I am starting to print again after a 15 year hiatus. When I last made prints, I was very happy using Ilford's Galerie, graded FB paper. I've scanned this board, and it's clear that a whole new generation of papers has been and gone while I've been away.

Is Galerie still available (I'm in Australia)? If not, what is the nearest equivalent. I recall multicontrast papers being treated with some scorn, but from the posts here, it seems as if MC is now the norm. Is this right?

I would appreciate any comments. I'm looking forward to getting my hands back in the soup!

Cheers Miles Standish

-- Miles Standish (m.standish@bigpond.com), November 01, 1998

Answers

Graded papers are still around and the Galerie is still availalble at least in the US. Variable contrast papers are much improved over the recent past. They are a little more finicky to use than graded papers, the color of the light source is important and they are more sensitive to safelights but you don't have to own 5 different boxes of paper either. Have fun!

-- Jeff White (zonie@computer-concepts.com), November 01, 1998.

It's also still available in the UK, both FB and RC.

-- Alan Gibson (Alan.Gibson@technologist.com), November 02, 1998.

ILFOBROM GALERIE is also avaliable here in Sweden and in any other european country I have ever been, so I suppose it should be in Australia too. For me, personally this is the finest graded B&W paper ever made. I still print most of my work on graded papers (unless split grading is needed) and the results are great. Stick with it if you can affort it.

-- Evgeni Poptoshev (evgeni.poptoshev@surfchem.kth.se), January 04, 1999.

As you've probably discovered by now :), Galerie is available in Australia....

-- Russell Edwards (redwards@mania.physics.swin.edu.au), January 14, 1999.