Color Analyzers

[NortheastPhotographic]

I color balanced by eye back in my glory days (AKA college). Didn't even know about analyzers until a few years ago, but have never used one. For someone who may be developing RA4 in a CPP3, it seems like a great way to speed up the process and reduce waste.

Do I have this right? Any caveats about them?

 

[Tom Kershaw]

I have one and found that balancing by eye worked better. Appropriate filtration becomes more obvious as you get familiar with printing RA-4. My darkroom is 100% incandescent lighting so I judge colour under those conditions, which actually hold up fine under my high CRI fluorescents in my print / scanning area.

 

[swchris]

I'm red/brown color blind. I guess such a color analyzer would help me. I've never tried to make color prints because of my color blindedness.
Would it be possible for a color-blinded person to create proper color prints by using a color analyzer?

regards,
chris

 

[btaylor]

The trouble with using a color analyzer (especially if you are color blind) is that you have to make a perfect print to calibrate the machine to begin with. I have a couple of analyzers but never got around to calibrating them because I didn’t want to bother.
For me the key to being really close on the first print is to shoot a gray card for each type of film I use, create the color corrected print of that card and use those settings for subsequent real prints. Works very well and saves tons of time and materials.

 

[Sirius Glass]

I'm red/brown color blind. I guess such a color analyzer would help me. I've never tried to make color prints because of my color blindedness.
Would it be possible for a color-blinded person to create proper color prints by using a color analyzer?

regards,
chris

Yes, for a long time color blind people have had successful careers sorting and matching threads and yarns. Each for the right color for them, can see differences that most people can not sense.

 

[Mr Bill]

I'm red/brown color blind. I guess such a color analyzer would help me. I've never tried to make color prints because of my color blindedness.
Would it be possible for a color-blinded person to create proper color prints by using a color analyzer?

regards,
chris

Hi, I suspect that the analyzer would not be too helpful. But... once you make a test print you could use one of those handheld reflective spectrophotometers (such as X-rite i1) with software to report values in the system called CIELAB (L* a* b*) to evaluate the print. You would have to reach an understanding of what the numbers mean, but I would think you could probably learn to do a really good job provided that the film processing, etc., is good.

Have you actually tried color balancing? I suspect you could probably do a pretty passable job already. A true story - at the outfit where I got my grounding in color lab work (1970s) there was a particular guy who sometimes filled in as a color corrector. It was a high volume portrait specialist outfit; he was the manager of Technical Services. I was pretty young, just learning about color work, but the guy generally did ok with color correction (occasionally he'd make a bad call and a couple hundred feet of 10 inch wide paper had to be reprinted).

Long story short, the company decided to step up its overall game, hiring a recent RIT grad in Photo Science. (RIT was probably the premier such school in the US at that time) One of the programs the RIT guy started was to screen all potential color correctors for ... color blindness. And you guessed it - the mostly successful guy had a substantial color blindness! My take on this was that a typical image had enough of the colors that he COULD see "correctly" for him to do the job.

Anyway, it's something you might want to actually try before giving up on the idea.

 

[Johnkpap]

I have had my best results using a unit called a "Colorstar" made by a company called LIC and was sold by Omega at one stage

They come up for sale on the auction sites every now and then, as LIC is out of business you need to make sure you get all the bits with it, the manual is not a problem as it is available on line. The best model is the last one produced with 100 memories. The first model only had 10 memories, a color star takes a bit of time to set up but once it is done you can start to see how good it actually is......

Link to manual

http://www.trippingthroughthedark.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/ColorStar-3000-Manual.pdf

Johnkpap

 

[138S]

to speed up the process and reduce waste.

I took some teachings by a retired "optic" printer that made his career in the wedding business. He was a full time printer, first class, he had a remarkable expertise and he was really good at job. He told me that usually he nailed prints at first try to suit taste of the photographers he worked with that were not many. A powerful wedding photographer could require several printers for him alone

There are some tricks. First is white balance, a white dress (wedding) or shirt usually works great as a reference for the balance, if not there best is that the photographer spends a shot with the model showing a grey card, then if the printer man simply adjusts the color head to have standard readings for the grey card then he has a good print at first try, beyond further manipulations. Next prints not having the grey card but with same light will have to be adjusted for exposure but not much for balance.

One thing he did was taking skin color readings (on the easel) for the frame that had the grey card, so he could figure the color head adjustment in the other frames for that particular model for just his skin tone. Every model has an skin tone that can be slightly adjusted but not coarsely manipulated.

