Warmtone or Cooltone??

Warmtone or Cooltone??

  • I prefer Warmtone because...

    Votes: 57 47.9%

  • I prefer Cooltone because

    Votes: 25 21.0%

  • I simply use regular paper, regardless.

    Votes: 37 31.1%
  • Total voters
    119
I've since settled on Moersch 4812 for cooltone papers and that or the Moersch Sepia Developers warmtone papers. Magnificent developers. The 4812 actually lasts for weeks at working strength- something I've never experienced with any other developer not in a machine, film or paper.
 
For small prints and contacts I use common Ilford paper and developer, and for the prints I really care for I've had three "eras"...

First I felt B&W prints were enhanced by a neutral to cool tone because B&W is an abstraction related to losing color and going away from reality, and cool prints were real far from the warmth of natural light, so for years I used oriental and selenium for neutral deep black and cool tone...

Then I fell in love with the look of warm glossy Bergger paper on Agfa's Neutol warm developer, with a very very warm tone (near sepia) and deep shiny blacks with a contrasty range... Everybody seemed to love that look...

A few years ago I got tired of such warmth, and started to feel deeper blacks didn't mean better tonal range nor more impact (at least to me), so for a more silent look, now I use Bergger matte warm paper, with softer pearl blacks, and less reflections, and I develop it with Ilford warmtone developer, getting just a very delicate "old" warm tone I like a lot... I feel it's less exaggerated than other warmer tones, and it's also more human than cooler tones...

Last year I decided I'll use this printing for many years, bought lots of paper, and I'm slowly printing four copies of each of my best recent photographs... It's a project I planned for 2010 and 2011... When I have 50-100 different prints, I'll look for a place for my first solo exhibition, on the only kind of photography I love lately: street photography of people. Of course I'll offer my prints to a gallery and they will be free to decide the number of images and which ones... I think that will be fair and interesting...

I'm happy and doing well, but shooting good images and printing them is so slow...

Cheers,

Juan
 
Last edited:
Juan Valdenebro said:
A few years ago I got tired of such warmth, and started to feel deeper blacks didn't mean better tonal range nor more impact (at least to me), so for a more silent look, now I use Bergger matt warm paper, with softer pearl blacks, and less reflections, and I develop it with Ilford warmtone developer, getting just a very delicate "old" warm tone I like a lot... I feel it's less exaggerated than other warmer tones, and it's also more human than cooler tones...
Click to expand...

Juan:

Do you have a link to the specific paper you are referring to? I'd love to give it a try.

Cheers,
 
Riccis said:
Juan:

Do you have a link to the specific paper you are referring to? I'd love to give it a try.

Cheers,
Click to expand...

Hi Riccis,

Sure, these are the US distributors:

http://www.bergger.com/us/dealers.html

Their line of papers for contrast filters (I use the Ilford filters with them) is called Bergger Prestige Variable... The glossy I used for deep blacks is called Variable CB, and the matte for softer blacks I'm using is called Variable CM... They also make the very thick and 100% cotton Fine Art, but I'd be broken after paying it! All of them are equally great in tone... They also make developers and warm agents to add to their developers, but I have never tried them... Basically I use their warm papers because I never totally liked the tone of Ilford warmtone paper on any developer I tried it... Sure there must be a way to make it look great, but yet it's a mystery to me! The ones I buy come from France: just check if the names are the same for the US products... They don't have many papers in the variable contrast line: maybe three depending on how glossy or matte they are... It's a pleasure to work with them: they're thicker than Ilford's papers...

Hope you enjoy Bergger papers as much as I have! A good shot on them is wonderful!

Cheers,

Juan
 
Merkin said:
... I don't generally hear about anyone here using Sprint chemistry, but I highly reccommend it.
Click to expand...

I do most of the printing I do with Sprint chemistry. I seems to be middle of the road, but also has some issues compared to the Kodak chemistry (dektol/kodafix) I was previously using. Sprint chemistry needs more washing, or the paper dries more brittle than it did in Kodak chems. Sprint developer dies more suddenly - dektol has more of a 'shoulder' where the prints take longer and longer to develop. With Sprint they seem to just not develop all the way, suddenly.

Once these idiosyncracies were sorted though, I got along quite well with Sprint.

By the way, I just noticed this thread - I have experimented with cool and warm papers, but prefer "regular" paper. Ilford MGIV FB to be exact.
 
Generally neutral or selenium. Don't like sepia, pretty much ever —*but boy do I love looking at prints made on the old Agfa Portriga.
 
The last time I was in the darkroom I was working with negs I shot in downtown L. A.
There were shots of buildings...I had made prints using a warmtone paper but then tried a coldtone and I liked those prints better...sometimes it depends on the subject...
 
When I was printing B&W in a wet darkroom... I used Ilford Fiber Matte. Not sure what tone it is... but looks cool to me when I look at my old prints. I also used a really warm AGFA paper that doesn't seem to be around anymore... super beautiful paper.
 
jsrockit said:
When I was printing B&W in a wet darkroom... I used Ilford Fiber Matte. Not sure what tone it is... but looks cool to me when I look at my old prints. I also used a really warm AGFA paper that doesn't seem to be around anymore... super beautiful paper.
Click to expand...

Agfa made some beautiful paper...😎
Just wish I had found that out a long time ago...:bang:
 
I prefer cooltone paper for "street" shots and candid portraits and warmtone for graphics. However, depends on the area. For reportage style environmental portraits and scenes in more exotic places I love the warmtone too. It's a matter of subject and vision really. Choosing the right paper to me is part of the creative process - too bad usually I can't afford what I need 🙂
 
I mainly use warmtone for portait cool/nuetral for some landscapes.
my favourites were the Agfa papers Portriga and Record rapid, Portriga had a very warm chlorobromide with ivory base where Record rapid was slightly greener in tone with the right treatment could almost look olive green/brown.
Developer choice is crucial Agfa Nuetol WA was nice especially at 1:3 larger dilutions make for warmer tones–as a rule.
Cool tones were often on Kodak Elite fine art or even basic Ilfobrom both of which were nice in Dektol.
It's imposible to mimic these tones on the internet because of the differences in browser rendering but here are two shots simulated to be Record Rapid and Elite with the type of subject I would use for either paper type

103683360.jpg

Simulated Record Rapid

91278261.jpg

Kodak Elite
 
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