Color Balance, Ilfochrome

I am curious how Ilfochrome printers judge the color balance on prints? Do you view the prints through CC filters? If you use CC filters what range of filters do you use?

I've heard that it's as simple as "matching" the slide.

You can get a set of viewing filters that you look through at the print and with each filter it will tell you what color you need to adjust on your enlarger to equal what you are seeing through the filter. It's pretty straightforward I think.
regards
Erik

Swift Raven said:

I am curious how Ilfochrome printers judge the color balance on prints? Do you view the prints through CC filters? If you use CC filters what range of filters do you use?

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What you need is the Kodak color print viewing kit, publication # R-25, I doubt this has been made in years, but there may be some on fleabay and other similar sites.

The actual filters are 5M, 10M, 20M, 5C, 10C, 20C. 5Y, 10Y, 20Y, they also have them in red, green and blue. You look at the print through the filters, until you see which one looks best, for negative materials you subtract the amount of the filter, for positive materials like Ilfochrome, you add the amount of the filter. You could view the print against the slide, but there is no guarantee that the colour balance in the slide is perfect, so it's often better to judge a print as a print, in the same kind of room lighting as where it will be displayed.

wogster said:

What you need is the Kodak color print viewing kit, publication # R-25, I doubt this has been made in years, but there may be some on fleabay and other similar sites.

The actual filters are 5M, 10M, 20M, 5C, 10C, 20C. 5Y, 10Y, 20Y, they also have them in red, green and blue. You look at the print through the filters, until you see which one looks best, for negative materials you subtract the amount of the filter, for positive materials like Ilfochrome, you add the amount of the filter. You could view the print against the slide, but there is no guarantee that the colour balance in the slide is perfect, so it's often better to judge a print as a print, in the same kind of room lighting as where it will be displayed.

Click to expand...

Exactly what they said.....

I found I often could just stare at the print and flash the filter in and out..... but I will say from all my color printing experience (lots) is that with time you will be able to look at a dry (important) print without filters and make judgments.....

I make it easier because I always color balance my paper by first printing a standard slide. A well exposed image of a color chart that should include flesh tones, so I know the color balance is correct, then when I move to another slide the color changes tend to be minimal or non existent.

But don't forget about reciprocity failure, as I have found a change in printing time will make a change in color due to reciprocity. I use an easel meter and change the f-stop, always using the same time I started with in my standard slide (I could do an entire story on how I do this, but my waste is getting near zero because of it).

I would also recommend a power stabilizer for your enlarger if possible.

......and as he said judge a print as a print, in the same kind of room lighting as where it will be displayed.

If it's a good slide and you make what looks like a good print it should in the end resemble the slide.

You look at the print under the correct light source. If it's too blue, you add yellow to the filterpack etc. It's easy if you've ever tried color printing or tried to balance a photo by eye on a computer monitor. Over time you can really nail the corrections based on experience. I usually for color printing make a bunch of confirming strips to narrow it down to the "correct" values. It's fun really...

BTW, you would do it VERY carefully at $10 a sheet.

who here finds when printing ilfochrome the red is a bitch? both myself and a fellow lab owner down here agree red is the most dificult colour to deal with in ilfochromes as it can so easily swing out to be fire truck red?

Ilford used to recommend a saturation masking procedure to control the red. It works- it requires making 2 masks I do not recall the specifics but generally a 100% premask was made and then the principle mask was made from the combination of the premask and transparency leaving a mask with only density in the red areas. Saturation, correction and contrast masking works on Ilfochrome in much the same way as Dye Transfer. The principle mask is then registered to the transparency and printed.

Ilfochrome generally requires about twice the filter change of the equivalent change in regular color printing. (and the changes are oposite those made from negs need yellow add yellow.)

Thanks to all. There are plenty of Kodak Filter Kits around & i have on on the way. There were some comments made about masking that I am curious about so I am starting another thread on this subject