He had disciplined photographers, he had a close feedback with them to make things easy and great, they were reluctant to use grey cards, but he ended working only for those with whom he could make a perfect team, ending in amazing results, an interesting case because general case was photographers "throwing rolls to lab".

The analyzer is a powerful tool, making strips is for learning, he was saying, with the analyzer you predict the color in each spot, so you know exactly what will result, still it takes a lot (a lot!) of training, skills and capability to visualize well the print from the spot readings and anotations you take.

A bit it's like previsualization in the zone system, if you spend a 8x10" sheet you want to know what will result before you trigger, this is similar, I guess.

Another (joking) advice he gave is "fuck the groom". He was saying: By all means if having to make a decision you have to favor the bride, expose/balance for the bride and later do what you can with the groom, you may burn/dodge him but if you make a single print with the bride not shining then you are dead smetimes even it's better is the groom is suboptimal, specially if the bride is in the same frame, she has to shine, like Hollywood.


For landscape it's the same, you need very skilled visualization, clouds (not at sunset) are usualy a good reference for the white. If clouds are not well balanced the pitfall is easy detected, again we need a large deal of previsualization skills, from readings we have the sky tones, vegetation, etc.

With the analyzer we need strong previsualization skills, our brain has to assemble the image in the mind from the readings we take on the easel, not easy, a bit is like blindfold chess, it takes a good player.

Anyway we can combine analyzer and test strips until we are well trained, the better the previsualization skills the less strips...

IMO if light in the taking was good then the color analyzer allows more an straight forward job. If we have a complex lightning then the printing is also complex. When face is illuminated by grass or by blue sky in the shadow then we may have diffrerent white balances in the scene, if corrective filters in the taking are not used in those situations also spectral footprint may be different, we also may play with that for aesthetics, in particular tungnsten vs daylight may may nice color counterpoints.

 

[Chan Tran]

I used a variety of color analyzers since 1980's but in the last few years in the 2000's I use a scanner. Not that I scan then print. But I scan and making adjustment to the scan until I like it. Then using the adjustment I made I figure out the exposure and filtration needed to make the print with RA-4 that looks the same.

 

[138S]

I used a variety of color analyzers since 1980's but in the last few years in the 2000's I use a scanner. Not that I scan then print. But I scan and making adjustment to the scan until I like it. Then using the adjustment I made I figure out the exposure and filtration needed to make the print with RA-4 that looks the same.

This is a quite smart way, I was considering to try that way, great to know it's viable.

I also was considering (as an experiment) to inkjet print masks in a transparency for local color corrections and dodging, from the scan, the mask woud make sandwich with the negative, with a diffuser sheet in the middle, it's only an idea I'd like to test.

 

[Michael Firstlight]

The key to using any color analyzer as someone already mentioned is to first make a perfect print (both filtration and exposure) using a given reference negative, film, and paper stock combination. A color analyzer coupled with a kit that automates the calibration process is fastest and easiest way to get there. There was a brilliant gentleman, Bob Mitchell, that invented several generations of color analyzer calibrators that do exactly that. You'll find various generations of these on eBay if you keep an eye out for them - most commonly the color cube such as Mitchell's 1st generation Unicube by Unicolor for Subtractive Color printing followed by the 2nd generation (and more commonly listed) Unicolor Mitchell Duocube Color Analyzer calibration kit which pops up fairly regularly on eBay for only $10-$30 bucks such as this one ( https://www.ebay.com/itm/VINTAGE-Mi...893925?hash=item3b3d61dbe5:g:LHcAAOSwN2Vd2zwa ). But the pinnacle of Mitchell's calibration inventions was the Mitchell Colorbrator sold by Jobo. These are very hard to find (I have one), and it makes a perfect test print in one exposure. In fact, the Mitchell Colorbrator comes with step-by step instructions for using it to calibrate a ColorStar 3000 analyzer which I own, but it should work the same with most any analyzer. Short of that it's helpful to have something like a Macbeth ColorChecker Color Rendition Chart from which to shoot and create an accurate reference negative under the lighting and film type used and also a and a color filter viewing filter kit to judge fine changes in color balance until or unless you are one of those folks that has the ability to judge accurately in small CC increments by eye that often comes with experience.

 

[jim10219]

I used a variety of color analyzers since 1980's but in the last few years in the 2000's I use a scanner. Not that I scan then print. But I scan and making adjustment to the scan until I like it. Then using the adjustment I made I figure out the exposure and filtration needed to make the print with RA-4 that looks the same.

