Chuck,
There is indeed a paper for making B&W prints from color negs. It is
Panalure, made by Kodak. As you might imagine from the name, it a
panchromatic paper. This means that it needs to be handled in the same
safelight as color paper.
For the younger members of our audience, unaccustomed to the wet darkroom,
regular B&W paper is sensitive to only certain parts of the visible
spectrum. In the case of VC papers, there are two emulsions, one a high
contrast layer, sensitive to one color, and another, low contrast layer,
sensitive to a different color. The filters regulate the proportion of each
layer exposed. It is for this reason that some color negatives can be
printed to good result on VC paper. The results aren't very predictable, but
in some cases, can actually be better than Panalure.
I don't know about price, but I would assume that Panalure is more
expensive, based on it's lower sales.
This is one area where the dreaded digital darkroom can be a big advantage.
You can scan your color negs as RGB, and pick and choose from the channels
for better results. It's not the same as filters, but can be similar. Of
course, printing the results can be problematic.
Bill Pearce
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