C-41 for color prints

So my experience is entirely in BW, as I always thought doing color development was egregiously difficult. Then I saw FPP’s short video on at home C-41 film development with their complete chemistry kits. I went to their website and low and behold, their Super Color kit was on sale for $20. Sweet! Ordered that. That motivated me to clean up my darkroom and go through a large box a friend had given me several months ago, say it was “darkroom” equipment. I opened it up to find it was several Beseler drums with a base and a PM1A color analyzer. So off to Google I go to watch some tutorials and hey this seems easy enough to get the gist of at least. So here comes the search for RA-4 chemistry. And as everyone here knows, that stuff is like trying to find the holy grail. So here comes my question… one YouTube video mentioned you can use c-41 for print making, you’ll just end up with color shifts. My search to find examples of someone doing thing has brought up nothing. So has anyone tried it? Is it worth giving a go and seeing what happens?

I got what I have (haven't mixed it yet, hope it keeps well as concentrate), the Kodak RA-4 RT set, from Unique Photo (they have two stores, one in New Jersey and one in Pennsylvania, not sure it matters which you select when they're shipping). BTW, "RT" stands for Room Temperature, highly recommended over having to keep the trays/bottles warm.

Not sure about using C 41 for color paper, Photo Wearhouse has RA 4 kits, 4 liters, $62.00 + shipping seems to be stock while Freestyle is back ordered.

My experience was that I set the the CYM filters to the setting on the package of paper and that put me very close to the final color balance for whichever roll of film I was printing.

Paul Howell said:

Not sure about using C 41 for color paper, Photo Wearhouse has RA 4 kits, 4 liters, $62.00 + shipping seems to be stock while Freestyle is back ordered.

Click to expand...

Well I’ll be damned! Placed an order and got some paper for $40 off to boot!

Donald Qualls said:

I got what I have (haven't mixed it yet, hope it keeps well as concentrate), the Kodak RA-4 RT set, from Unique Photo (they have two stores, one in New Jersey and one in Pennsylvania, not sure it matters which you select when they're shipping). BTW, "RT" stands for Room Temperature, highly recommended over having to keep the trays/bottles warm.

Click to expand...

RT is roller transport, yes??. Or Russia Today if you have Directv. Kodak came around to using tubes and trays, finally, after it was shown to work by everyone.

Sirius Glass said:

My experience was that I set the the CYM filters to the setting on the package of paper and that put me very close to the final color balance for whichever roll of film I was printing.

Click to expand...

The good old days of Kodak cut sheets. Fuji sheets have no such instructions. Once balanced, using the same film type the paper is remarkably stable.

If C-41 is used for RA-4 the colors will be off, and the dye stability will suffer, as they use different developing agents.

mshchem said:

Kodak came around to using tubes and trays, finally, after it was shown to work by everyone.

Click to expand...

Kodak has always promoted the use of tubes and trays for RA-4, but not at room temperature, although the RA-RT works very well.

If you ordered paper from Photo Warehouse I hope it was the factory packaged Fuji. I have tried off brand paper from both Freestyle and PW, all of it was defective, a waste of time and chemistry and ended up in the trash. I think RA4 printing is a lot of fun, I hope you enjoy it too.

I'm having a rough time getting my favorite papers at the moment due to pandemic-related distribution issues. But Fuji CA ii paper is currently available in cut sheet sizes from several major suppliers, and is a decent reliable product with very consistent color balance. The same places can sell you the RA4 chemistry. I don't personally like "room temp" style RA4 chem.