Color Printing RA-4 Yes/No? How do folks print today

[DREW WILEY]

It's a mistake to assume that if odor per se isn't that obnoxious, you aren't being affected. One can boast that RA4 has never bothered them, and then all of a sudden, whameee, and you suddenly become sensitized to it. Serious ventilation is critical. In fact, I don't even do the processing indoors at all. The paper is exposed and loaded in drums, and the processing transpires on a portable cart with the rotation machine outdoors.

 

[bottlegardener]

My group did our album cover as a RA-4 print, including the type and layout as on acetate sheets (with dry transfer letters) over the Fuji Crystal Archive paper during the exposure. We felt like we would've gotten different results if we scanned the negative and did the layout in Illustrator.

We have a Durst RPC 40, which I love, but only do RA-4 printing sessions very occasionally because the ventilation isn't quite up to the job and the fumes start to bother me after a while.

 

[mshchem]

My group did our album cover as a RA-4 print, including the type and layout as on acetate sheets (with dry transfer letters) over the Fuji Crystal Archive paper during the exposure. We felt like we would've gotten different results if we scanned the negative and did the layout in Illustrator.

We have a Durst RPC 40, which I love, but only do RA-4 printing sessions very occasionally because the ventilation isn't quite up to the job and the fumes start to bother me after a while.

Well that's freaking awesome. Analog all the way!

 

[Steven Lee]

It's a mistake to assume that if odor per se isn't that obnoxious, you aren't being affected. One can boast that RA4 has never bothered them, and then all of a sudden, whameee, and you suddenly become sensitized to it. Serious ventilation is critical. In fact, I don't even do the processing indoors at all. The paper is exposed and loaded in drums, and the processing transpires on a portable cart with the rotation machine outdoors.

Drew, is it possible to evaluate the effectiveness of ventilation with tech? Are there sensors/devices one can install in a darkroom to measure the degree of air pollution?

 

[bottlegardener]

Well that's freaking awesome. Analog all the way!

Thanks for the kind words! It's a bit stressful lining things up (not that's perfect or anything!) and worrying about bumping the easel on the second exposure but I love the fact that once it's done, it's done (no endless digital tinkering). I also feel like optically printed letters are a bit hard to fake.
We sadly couldn't afford to go full-on militant analog-only and do flatbed camera four color screen separation plates, which would've been nice.

 

[mshchem]

Thanks for the kind words! It's a bit stressful lining things up (not that's perfect or anything!) and worrying about bumping the easel on the second exposure but I love the fact that once it's done, it's done (no endless digital tinkering). I also feel like optically printed letters are a bit hard to fake.
We sadly couldn't afford to go full-on militant analog-only and do flatbed camera four color screen separation plates, which would've been nice.

Well done!

 

[DREW WILEY]

Hi Steven. Let me reiterate, the problem with typical RA4 chem is that, even if it's been formulated to be allegedly "odorless", breathing or handling even very small amounts - too small for any inexpensive kind of monitor to detect - can progressively build up over time until a sensitivity threshold is reached, and you risk becoming permanently sensitized. I've seen that happen to even big lab owners who eventually couldn't even go into those portions of their buildings where the processing was done. Effectiveness of ventilation itself is done using a smoke test in the room. If you can even smell it when the ventilation is running, there's an issue.

I really don't have time at the moment to go into what constitutes an effective air exchange system. That can be studied in AC trade manuals. I'll just hint that air pulls better than it pushes, should be drawn from behind the worker and toward extraction behind the sink, and that the pull force must factor both duct friction as well as outdoor hydrostatic pressure due to rain and humidity. I recommend buying a main fan with about double the pull force generally recommended for a residential bathroom of the same size. The better ones accept variable power or speed wall switches. If not externally mounted, the next best option would be a reasonably sized in-line fan installed between the fume hood or entry vents and the external wall or roof outlet. Light-proof air intake vents must be able to deliver replacement air just as quickly as the fan system can remove it under normal operation.

 

[btaylor]

I like t

Drew, is it possible to evaluate the effectiveness of ventilation with tech? Are there sensors/devices one can install in a darkroom to measure the degree of air pollution?

