Kodak Discontinues All B&W Paper

Excellence has little meaning to a public that is so poorly educated. More
fall-out from the Baby Boomers.

 

I saw a presentation given by a Kodak rep during the early '90s for a group
that I'm in. He made the statement then that Kodak felt that film was on it's
way out and wihin 10 years it would be nearly completely replaced by digital
imaging. The statement cam close to being right on.


: You know - when a company had so much invested in an industry like Kodak
: had in silver film and paper, you would think that they would spend some
: time and energy doing PR about the superiority of silver-based
: technology over digital.

: John wrote:
: > On Wed, 15 Jun 2005 13:42:49 +0000 (UTC), Thor Lancelot Simon wrote:
: >
: >
: >>And for all some people here like to whine about Kodak's "greed", it
: >>is patently absurd to claim that Kodak should lose money so that we
: >>can buy the art supplies we like.
: >
: >
: > There is no question about greed. It is built in to every large companies
: > "culture" today. I don't recall anyone saying that Kodak should operate at
: > a loss. As I said earlier in another thread, they simply need to modernize
: > their production, marketing and sales methods. Instead of doing so , and
: > subseqently keeping supplies available while making a profit, they are
: > slowly and deliberately closing their doors.
: >
: > BTW, when did they last announce the discontinuation of all B-&-W
: > materials ? Wasn't that around '70 ?
: >

--

 

: On Thu, 30 Jun 2005 14:33:40 GMT, USENET NEWSREADER wrote:

: > You know - when a company had so much invested in an industry like Kodak
: > had in silver film and paper, you would think that they would spend some
: > time and energy doing PR about the superiority of silver-based
: > technology over digital.

: Excellence has little meaning to a public that is so poorly educated. More
: fall-out from the Baby Boomers.

Looking at some of the poorly exposed, printed, processed photos that I've seen from the
beginning of the century through the seventies I don't think that top quality photos and
prints were that important then either.
--

 

I gave a quick look at the way emulsion plants
work. An 1880s Kodak plant had drying room for
a two mile run of emulsion. How wide a roll
I don't know.
Drug store size processing came on strong in
the 60s. At that time and prior, but after Kodak's
total grip on processing, many regional labs
existed; one day wait for film and prints.
Paper, which some at home coat, I'd think is a
very good candidate for no more than a one-day-wait
sized manufacturing facility.
Microscopic ink dots are spelling the doom of the
goliathian paper production works. Reminds me of
the 1950s movie War Of The Worlds.
How about this? Pickup a ream of gelatine-
baryta sized INK JET paper. I can imagine there are
today any number of small capacity machines used
for coating many divers materials. Dan

 

I know that paper is only semi dry prior to storage (at least as
a roll), Forte for one rolls the paper into large rolls that are
cold stored while the paper is semi dry, since a complete
emulsion run is not sold and shipped immediately there
is a need to store paper and the semi dry paper allows
unrolling and cutting the paper to sizes as needed.

 

Neither B&W or color papers are stored semi-dry. If they were, the emulsion
would adhere to the back of the next layer and tear when you tried to unroll
it. What you are referring to is that most papers emulsions have not
hardened completely after they are coated, and the large roll is stored
under cool, not cold temperatures to allow the emulsion to completely harden
before the paper is finished into smaller rolls or sheets.

This unhardened paper is compleyely dry, but the emulsion is very
susceptable to abrasion damage or scratching until it has "cured."

 

I admit thats more accurate, the emulsion is unhardened.