I was given a color analyzer a while back. To me, it wasn't worth the effort. I could see it being useful for someone who does school portrait photography or something where you're having to print hundreds or thousands of photos quickly. But to me, it only got you 90% there and it still left some tweaking if you wanted to really nail your color. I was able to achieve the same or better results by just keeping a log book of settings used for past prints and starting off with that, then using a Kodak Color Print Viewing Kit to tweak it further. For someone like me, where you don't print all that often, and when you do print, you want it perfect, it didn't make any sense. So I sold it with an old enlarger I wasn't using.

Scanning is what I do too. I scan all of the negatives and adjust the colors to get a decent looking print in the computer. I have some curve presets that I've made that make the job quick and give me good enough results to know what I'm working with. From there, I may tweak a negative further if I decide it might be worth printing. I'll then take the information I gained from tweaking it in software to inform what I might need to do in the darkroom. Then, I'll do a quick test print on a small piece of paper placed on a critical area that I think will be most difficult to print (like a gray, or skin tone), print it, and see what adjustments I need to make from there.

That's if I RA-4 print at all. I've gotten to the point where 9 times out of 10, I'd rather print it with an inkjet. I love the darkroom for B&W and alt. process printing, but have a hard time justifying the time, money, and limitations of an RA-4.

 

[Michael Firstlight]

I was given a color analyzer a while back. To me, it wasn't worth the effort. I could see it being useful for someone who does school portrait photography or something where you're having to print hundreds or thousands of photos quickly. But to me, it only got you 90% there and it still left some tweaking if you wanted to really nail your color. I was able to achieve the same or better results by just keeping a log book of settings used for past prints and starting off with that, then using a Kodak Color Print Viewing Kit to tweak it further. For someone like me, where you don't print all that often, and when you do print, you want it perfect, it didn't make any sense. So I sold it with an old enlarger I wasn't using.

Scanning is what I do too. I scan all of the negatives and adjust the colors to get a decent looking print in the computer. I have some curve presets that I've made that make the job quick and give me good enough results to know what I'm working with. From there, I may tweak a negative further if I decide it might be worth printing. I'll then take the information I gained from tweaking it in software to inform what I might need to do in the darkroom. Then, I'll do a quick test print on a small piece of paper placed on a critical area that I think will be most difficult to print (like a gray, or skin tone), print it, and see what adjustments I need to make from there.

That's if I RA-4 print at all. I've gotten to the point where 9 times out of 10, I'd rather print it with an inkjet. I love the darkroom for B&W and alt. process printing, but have a hard time justifying the time, money, and limitations of an RA-4.

Color printing via inkjet is certainly far easier - no argument there as I print daily. I have an Epson 850 Pro that I use to scan 4x5 either for printing on a 24" Epson 7880 or for reference with RA-4. However, RA-4 prints done well by a skilled technician have a very different look than inkjet or other digital printing methods - smoother, more continuous color gradations, not over-saturated color nor overly-contrast; they have a far more subtle look and feel. I can spot and differentiate them from digital prints a mile away. That's not a judgement of which is better - each image deserves it own treatment, just pointing out that they are different.

 

[oliver h rosenberg]

Hi everyone,
While we are on the subject of analyzing color: I recently bought a LPL 4500II to print and develop color by hand. For a few years I was in a community darkroom printing on a bessler and taking copious notes. I should mention that I am doing a process involving painting on top of the negs w ink, and getting experimental results, and printing on Fuji Crystal Archive (16x20). Anyway, none of my past settings work on the LPL so I am "starting from scratch unfortunately. Im using all new chemistry and new paper, but I find the prints have a strong magenta cast, no matter what (unless I pump the M up to at least 100).

anyway, as I am looking at the image being projected down, and rotating the dials, I am wondering if there is a way to predict the final output when looking at the dominant color projected. If the image is very red, Im guessing it will come out green etc. Is thee someone who has experience doing this. I guess its a trial and error approach, but curious for any pointers.
Thanks

 

[koraks]

I find the prints have a strong magenta

What developer are you using, does it require a starter according to the datasheet, and have you measured the pH of the developer?

I am wondering if there is a way to predict the final output when looking at the dominant color projected.

Barely. The orange mask of the paper and the required excess of red light due to the paper's relative insensitivity to that light always makes it a dark red orange and variations that arw barely perceivable on the baseboard make a huge difference in the print. So short answer: no, not really.

 

[RedSun]

Color analyzer has been discussed many times. For people who have been printing color for 20 years, they would say there is no need for color analyzer and their eyes are better than computers.

For anyone who is new to color printing, color analyzer can certainly help. But you'll need to find the good ones and know how to get it work. If you can do that, then you are in luck. A working color analyzer can speed things up quite nicely. It can cut down the numbers of test strip and save a lot of time.