I like your cover art too! It has that analogue feel you’re just not going to get with digital.
I am sensitive to RA 4 chemistry. I find that my exposure to the fumes is minimal when using a roller transport machine (like your Durst) and my active darkroom (push and pull) ventilation.
And thanks for sharing your music! Nicely done.

 

[Mainecoonmaniac]

I'm curious about this. Seems to be very little interest. I have printed RA4 a lot in the past. I've been wondering is this still happening?

I haven't done RA printing in a while because of ink jet printers. Now I'm retired, I thinking about going back to optical printing again. To be perfectly honest, I can't tell the difference between a well made ink jet print and a well made RA4 print. I just like the process. It does have drawbacks because I can't dodge and burn too much due to color shifts. The materials for RA4 printing is pretty cheap.

 

[koraks]

To be perfectly honest, I can't tell the difference between a well made ink jet print and a well made RA4 print.

I was on the phone with a friend this morning. This is one of the subjects we touched upon and he was rather hesitant to dust off his roller transport processor because he has a new inkjet printer on the way. He argued that RA4 is pretty much a dead end street (and analog color photography in general), and that inkjet prints are pretty darn good. Well, it was no argument, because I could only agree with him. Like you, I like the film-based process, but from a rational point of view, it's silly to hang onto RA4. It's really hard to tell the difference if both prints are made well. I often visit museums and honestly I usually can't tell if a decent color print is a C-print or an inkjet.

 

[Anon Ymous]

I was on the phone with a friend this morning. This is one of the subjects we touched upon and he was rather hesitant to dust off his roller transport processor because he has a new inkjet printer on the way. He argued that RA4 is pretty much a dead end street (and analog color photography in general), and that inkjet prints are pretty darn good. Well, it was no argument, because I could only agree with him. Like you, I like the film-based process, but from a rational point of view, it's silly to hang onto RA4. It's really hard to tell the difference if both prints are made well. I often visit museums and honestly I usually can't tell if a decent color print is a C-print or an inkjet.

I have a Canon inkjet printer for a few years now. Not something extravagant, a modest one. Still, prints from it are perfectly fine, they look just as well as a nice RA4 print. As much as I love film, RA4 printing isn't something I'd try at this point. Back in the days when I had a proper darkroom (more than a decade ago), it was quite tempting, but not today.

The funny thing is that most of those who bothered to vote actually print RA4, but those who haven't overwhelmingly don't.

 

[Mainecoonmaniac]

I love using roller transport RA processors. They're just like some ink jet printers, you constantly have to use them to keep them happy. I think the advantage of RA processors is they won't go obsolete if the manufacturer decides not to support them anymore. I did desktop support for a while and I saw some perfectly good printers go to Ewaste because the driver didn't work with the OS. That's the cost of progress.

 

[mshchem]

I love my inkjet printer. I don't like scanning color negative film.

 

[DREW WILEY]

My gosh, folks ... Nobody on earth with normal eyesight is ever going to confuse ANY of my RA4 prints with an inkjet print. And as far as RA4 being doomed, there are very strong reasons why that is not the case. In multiples, RA4 way cheaper and fastr to to print. Plenty of outfits have made huge investments in big laser printing devices dedicated to RA4. The look really is different (which is why most extant commercial labs offer a choice of BOTH. And if it were nearing extinction, why were so many outfits scrambling like crazy to get enough RA4 paper to keep them going even during the pandemic? Besides, once something is as common as cornflakes, people start getting bored with the taste of it. Inkjets prints are probably more common than tossed-out Starbucks cups. I'm personally sick of seeing them everywhere unless someone does it differently in some distinct or higher quality manner.

 

[Steven Lee]

Nobody on earth with normal eyesight is ever going to confuse ANY of my RA4 prints with an inkjet print.

This can be interpreted two ways, and one of them offers a great visual explanation for the gradual demise of RA4 printing.

 

[koraks]

@DREW WILEY I know your position on this and indeed we've had this exac discussen elsewhere already. As you know, my opinion is that RA4 is doomed. It's here now, it'll be gone in a few years. Regardless of any technical superiority which may or may not be present.

