Hmm interesting title. Some time back I outlined in a post (
here) my attempts to develop an old roll of Kodachrome using black and white processing. While I got a few very interesting images when manipulated in Photoshop all attempts at making prints that measured up fell short. This was due to the orthochromatic nature of the paper and the fact that much of the negative was either yellow or orange which the paper is blind to. I concluded that I needed to find some panchromatic paper.
Research revealed that Ilford makes panchromatic paper called
Digital Silver for use with laser-based digital printing systems. It is unfortunately only available in 100ft (or longer) roll. Not exactly amateur friendly. However I recently learned that there were at one time other panchromatic papers made. They were aimed primarily at those that would want to make black and white prints from color negatives and render shades of red as something more than white. Unfortunately this stuff hasn't been made for something like 15 years. One product from Kodak is called Panalure and so I looked on eBay and found an up opened box available for £20. I decided to take a punt. The paper arrived as advertised (Panalure Select II RC F M) and so I proceeded to make test prints from the Kodachrome in my earlier blog post. With Panalure it is necessary to work in complete darkness; no safelights as they will fog the paper. My first test strip came out like this.
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| f5.6 test strip 8-64 seconds 1/2 stop |
Some image is visible but very dark so I stopped it down and tried again. Hmm still dark. The paper must be fogged.
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| f11 test strip 8-64 seconds 1/2 stop |
Time to try an unexposed piece of paper.
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| Unexposed Panalure developed with Eco4812 |
The paper is fogged with age. I tried one more attempt using Eco4812 with 50ml 1% BZT to no avail.
The only thing left to do was a lumen print and the paper worked well for that. Here is one I put in the sun for 1/2 hour then toned with selenium 1+19 for less than a minute before fixing.
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| Lumen Print from Panalure |
Finally I found a source of cut sheet Ilford Digital Silver (I think) at
Photo Warehouse in the US. I have ordered some 8x10 sheets at a little better price than a whole roll. I assume they repackage the Ilford paper as their own brand as they also offer the Ilford roll paper. I'll report the results when I have them.
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