[Leica] RC, Not at all Cool! Daddy O! (long)

[Mark Rabiner <mark@rabiner.cncoffice.com>]

I have a neat stack of a dozen or so 11x14 prints sitting right here next to me
which I printed Friday. A model test. The contacts didn't excite me and I was in
no mood to print them but I had a deadline which was Friday.
I'm a die hard fiber advocate and this was the first time I've printed RC in a
year or so except for contact sheets.

I used the new Ilford Cooltone paper which I've never used before and bought a
new CD to play in the darkroom so I could do this boring task with something new
to wake me up.
I've shied away form getting any of this Cooltone stuff from Ilford because I
was afraid I'd like it . THEY DON'T MAKE IT IN FIBER. I'm a huge fan of Ilfords
papers which I don't stray from. They have a warmtone option to their regular
gorgeous paper and now they are dangling the option of in the other direction. 
A Cooltone option. More bromide. Less Chloride.

As expected the paper was not as blue as the box. :)
I was ready for this because the warm stuff comes in a box which looks like
Hershey's chocolate in a thin slab. But inside is paper which is like Portriga,
a warm grey, not a warm brown.
It's black and white paper, man!
When the Multigrade III came out way back it was a de-puke-ified version of
Multigrade II.
They just cleaned it up, took the puke out. The yellowed cast in both the whites
and the greys.
When the Multigrade IV came out it was the same thing; a further cleaning and
brightening process. Also if you read the fine print it was optimized for split
printing for those like me who do that.

So now the COOL stuff is; when used in Dektol 1: 2 with a splash of Neutol Plus
and a capful of Benzotriazole NOT AT ALL COOL. 
IT'S JUST NOT AT ALL WARM! It's a further de-puke-ifacation of the Ilford paper line.

It's the cleanest paper I ever did see and that includes Agfa Brovira and
Broviraspeed which was my papers of the 70's and early  80's.

Ansel Adams in his old "THE PRINT" book got me worshiping the castless neutral
grey as part of what makes a silver print more of a silver print. (like silverware!)

When they took the silver out of the paper in the late 70's and everyone
switched to Portriga because it was the only paper which had silver in it supposedly:
I stuck to Brovira and a nuetral gray.

This new Ilford Cooltone stuff going to get me doing some more RC printing on a
regular basis for Workprints, ungrateful clients and for stuff I'm sticking in a
book anyway.
It's just not all fiber anymore. For me anyhow.
Mark W. Rabiner
:)
pearls before shine