IGFS

[FrankG]

I haven't used Ilford Gold Fibre Silk for a few years. I understand there was a change in the production. Can someone that may have participated in a thread discussing this change, please provide a link for me to read up on where the paper is at now.

For a project I am about to purchase 2 boxes of 11x17 Canson Baryta Photographique but thought I'd first consider IGFS

(anyone know who has the best prices in or near Toronto?)

Thank you
Frank

[Mark D Segal]

Hi Frank, I've been using IGFS as my mainstay paper for years and right through the transition of company ownership using both the previous production and the current one. They are completely interchangeable, no need to reprofile if you use custom profiles; if you use Ilford's profiles I advise downloading the most recent ones from their website because they have improved their profiles.

I buy mine at CCBC-Club, 7 Labatt Street Toronto (perpendicular to the East side of River Road between Dundas and Queen). They keep their prices very competitive and over time as your purchases accumulate they apply small discounts to future purchases. I also buy my Epson inks there. They will ship, but I prefer collecting paper on the spot. Shipping carries risk of damage to the boxes from bumping corners. If the paper corners get creased it could create a mess when run through the printer. I like the way Epson packages their high-end papers in boxes with an inside all-round buffer between the box and the paper. Ilford and many others don't do this.

[FrankG]

Mark
Thank you for confirming IGFS is the same and as good as it ever was. I'll check out ccbc. Haven't used them for a very long time. They were on King st back then.
F

[FrankG]

It's called Prestige - I assume this is the same as Gallerie ?
ccbc don't seem to carry 11x17in
 http://www.ccbc-club.com/?s=1

[Mark D Segal]

Frank. This paper is not manufactured in 11*17 inches. Don't worry about the "Prestige" business - that's just marketing; they changed their naming conventions even before the bankruptcy, but it's the identical material.

Yes - they had to close the King St. store because their lease was up and the property owner wanted the space back.

[Dan Glynhampton]

if you use Ilford's profiles I advise downloading the most recent ones from their website because they have improved their profiles.

Thanks for the heads up on the improved profiles Mark.  Would you recommend using the latest profiles just with the current version of IFGS or would there also be a benefit with the older paper from before Ilford in Switzerland went bankrupt? I ask because I have a small amount of the old paper remaining, and whilst I'd usually be happy to try out different profiles I'd prefer an informed opinion before committing some sheets of it to an experiment.

Thanks in advance.

 Dan

[Mark D Segal]

Dan, it's the same paper so if an improved profile works better with the new paper it should also work better with the old. But the only way to know for sure with your printer and your colour management set-up is to try it. A sheet or two of paper isn't a big deal in a life-time of printing. And if you don't like the new profile or were happier with the old one you can always go back to it as long as you don't delete it from your profiles folder.

[Dan Glynhampton]

Dan, it's the same paper so if an improved profile works better with the new paper it should also work better with the old. But the only way to know for sure with your printer and your colour management set-up is to try it. A sheet or two of paper isn't a big deal in a life-time of printing. And if you don't like the new profile or were happier with the old one you can always go back to it as long as you don't delete it from your profiles folder.

Ok, thanks Mark, I'll give the new profile a try. My hesitation is only because I have a very limited supply of the old IGFS, so I'm grateful for your clarification.

[hugowolf]

It is not the same paper. It has a higher OBA content.

Brian A

[Mark D Segal]

Your evidence?

[Ernst Dinkla]

There are older threads on the subject and this one mentions identical papers from other sources which can be cheaper to purchase:
http://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=100684.0

Identical; the paper being produced by one company and just getting different labels in the distribution channels.

Edit: there has been a change in the IGFS since Ilford's collapse/resurrection. The new IGFS has a slightly higher OBA content compared to the version before. The new one is identical to the also recently introduced Felix Schoeller and Hahnemühle varieties as described in the linked thread. Whether Canson's version will follow that path I could not test yet. I expect that anyway. There will be information on their coatings from another source I respect but we have to wait.

Another edit for your convenience: https://www.vistek.ca/search/PrinterPapers/581.aspx  11x17" in Toronto at a lower price than the other brands have.


Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst

http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm
December 2014 update, 700+ inkjet media white spectral plots
 

[Mark D Segal]

On page 210 of hia colour management book, Andrew Rodney recommends: examine the LAB values of the paper white. If a negative b* value is measured, there is a good reason to suspect optical brighteners. The other test to perform is to produce a white document in Photoshop in LABand convert that to the printer profile in question using the Absolute Colorimetric intent. If the b* value is negative as seen in the info palette set to read that color model, the paper probably contains optical brighteners.

I have done both of these tests - the first for the old and new versions of IGFS, and the second for the IGFS/4900 custom profile I made using the same instrument as that with which I performed these tests. SO here are the results:

First, the Ilford spec sheet for this paper: L=97.0, a* = -0.5, b* = 0.2.

