Cibachrome replacement?

[Roger Cole]

Many color materials will soon be "un re creatable"! There will be no engineers left alive with the overall engineering competence. You guys keep forgetting this. After all, we don't yet know how the pyramids were built!

PE

The pyramid "mystery" was solved lone ago when the found drawings of the ramps they used.

It was invented once, it could be invented again if need be. I know those are some very bright folks who worked it out the first time, but there are always very bright (and very dim - and the 'net shows us all the latter as well) folks around if the need is there.

 

[Photo Engineer]

Tom, "thanks for your work while it lasted"?? I'm not done yet.

Roger, yes and how many years did it take to learn about the ramps. I'm talking the internal ramps not the supposed external sand ramps which were claimed for years.

PE

 

[Tom1956]

Sorry. I have an idea you knew what I meant, despite my less than graceful syntax skills.

 

[Roger Cole]

You think it would take as long or longer to re-invent color than it did the first time, with the computer tools we have now?

Maybe. I don't know. I don't know if they speed up chemical analysis and "design" like they do so many other things, but then if one is counting on digital mysteriously vanishing I guess that whacks the computers too.

I don't mean in any way to deny your talent or that of others who worked in this field. It just seems to me if somehow digital DID vanish, what was lost could be worked out again, maybe not identically, but just as good.

 

[Tom1956]

After having read and learned of Drew's obvious expertise, I wonder what kind of opinion he or others of his experience thought of Ektachrome paper printing, up until its discontinuation. Compared to Ciba. Longevity of image, ease of process, color or print quality--that sort of thing. Leading me to a conclusive question: would it be any more likely or feasible to revive that product over Ciba. Presuming either were remotely likely.

 

[Prest_400]

We need to come up with the technology to remove the brains from these engineers and power them up in mechanical bodies, so we can get them to toil for us all indefinitely. Or would that fit in the category of "no good deed goes unpunished". Just joking. Thanks for your work PE, while it lasted. At least some of it still exists and may never be totally lost.

Wee need some kind of AI for that. A few weeks ago I saw a documentary about space travel and it suggested an AI for piloting a ship and keeping Earth's knowledge; We're not that far of being able to have that computing capability.
It would take efforts to load all the information for color film manufacturing, but it would be doable.

As of the knowledge, discussed in another thread was that Kodak got rid of many R&D resources. I mentioned 2 electron sensitization, which is something quite specific and complex; and PE said all the knowledge kept is just the basics for production, and not the whole R&D documentation; Also, the engineer passed away.

Just kidding, but I think PE wouldn't mind to be 20 years old again...

 

[AgX]

We need to come up with the technology to remove the brains from these engineers and power them up in mechanical bodies, so we can get them to toil for us all indefinitely.

The issue is not brain surgery but the attitudes of those related to industrial knowledge in and outside the industry.

 

[Rudeofus]

Why would we burden old scientists or their brains with tasks that even we APUGers are unwilling to do? From everything I read here it should be quite simple to formulate a working Ilfochrome dye bleach, yet nobody here seems to have done it and posted a working formula. And that "we APUGers" term seems to include my sorry self

We may not be able to formulate emulsions with two-photon sensitization, but there are even simpler tasks left undone (see the Kodachrome threads).

 

[Tom1956]

I can't see PE on here without thinking of my Dad. Just guessing, but I figure they're close to the same age. My Pop will be 82 in December. Still shoots less than his age at golf several times a week. Healthy as a horse, sharp as a tack. Though supposedly "retired", still sells a good commercial insurance account every so often And PE is up there doing the Eastman House and all the other related activities he's into. Likely neither one of them is going to be kicking the bucket for a good number of years yet, knock on wood. I'll knock off embarrassing the guy with praise, but he's everything I pictured a Kodak scientist wold be, when I was a kid. Can't think of any other company with a QC standard like that.

Edit: No reply needed PE, as you've answered it before.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Ron - I doubt I can give a correct technical answer to your observation about handling the cyan layer of Ciba, but from a practical standpoint it's all
about pulling the complementaries against the weight of each other using completely different tricks for each set (and I'm not referring to simple color
balance per se) - kinda like tugging at each corner of a bedsheet until the opposite corner cooperates. Having a narrow-band additive colorhead makes
a huge difference; and I could show sample prints of the same chrome printed onto Ciba with additive vs conventional subtractive sources, and the difference is pretty remarkable. But there is more than one way to skin the cat. People like Chris Burkett (and briefly, Joe Holmes) resorted to sequential
printing techniques with different masks each step (kinda like DT printing); but I found shortcuts to this, and eventually started making very precise dupes
with all the masking corrections already built in, matched to the characteristics of my additive colorheads. Call it voodoo or alchemy or whatever, but it
worked! That's all I care about. But Ciba is Ciba. As I once told Ctein, I learned to dance with it, not tame it.

 

[Photo Engineer]

Drew, I cannot disagree with your methods.

For others, Ektachrome type R or Radiance papers from Kodak were good but not as good as Cibachrome or Neg-Pos.

For those wanting to re-create analog photography, please remember that each product was build using part of the profit from the previous generation and as the plants are torn down, we lose assets. Also, this is a learning process with no valuable textbooks out there for the entire process from B&W to color.

PE

 

[kaantuncel]

This thread got really sidetracked....