Color Printing?

[DREW WILEY]

I've printed it as short as 8 sec and as long as perhaps a minute with no color balance issues. But I typically like to work somewhere in between just in case some dodging/burning is needed. Adding ND to a colorhead is pretty easy if you don't have that built in.

 

[DREW WILEY]

The problem with the blacks is partially due to matching the contrast range of the paper to the neg itself. Digital printers handle this by tweaking the curve either in the scanning or post-scan mode. I do it with unsharp masking for optical printing, though this seems to be needed
only a small percent of the time for my negs. What we call CAII here has better blacks than Super C did. So I don't know if this "DPII" is ahead of the US market or behind it. One more thing to investigate. But if you want really rich blacks, the newer Fujiflex Supergloss has it. The prints
rival Ciba in that respect.

 

[pentaxuser]

Thank you labyrinth photo for your helpful reply. For what it is worth my exposures for what was Fuji MP paper which was what I used several years ago was very similar to what you quote for your current paper. Presumably MP paper wasn't optimized for digital laser printers.

My experience with all RA4 paper has been short exposures and I can't recall needing anything over 10 secs.

pentaxuser

 

[DREW WILEY]

I strongly suspect that products are being labeled differently in the US than Europe. The categories of CAII paper I am using are distinctly recommended for BOTH optical and digital printing on Fuji's US website (pro photog section). There are some newer offerings which make no
mention of optical. But I do remember when a "DPII" was being offered as a thicker version of snapshot paper here, but was not the same thing
at all as standard CAII large cut sheets or rolls, which never was so thin as to be flimsy like photofinishing paper. Even though my paper was
made in the EU, it is labeled for Fujifilm USA. The Supergloss was made in Japan.

 

[Roger Cole]

Thank you labyrinth photo for your helpful reply. For what it is worth my exposures for what was Fuji MP paper which was what I used several years ago was very similar to what you quote for your current paper. Presumably MP paper wasn't optimized for digital laser printers.

My experience with all RA4 paper has been short exposures and I can't recall needing anything over 10 secs.

pentaxuser

I used to use a PH212 150W bulb in my D2 for printing black and white and a PH211 75W for printing color (with filters in the filter drawer) to slow it down a bit. Now I use an LED lamphouse for black and white that is just about squarely in the middle between the two in brightness.

 

[pentaxuser]

Likewise Roger. I changed my 100W bulb in my Durst 605 to a 75W one because the exposures needed were less than the analyser's exposure dial at its lowest would go.

pentaxuser

 

[labyrinth photo]

hi drew,
here's the DPII spec; http://www.fujifilm.eu/eu/products/...or-crystal-archive-papier-digital-type-dp-ii/
"For digital printers only" apparently, don't tell anybody

 

[DREW WILEY]

Thank you for that link. Yes, I can tell from both the back imprint and the spectral sensitivity curves themselves that this DPII is different from
either the paper or polyester-based CAII products I am using. I would suspect that this largely amounts to a slightly different colorhead setting and will also have some effect on the actual dye reproduction, with the specific effect determined by the bandwidth of the individuals filters involved (or in the case of typical subtractive colorheads, their direct complement). At a cursory glance, it certainly looks workable under an enlarger - and you've already discovered that. It does look capable of crossover in older-style colorheads which tend to have excess white light spillover. The dye layers overlap more than in the papers I'm using. Both Durst and Omega improved in recent decades in that respect. I'd have to fiddle with my old Omega D colorhead to find out, but really won't waste the time, since all my chromogenic printing is done additive now, and it looks like that specific product has been pulled from the US market anyway, where it was only available in narrow
rolls. A lot depends on the subject matter and specific film involved too. But this still leaves us with a mystery - if the official dual-use CAII
product packaged in the UK (US Branded) available for sale there somewhere?

 

[DREW WILEY]

I also noticed on the second DPII tech sheet how it specified "high activity chemistry" as necessary for full DMax. I don't know if this strictly
applies to photofinishing machines or not. Wouldn't be surprised, since they recycle the chem like laundry water. So those rules could probably be tailored using standard chem in low-volume controlled rates. Again, something I'll never figure out for myself since I have interest in owning
a drugstore photofinishing machine. But given settings are offered for Chromiras, etc - basically big pro lab setups with mated RA4 transport processors, there must be something behind the recommendation. Oh well, we all bend the rules from time to time.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Ooop., typo.... I have "no" interest in drugstore machines. I'll stick with my 30x40 (inch) CPI drum processor, thank you.

 

[DREW WILEY]

OK, I did a little more sleuthing, and it seems the DPII has been replaced in this country with PDN, which likewise is a lower-contrast CAII
paper marketed for automated printers, but no longer specifying a special developer for enhanced blacks. The dye curves as well as the tech
sheet shows that improvement. Otherwise, it's basically a portrait paper with less snap than the dual-exposure regular CAII or its predecessor,
Super C. So in analog printing, you'd need to increase contrast via added masking, for such subjects where this is warranted. It also looks like
its risk of crossover is also minimized. On this topic, is is not only older design colorheads which can be a problem, but any that have been
so heavily used, or repeatedly overheated, that the dichroic filters start spalling and passing too much white light, and are due for replacement. Ironically, this happens most often on very expensive high-output enlargers which basically nuke the negs. Certain color mural
enlargers, for example, would need filter replacement every six months when heavily used. That might sound insane to those of us who print
at home, but I did own one of those beast at one time, and the cooling fan alone drove up my electric bill more than the rest of the whole
building, not to mention the lamps.