Second: OLD IGFS as I measured it: L=97.5; a* = -0.3, b* = 0.9
Third: NEW IGFS as I measured it: L = 97.2; a* = -0.3, b* = 1.12
Fourth: Readings of paper white in Photoshop through the Profile: b* = 1.0

So if anything, no blue in b* and the new paper is a tad warmer than the old one - an irrelevant difference for practical purposes. If there are OBAs in this paper, it would take a different kind of testing to find them. If I remember correctly, Aardenburg may have seen such.

[MHMG]

So if anything, no blue in b* and the new paper is a tad warmer than the old one - an irrelevant difference for practical purposes. If there are OBAs in this paper, it would take a different kind of testing to find them. If I remember correctly, Aardenburg may have seen such.

There are definitely OBAs in IGFS.  Negative b* values are indeed a telltale sign of incorporated OBAs, but any paper with b* still positive but very close to 0.0 may have OBAs in the formulation as well, typically only in the paper core (e.g. Hahnemuhle Photo Rag), but OBA is still being used to tweak the paper warmth closer to a perfect neutral (under D50 Illuminant). Another good way to check for OBA is an inexpensive black light that can be purchased at stores like Home Depot, or online.  An excellent way to really get good instrumented results is to do both UV included and UV excluded measurements with a spectro like i!Pro2 and calculate the difference in b* value. . i!Pro2 also supports the new M1(UV included) condition as well as the M2 condition (UV excluded). The older legacy MO standard is a UV included measurement as well, but the new M1 condition uses higher UV output, so OBA containing papers will read a little more blue under M! than M0.

IGFS's OBA content is actually more problematic than would seem by initial LAB measurements. The product exhibits low intensity light induced staining (LILIS) over and above the expected loss of fluorescence over time. This LILIS phenomenon has gone very much under reported in the print longevity ratings games.  It's an industry wide problem that needs to be better addressed in the conservation literature and in modern light fade testing procedures.  Whether the IGFS media whitepoint stability over time is good enough for you will depend on your personal tolerance for highlight yellowing in your prints over time. but there are some good media on the market today that do not have the LILIS problem, and there are others that have it pretty bad, particularly some very popular RC photo papers.

I'm working on a new publication regarding Light Induced discoloration to be released on the AaI&A website as soon as I can complete it, but regrettably I've run into a little writer's block. It's a tricky paper to write because if it is written only for other imaging experts then the problem will stay buried in the technical literature as it has been for the last decade or more.  The photography and printmaking community needs to be brought up to speed on the situation, but this audience doesn't necessarily have an awareness of the LAB scale or other metrics needed to quantify the magnitude of this light induced media staining problem.

cheers,
Mark
http://www.aardenburg-imaging.com

[Mark D Segal]

Thanks Mark, I was hoping you would enter this discussion. It could be my instrument (XRite Pulse) is not picking up the OBA because it may be UV-cut; I'm trying to get clarity on this because when it was still current it had a UV cut/no-cut factory installed option. As I bought it second-hand I'm not yet able to get clarity on that detail. Do you have any reliable evidence to suggest differences of OBA content between the new and old IGFS? (BTW, that Pulse is still generating excellent profiles for me - my latest has an IGFS/4900 gamut volume of 977,000 and an overall dE of 1.07 measured from a print of the appropriately configured GM-CC.)

Thanks for bringing the LILIS issue to our attention - one would never have known otherwise. Do you have any idea how long IGFS prints could remain in dark storage before signs of this trouble would become apparent? And what lusterish media on the market with roughly equivalent DMax and gamut would be free of this problem?

[MHMG]

Thanks Mark, I was hoping you would enter this discussion. It could be my instrument (XRite Pulse) is not picking up the OBA because it may be UV-cut; I'm trying to get clarity on this because when it was still current it had a UV cut/no-cut factory installed option. As I bought it second-hand I'm not yet able to get clarity on that detail. Do you have any reliable evidence to suggest differences of OBA content between the new and old IGFS? (BTW, that Pulse is still generating excellent profiles for me - my latest has an IGFS/4900 gamut volume of 977,000 and an overall dE of 1.07 measured from a print of the appropriately configured GM-CC.)

I don't have any of the latest IGFS in house. If you want to send me a small piece of your new versus old, I would be happy to measure and report back. I just stepped up to a new i!Pro2 because I want to update my tests to the new M1 measurement condition, and i need more speed than my old spetrolinos in order to deal with the new testing procedure I"m working out to track the LILIS issue.
Anyway, if you have papers high OBA papers like EEF in house, you can try reading them with your Xrite pulse and compare to the UV inc/UVexc data I list in the description page of each AaI&A test report. Also, you can cheack against Ernsts's spectrum vis measurements. This should help you figure out if your Pulse is UV excluded (M2) or UV included (older M0 condition like my spectrolinos).

Thanks for bringing the LILIS issue to our attention - one would never have known otherwise. Do you have any idea how long IGFS prints could remain in dark storage before signs of this trouble would become apparent? And what lusterish media on the market with roughly equivalent DMax and gamut would be free of this problem?

