The old Forte gave wonderful warm brown tones in Selenium. The Few sheets I have of the new Plus come out either "normal" black or tend towards red. Does anybody have more experience with the new Plus paper and how to get the best tones out of it?

-- Russell Brooks (russell@ebrooks.org), October 31, 2001

Answers

Greetings Russell,

I only discovered Poly warm tone plus earlier this year, so not having tried the older variety I can't comment. I like the plus very much and 4 minutes in 1:~17 selenium at 24C produces a rich dark brown (chocolate brown.) I would think if you're getting a red brown, your selenium may be too strong. Also I'm developing it in ethol LPD at 1:2.

Regards,

-- Pete Caluori (pcaluori@hotmail.com), November 01, 2001.

Russell:

You might want to check out Forte's new Polywarmtone Art paper. Its probably a mostly chloride type of paper. More sensitive to different developers, dilutions and toning.

-- Ken Burns (kenburns@twave.net), November 02, 2001.

You probably had the older paper we so loved, now discontinued because it had cadmium in it. The newer paper will never look as good as the old stuff. You might try some of the toner formulations from The Darkroom Cookbook, a glycin based developer or various dilutions of brown toners to see if you can get closer to the look you got in the past. After trying a bunch of combinations I moved to the Bergger warm tone papers & Glycin based developers.

-- Dan Smith (shooter@brigham.net), November 04, 2001.

I am pretty sure that the Bergger is the same as Forte.
As far as PWT goes I think I will play a bit with different developers to see if I can find a new tone that I might like as much as the old tone.

-- Russell Brooks (russell@ebrooks.org), November 05, 2001.

Bergger is definitely not the same paper as Forte--different tonality, different speed, different surface and different weight.

Go with the Plus version over Art. It's heavier, has richer tones with brighter highlights and tones beautifully. The names are misleading: Plus is much more arty than Art. Try it in LPD diluted 1:4 or more. I found the warm tones of this developer far more appealing in terms of tonal color than glycin developers.

-- Ted Kaufman (writercrmp@aol.com), November 07, 2001.