Printing out paper

I can not get contrast on POP with ANY ajustment curve . . .

(Burkholder or Palmer). Could paper be fogged? It just arrived a

couple of months ago from CAW.

POP, the type that produced a magenta image, was very poular decades ago, and was discontinued. I've since learned that some independent maker is still putting it out. It was never known to be very contrasty, but I can't say about the new stuff. If it is fogged, the whites should show it.

CAW POP turns a dark reddish-magenta colour as it is exposed. Fogging would be pretty easy to see if you take a new sheet, fix it without expisure, in darkness, and compare it to anything white, including the back of another sheet. As CAW POP ages, it also takes on a yellowish(?) tinge that does not seem to affect its performance much for about a year.

 

I read somewhere recently that CAW has just had a new run of POP, so if you got it recently, it should be new. If you bought it from Bostick Sullivan, just phone them. They have customer service on these sorts of issues beyond belief.

 

 

Richard

In my experience, it takes a very beefy (contrasty) negative to print well with the CAW

POP paper. Try downloading the Fokos curve from the B&S site, which I find to be a

little better for palladium than the Burkholder curve, and might possibly be better for

POP. When I used copygraphics in Santa Fe for outputting a test wedge using the

Fokos curve, I got a neg with a 1.95 density range, which should work fine for POP

paper. One final trick is to use the CAW recommended method of putting the negative

and paper under a normal fluorescent light for 24 hours for a VERY long exposure,

which in theory should also raise the print contrast.

 

Here is the link:

http://www.bostick-sullivan.com/Technical_papers/Digital%20Info/Dave_Fokos/

davetech.htm

 

Good luck, and let me know if it works!

 

Clay

I tried printing under fluorescent lighting and it does, in fact, work, and raise contrast. Since I was only playing around, I hung a 4 foot pair of shoplight type of fluorescents about 6-9 inches above the printing frame and left it an hour or so. I was getting a reasonable image but lost interest since my outdoor exposures are very much quicker.

I've gotten my best results with CAWPOP by exposing my negatives as I would for enlarging paper (shadows on Zone III), but developing them

for a +1 time. In other words, you want the brightest highlights on Zone IX. Pyro developers help a lot in achieving this extra contrast. When you print, watch the edges and check the highlights when you see the Zone 0 edges change color from purple to black. Your highlights should be just about right then. Remember also that you will see more contrast after you tone the print.