Cibachrome/Ilfochrome

Rudeofus · May 7, 2015

eng1er said:
I wish I had any optical printing process available for transparencies.

Internegatives?

Simon R Galley · May 7, 2015

Cibachrome / ILFOCHROME did produce some great products and certainly did add longevity to colour printing, I cannot imagine that at any time this process ( SDB ) will ever be coated again by anybody, we never coated it at Mobberley it was coated on the T4 machine at Marly
and ILFORD Switzerland is sadly no more.

Simon ILFORD Photo / HARMAN technology Limited :

AgX · May 7, 2015

But true internegative films have vanished meanwhile.
One has to improvise with camera films.

Wayne · May 7, 2015

maybe Ilford can make interneg film, as a kind of methadone for Cibachrome junkies

Rudeofus · May 8, 2015

Wayne said:
maybe Ilford can make interneg film, as a kind of methadone for Cibachrome junkies

The Ilford we all love doesn't make color products, whereas the Ilford we all dreaded (but which made Ilfochrome) went down the drain.

Xmas · May 8, 2015

Rudeofus said:
The Ilford we all love doesn't make color products, whereas the Ilford we all dreaded (but which made Ilfochrome) went down the drain.

True but Harman still make a mono C41 film so they have most of the technology coating already.
Couple of extra layers... And Harman colour...

The c41 market must be dominated by the Agfa vista dumping. So you would need to be mad to even think about entering.

Ilford used to make negative colour as well as slide.

Photo Engineer · May 8, 2015

You make color sound so simple! I wish it were so.

PE

DREW WILEY · May 11, 2015

Interneg film was no big deal. High-quality internegs just like high-quality dupes require one to mask the original chrome anyway, which labs almost never did, so gave the whole nine yards a bad rap in terms of repro quality. You could use Portra 160 nowadays. Ciba was Ciba and had its own personality based on certain inherent idiosyncrasies. For large-volume labs there were serious health and maintenance issues with all that corrosive bleach. Then towards the end the US distribution got both flaky and clumsy. The paper went way up in price, and when it finally delivered, it tended to come in damaged. That was pretty much the nail in the coffin. I wouldn't blame digital, since serious laser printers were a major investment back then, and still are. And inkjet is a homely second cousin if that Ciba look is what you prefer. But I'm pretty happy with the results I've getting from large format Ektar on Fuji Supergloss in terms of a replacement product. A different masking protocol, for sure, but not needed all the time like it was with Ciba. Allegedly the Fuji papers have better display permanence in light; but I doubt they'll have the dark storage life of Ciba. End of an era anyway, since chrome films are nearly dead too.

Photo Engineer · May 11, 2015

Drew;

The first figure shows the Ektachrome characteristic curve. The second one shows a true internegative film curve. I don't have curves of the interimage of the latter.

When you make an internegative, you place the toe of the Ektachrome on the upsweep of the internegative film. This "adds" the two curves and you end up with a straight line, thus fixing up the highlights in the dupe neg and the print. In addition, the internegative film has a tad of overcorrection in the mask to correct for the deficiencies of the slide.

Just FYI.

PE

DREW WILEY · May 11, 2015

Thanks. But I wonder if this stuff is even made anymore in relevant sizes. Fuji refuses to import theirs. One significant advantage of a separate unsharp mask is that you can correct to some degree not only for contrast issues but for color reproduction anomalies. Velvia can be a nasty critter to make internegs from; the dyes don't seem to dance well together. But I never shot much of that. When the big lab up the street did a lot of large format internegs they recommended using lith highlight masks for keeping sparkle (specular highlights) differentiated. Oh well, reminiscing anyway. ... I've picked out a few 8x10 chromes to make a fool out of myself dye transfer printing. My chromogenic prints are nearly all made right from color negs, the way it's supposed to be. I've got enough to do.

Photo Engineer · May 11, 2015

Portra 160 pulled 15" in the developer works fine for printing. A bit "dupey" but quite good.

PE

JoJo · May 12, 2015

For 35mm format, cinefilm (Kodak Vision) works pretty well as internegative film due to its flat curve.
Short ends and recans are very cheap.
The required ECN-2 developer can be mixed at home very easy.
Some people tell that C-41 is also possible. But I never got good results with C-41. Colors were completely off.

Joachim

Rudeofus · May 12, 2015

JoJo said:
For 35mm format, cinefilm (Kodak Vision) works pretty well as internegative film due to its flat curve.

That's exactly the issue: 35mm is trivial, there are slide duplicators for 35mm cameras available in the used market for next to nothing. But what would I do with my medium format slides?

DREW WILEY · May 12, 2015

I prefer to actually enlarge 35mm and 120 originals onto 4x5 of larger sheet film internegs or dupes. If you have the right lenses and carriers etc it's far more precise, and you end up with something which prints way better because it needs to be magnified less. The nice thing about Portra (at the moment at least, keeping my fingers crossed) is that it's available in a wide range of sizes. The sheet film version is on a stable
polyester base if registration is needed for some reason, and the quality control is very predictable. Plus I keep sheets on hand anyway for
general shooting. 8x10 has gotten obscenely expensive; but most people don't need sheets that big. But this kind of application does separate
the men from the boys when it comes to things like enlarging lenses and neg carrier. A vacuum sheet film holder also helps.

Cibachrome/Ilfochrome

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