The stain can begin to form in just a few weeks after the print is retired to dark storage after sufficient light exposure on display. The extra staining can commence after there is any OBA burnout, so some will form in as little as 10 Mlux hours of light exposure, and it gets increasingly worse as light exposure dosage goes up and as more time in dark storage occurs. What makes things tricky about LILIS is that high intensity light sources can reversibly bleach the stain back to low levels,  a good reason why conventional accelerated tests fail to discover the issue because the sample are usually measured immediately after the light exposure step. But the stain returns with further dark storage, so the bleaching effect is not a viable deterrent.  There is a definite reciprocity law effect which clearly needs more study, but what I mean is that there is some light intensity level on display where the bleaching of the stain should match the low intensity generation of the stain. The bleaching affect is not a good solution or safe haven because it appears that at typical room display intensities, the stain generation out paces the light bleaching effect. Hence, we should be able to see the problem in real world samples, and indeed now that I know what to look for, I've got friends and colleagues finding real world samples!  Fuji Crystal Archive II paper shows the effect, and I've seen real world examples with just 15 years on display at light levels of about 200 lux for 12 hours per day, a condition where this system would get an industry rating of 80+ years.  Anyway, because the problem is related to OBAs and perhaps TI02 whiteners as well, it's not just an inkjet media issue. It is present in silver gelatin RC and traditional fiber prints that have OBAs present to varying degrees. Conservators probably assumed any stains in chromogenic color papers were due to bad processing or thermal stability problems with the residual color couplers, but LILIS is going to build unwanted stain as well.

If you want to avoid LILIS problems with glossy/luster type media, the best advice I can give for now is to stay clear of RC photo papers and non RC media with moderate or high levels of OBA. Use OBA free non RC papers like Hahenmuhle PHoto Rag Pearl, Canson Platine, etc. The RC media can build particularly high levels of stain (b* values of 15 to 25... that's yellow!). I suspect OBAs embedded in Ti02-PE layers is aggravating the OBA degradation and discoloration rate in the RC papers, but more study needed.

The yellowing can easily reach levels in some media that would certainly preclude sensible claims of 100+ year ink and media display life performance for fine art prints. Good examples of the LILIS problem can be found in ID#s 224 and 225 in the AaI&A database. These samples use HP's very stable Vivera pigments but were printed on two popular RC photo papers.  The media can sadly become a very weak link in the system when high stability pigmented inks are used.

later,
Mark
http://www.aardenburg-imaging.com

[Mark D Segal]

Hi Mark,

Thanks ever so much for the extended explanation of the LILIS factor. It sounds scary, but I suppose very critical is the length and intensity of exposure to light. I've just looked through several of my book-albums printed on IGFS starting from 2008 when I first used it, and I see zero evidence of any staining whatsoever, but these albums have been sitting nicely on shelves for about 7 years now seldom opened [so why print them one may ask, but that's another talk-show :-) - that has surfaced in our house :-)].

Thanks for the suggestion re sleuthing the UV state of my Pulse. I'll try it if I find the right paper unprinted. As well I shall send you samples of old and new IGFS. Could you please ping me with an address where you would like them sent to.

Cheers,

Mark

[MHMG]

... Could you please ping me with an address where you would like them sent to.

Cheers,

Mark

Done,
cheers,
Mark

[hugowolf]

On page 210 of hia colour management book, Andrew Rodney recommends: examine the LAB values of the paper white. If a negative b* value is measured, there is a good reason to suspect optical brighteners. The other test to perform is to produce a white document in Photoshop in LABand convert that to the printer profile in question using the Absolute Colorimetric intent. If the b* value is negative as seen in the info palette set to read that color model, the paper probably contains optical brighteners.

Negative b* values may be indicative of OBA content, but there are plenty of papers with low OBA content that have low positive b* values.

Although not 100% proof, looking at the paper's spectral reflectance distribution is a much better indicator of the presence of OBAs: a local maximum around 440 nm where light is emitted from the energy absorbed just below there towards the UV range where the distribution curve shows a precipitous drop.

A good way to test if your device is UV cut is bright white office paper. The stuff just shouts OBAs.

Brian A

[Mark D Segal]

Brian, yes I'm aware of that possibility, why I was not too definitive in my response. MHMG is professionally equipped to sleuth this and we've made an arrangement. Should be interesting. Thanks.

[Ernst Dinkla]

Recycling of an old message at LL:

A screenshot of the respective paper's spectral plots. It looks like with every incarnation of IGFS: Galerie, Galerie Prestige, New Galerie Prestige, the level of OBA went up. The top plot, yellow/green/blue, is the merging of the new generation of IGFS clones; Hahnemühle Photo Silk Baryta 310, Ilford N (New, autumn 2014>) Galerie Prestige Gold Fibre Silk 310, Felix Schoeller J23160 True Baryta 310.

On the BASO4 content that should go along with the Baryta labelling I had/have my doubts too:
http://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=68837.0

Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst

http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm