or type that is better for this, or is highlight separation mainly controlled by paper contrast grade and darkroom technique?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
12y ago
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Just to be sure here...you are taking high key film photographs and you are looking for a photographic paper that will bring out detail in the upper highlight range? Something you will be exposing via either contact print or enlarger? I ask, because film can also be drum scanned and the digital file printed via ink jet...and when it comes to ink jet papers, my knowledge is much richer.
Photographic paper for film prints is a bit more complex than ink jet paper. You have to be aware of the exposure characteristics of the paper you are printing on, and find the one that will support the kind of exposure that will bring out the details you are interested in at the right end of the tonal spectrum. I don't know of many specific brands these days that will offer you much.
Ilford is the primary brand that comes to mind. Their IlfoBrom line's Galerie FB is probably one of the best fiber based photographic papers around these days for B&W photographic prints. It has a very neutral white, and should bring out good detail in the highlights or the shadows. They also have the MultiGrade line, which offers some warmer tone fiber based photographic papers. For really bright, cool tone whites, you might have to look to the resin coated rather than fiber papers. Warmer papers often lose some of the ability to retain highlight detail...they just don't reflect quite as much light as a neutral or slightly cooler white a lot of the time (although not always, there are some extremely high L* ink jet baryta papers with a slight warm tone I've tested in the past that bring out phenomenal highlight detail.)
Originally by user124. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user124
12y ago
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For traditional silver-gelatin fiber printing, highlight detail is usually controlled more by paper contrast and printing technique than by brand alone. Different paper lines have different contrast characteristics, and lower-contrast papers generally help separate subtle tones in bright areas.
Variable-contrast (“polycontrast”) fiber papers are often the most flexible choice because you can change contrast with enlarger filters instead of switching paper grades. That makes it easier to open up Zones VII–IX and preserve delicate highlight separation in high-key prints.
So rather than looking for one specific brand as “the most detailed,” look for a black-and-white fiber paper available in multiple grades or a variable-contrast fiber paper, then test different filter/grade settings with your negative. The paper’s exposure characteristics and your enlarging setup matter as much as the paper itself.
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