Printing Digital Black and White on True Black and White Paper

How to print your black and white images on real black and white paper. If you want high quality black and white prints you should really consider printing on true black and white paper. You can do it in the darkroom, but most of us don't have a dark room with an enlarger, but if you have a negatives or a digital image, then you can send them to a printer such as Ilford and have them printed.
www.ilfordlab-...

[@neilpiper9889]

Bromide prints and some papers are Chlorobromide.
That's what we called the prints back in the day in England.
Kodak ruined my creative life when they discontinued Bromesko chlorobromide paper.
I use Foma paper which is a pretty good Chloro paper.

[@eagle112800]

How does it look different? Do you have a video that compares the two?

[@jonjanson8021]

Great video.
Here in the UK we call "true black and white paper" a "Silver Gelatin Paper" or a "Silver Gelatin Print" or a "Silver Print". It helps remove any confusion.
Real photographic paper being a light sensitive silver emulsion in a gelatin base.
Ilford silver gelatin prints and paper are superb. They blow inkjet out of the water.
Ilford are a longstanding company, about a 100 years, totally dedicated to the silver gelatin monochrome image.
It's good to see they have a lab in the US.
Ilford resin coated (RC) paper is exactly the same as Ilford fibre but has a resin coating in a number of finishes, gloss. satin matt etc.
In my opinion giving a far better print with archival permanence. I have 35 year old Ilford RC darkroom prints. I was introduced to Ilford by my Grandad!
So American cousin, film shooters please support Ilford, we need them to survive and prosper.

[@eagle112800]

+Jon Janson I agree Ilford is the future of black and white film photography as far as I can tell.
I like the term silver gelatin prints, but for some reason the only place I see or hear that term in the US is in art museums.

[@jonjanson8021]

It's for a good reason. Art galleries and museums have to specify exactly what it is. Like "oil on canvas" or "bronze sculpture".
In the early days of digital they tried to make the term "inkjet print" sound more valuable by calling it a "Giclee print", which is just a fancy name for an inkjet.
The reality is that the market generally won't pay high prices for an inkjet print. It usually has to be a silver print or in the case of colour a "C type" print.
The ultimate in colour was the Cibachrome or Ilfachrome print but digital put an end to that. Maybe one day Ilford will re-introduce it.

[@terrywbreedlove]

I print at MPIX.COM on true black and white paper. I believe it is ilford paper. Great prints the way to go.

[@Machster10]

Would be interesting to know what the specialized equip is and how it works. Can it be done at home, etc.?

[@randallstewart175]

IMO an interesting exercise, and probably much cheaper than using these services, would be to take your final digital image, invert it to a negative, inkjet print that onto clear film, then contact print the enlarged negative onto regular photo paper. I've never seen it done this way, but there's no reason it wouldn't work out great once the contrast control and timing issues are resolved. Someone try that in lieu of yet another video on how to load film into a developing tank. (I suspect that the services use a laser scanning printer to print digital files directly onto regular photo paper, or maybe optical printing on the direct positive paper offered by Ilford.)

[@eagle112800]

I believe that they use a specialized pice of equipment that exposes the negative paper along a line as it is rolled out before it is developed. There are digital enlarges as well. One can print negatives using the method you described, particularly with contact printing.

[@eagle112800]

If you haven’t tried the services you might be shocked at the quality. I was.