 

[pentaxuser]

In fact, I don't even do the processing indoors at all. The paper is exposed and loaded in drums, and the processing transpires on a portable cart with the rotation machine outdoors.

That may pose problems to those who print between say October and about May/June and live North of, say, Latitude 45. In their case built in ventilation might add a lot to the cost of RA4 printing. They may need to put up with inferior inkjet printing.

My sympathies to you folks in Winterpeg

pentaxuser

 

[btaylor]

I may be wrong, but I had the impression that RA4 printing was still the cheapest way for many commercial printers to get a decent photo quality snap shot print onto a piece of paper. This would explain why the paper and chems are still available to us small volume users. If someone knows otherwise I would like to know about it.
I use the Kodak app on my phone to order snapshot prints from my phone’s photo library. They look like RA4 paper to me. 50 to 100 at a time, on sale for 7 cents each. RA4 materials are very inexpensive.

 

[DREW WILEY]

The demand for RA4 paper from Fuji is at an all time high now that Kodak made a massive inadvertent mistake subcontracting to the Chinese right when the epidemic hit. So that should be a strong financial incentive to Fuji to keep it going strong. Meanwhile, as they've cut way back on color film selection, Kodak's demand for that in turn has gone way up, and they're now upscaling production of color films, not decreasing it. All someone has to do is to Google for outfits that still offer printing on Fuji optical papers, and the wide variety of products to choose from, nearly all of which comes in roll sizes only, to realize RA4 printing is going quite strong.

Every time I stop in one of our own local labs for just ordinary C41 processing, they have huge shipments of RA4 paper stacked on the floor, and that's in addition to their inkjet services. Two doors away in the same complex, there's a lab that offers RA4 chromogenic printing only via LightJet, mostly in large sizes, and no inkjet at all. And believe me, those business spaces leases aren't cheap; they're surrounded by tech firms, and constant high printing volume has always been essential to pay the overhead, even during the pandemic slowdown.

Sometimes chromogenic printing gets an ugly duckling reputation due to old routine photofinishing usage of it. But when its optimized, then most inkjet prints look like a step backwards to me, especially with respect to all the hue gamut issues of current inkjet. In fact, the best inkjet printers I personally know often spend way more time optimizing their inkjet work than they previously required for color darkroom printing. But if anything is in trouble now, it's high-end scanners. Getting service parts or outright replacements is getting harder and harder. Cannibalizing spares seems to be the only way forward in many cases.

As for P-User's wisecrack ... What makes you think inkjet is all that safe in an unventilated room in winter? Those outgas glycols, necessary to keep the inks moist in their little nozzle bazookas. In this country, there's a gradual crackdown on analogous glycols in architectural paint pigments due to health issues, with established deadlines for water-only solvent content. A lot of glycols drying out in the same room, especially from big prints on a production basis, and sooner or later someone is going to become sensitized to that. It's a known problem.

 

[MattKing]

Kodak didn't sub-contract the colour paper business. They sold it outright.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Semantics. If they license their name and logo to it, that's how people will perceive the brand. It will still be called "Kodak". No different than tens of thousands of other products people still associate with US companies, even though they've been made somewhere else for the past two decades, and might even have been owned outside the country for quite awhile. I think of that more as bait-and-switch deception, except for a little bit of royalties trickling in; call it modern marketing if you wish. The Great Yellow Father split apart much of its business quite awhile back, even though the yellow logo lives on. But they're also subcontractors for other labels, so it works both way.

I don't know exactly how you define subcontracting, Matt, given your own background (legal? Am I correct?) But my background is as a professional buyer in the construction supplies and equipment distribution business, and subcontracting was a daily term simply meaning that someone else made it for you on commitment, but that it's marketed under your own label, whether simply by re-branding (your own private-label among potentially many others), OR under exclusive contracted marketing rights.

And I don't see how any "Sino Promise" product would have any chance of success at all unless they partnered with the extant Kodak label and distribution model. I could rattle off dozens of well-known brands and logos cannibalized by the Chinese, but still dependent upon a longstanding US reputation and marketing entity for their success. It's often undeserved, given the dramatic drip in quality; but it's still the power behind the marketing success. Many other times, it's been the recipe for outright extinction. Don't know in this case; but so far, the news hasn't been good. But now that most of the labs have already switched over to Fuji RA4 paper, they might not switch back even if Kodak label papers reappear.

