Charles Berger, of UltraStable / Heliochrome carbon printing fame

[koraks]

RIP Charles Berger, a pioneer and champion of carbon printing

groups.io

Apparently Charles Berger, inventor of 'Ultrastable' carbon transfer, which revolutionized carbon printing by doing away with dichromate, has passed away unexpectedly.
I can attest to his continued commitment to helping out newcomers to carbon printing. Despite his extensive experience and (I imagine) the challenges he met in attempting to make the world warm up to his inventions, he extended his hand to whomever was in need for help and information on how to master the challenging carbon process.

Charles Berger

www.charlesberger.com

Charles passed away two days ago, on Dec. 3.

 

[Carnie Bob]

I have had many discussions with Charles and sad to hear this news.

 

[koraks]

Note that from here, a few posts were moved into their present place from a different thread.

Charles Bergger has recently released his Ultrastable II color pigment "carbon" printing system

I'm afraid he's no longer with us; he passed away very recently.

 

[DREW WILEY]

I'm a bit confused about that. The recent implementation of Ai to the Google Search engine has transplanted a mention his carbon printing bio to the brief obituary of a man who just passed away in Ohio of the same name who was born twenty years after him. All kinds of crazy confusing things are going on like that on the quickie-look version of Google. But it otherwise wouldn't surprise me if he did pass away - he had an exceptionally long career. His own website only partially pops up for me - can't open any images.

... OK. The Carbon Printing Forum gives the correct rendition. He passed away this Dec 3rd, at Capitola, which is a beach town just south of Santa Cruz (certainly not in Ohio!). I briefly worked there when I was about 20. There were stunning 35-foot tall waves there earlier this week, which wiped out part of the Santa Cruz pier.

The intriguing question at this point is what might have happened to his patents or new II version Ultrastable business startup. Apparently Todd Gangler has worked with his new coating materials. But that query should probably be transferred to the relevant forum section.

 

[koraks]

new II version Ultrastable business startup

AFAIK there's wasn't much 'new' startup activity in that area. He tried something with 'just add water' flakes a couple of years ago, but that didn't fly.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Charles B. did delight in moving from one innovation to another - quite a restless itch for inventing. He got into thermal printing the past decade. I've seen a number of his own original generation Ultrastable prints. Like his other quad carbon innovations, he relied upon halftone technique, which gave a different look than traditional handmade carbon prints, not particularly to my liking, but inevitable for a commercial scale undertaking. The process colors were still a little off at that point. Both Polaroid Permanent and Evercolor used large roll volume pre-coated tissues. I don't know if he had any direct investment in the Evercolor/Agfa venture or not, but he unquestionably influenced it and was directly involved in consultation. I have a sample of that stored away somewhere, along with a sample of the parallel Evercolor dye process;
neither obtained much momentum.

It would be interesting to learn more details about his "instant noodle soup" coatings. I did see his video talk about it from 2022. I have a basic idea where his process colors were trending due to the late Richard Kaufmann - the other great West Coast innovator of pigment printing.