 

[MattKing]

No Drew, they were essentially forced to sell all that business and associated physical assets under the terms of the bankruptcy, never to attain any future benefit from any royalties associated with it. It became the property of the Kodak Limited Pension plan, who transferred it to their wholly owned, newly created corporation, Kodak Alaris Ltd. A few years later, Kodak Alaris then turned around and sold the remaining physical assets and business related to the colour photographic paper and photo-chemicals to Sino-Promise.
Eastman Kodak still "owns" the Kodak name, but the license to use it was fully pre-paid.
Kodak Alaris still has contracts respecting still film with Eastman Kodak - those at least started out under terms prescribed in the bankruptcy. Sino Promise does not have such contracts, other than ones where one is a customer of the other for some minor supply arrangements (e.g. control strips).
Towards the end of Kodak Alaris' involvement with colour paper and photo chemicals, Kodak Alaris had moved to obtaining product from Sino Promise or entities associated with it - Sino Promise and related entities became a major manufacturer for them. The sale to them consolidated that business.
And then the pandemic just about drove Sino Promise out of business.

 

[mshchem]

No Drew, they were essentially forced to sell all that business and associated physical assets under the terms of the bankruptcy, never to attain any future benefit from any royalties associated with it. It became the property of the Kodak Limited Pension plan, who transferred it to their wholly owned, newly created corporation, Kodak Alaris Ltd. A few years later, Kodak Alaris then turned around and sold the remaining physical assets and business related to the colour photographic paper and photo-chemicals to Sino-Promise.
Eastman Kodak still "owns" the Kodak name, but the license to use it was fully pre-paid.
Kodak Alaris still has contracts respecting still film with Eastman Kodak - those at least started out under terms prescribed in the bankruptcy. Sino Promise does not have such contracts, other than ones where one is a customer of the other for some minor supply arrangements (e.g. control strips).
Towards the end of Kodak Alaris' involvement with colour paper and photo chemicals, Kodak Alaris had moved to obtaining product from Sino Promise or entities associated with it - Sino Promise and related entities became a major manufacturer for them. The sale to them consolidated that business.
And then the pandemic just about drove Sino Promise out of business.

Matt, do you know what are the chances of seeing Kodak color papers again ? Even in a perfect world, transferring production to a wholly new plant, and halfway around the globe world be risky.
It looks like Sino Promise is making some chemistry for export. The Zero Covid policy in China, disruption of trade, and what looks like a big financial mess for SinoPromise makes me wonder if we will ever see these papers again.
Alaris must be making money on film, that's a very good thing.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Yikes, Matt - desperate measures, like selling off pints of one's own blood to pay a previous hospital bill. Once the crown jewels get smashed and sold off in pieces, nobody is going to glue them back together again. But I've seen that kind of thing happen to far larger corporations than Kodak, and for far less of a compelling reason. As we used to say in our business with respect to manufacturers, "Nothing is permanent but change". Once you get all your little ducks in a row, somebody is going to shoot them.

 

[MattKing]

Matt, do you know what are the chances of seeing Kodak color papers again ? Even in a perfect world, transferring production to a wholly new plant, and halfway around the globe world be risky.
It looks like Sino Promise is making some chemistry for export. The Zero Covid policy in China, disruption of trade, and what looks like a big financial mess for SinoPromise makes me wonder if we will ever see these papers again.
Alaris must be making money on film, that's a very good thing.

A lot of the production transfer had already happened prior to Covid. I don't know if anything was still being made in Colorado prior to the sale.
I don't know the answer to your question. All I know is that the disruption was profound, and if not catastrophic, as close as could be to that state.
It seems pretty clear though that the disruption caused the financial mess - not the other way around.
I wonder though whether the financial problem was contributed to as well by the Tetenal related financial problems visited on Kodak Alaris was dealing with prior to the sale. Prior to the bankruptcy/receivership/financial collapse of Tetenal, they were a major distributor of Kodak branded photo-finishing product in Europe. Who knows how much was owed to Kodak Alaris by Tetenal at the time of that collapse?