control of saturation in dye transfer

Since sometimes, dye transfer prints in motion pictures, made from ordinary color negatives had ridiculous levels of saturation , I assume technicolor had some method of enhancing color saturation (without increasing neutral contrast),
so I can also assume the same thing was possible with still photography dye transfer, or am I wrong?

I know, that using wide bandwidth filters decreases saturation, but what about increasing saturation (without the use of masks, obvious they didn't mask for motion pictures)

Some people seem to mention "washback" step being responsible for color enhancement, but I can't see how washing each matrix, would cause inter-matrix relationships to change. If anything, the only change in saturation would come from change in contrast of each channel, and not from inter-channel exclusion.

Also, when I look at old postcards, some of them have really enhanced color also, end again we are dealing with relief type of subtractive printing, so
there has to be something to it.

How does one control saturation (in photoshop-style, without affecting the neutral tone curve) in offset printing, and dye transfer printing.

Increased color saturation is always possible. Saturation is a function of both contrast and inter image effects or in this case masking.

PE

you mean to say the used masking for motion picture dye transfer prints?

Davor_E said:

you mean to say the used masking for motion picture dye transfer prints?

Click to expand...

Masking is frequently used when doing dye transfer, but the other way of controlling contrast and saturation in 'traditional' dye transfer (from transparancies via seperation negatives) is through development control of the sep negs. This works essentially the same way as does contrast control of black and white negatives -- a longer development time will raise the density of the highlight portions of the image, thus increasing contrast.

Dye transfer gives you essentially total control over all aspects of printing including color crossover correction.

Ed

Davor;

There are good descriptions of Dye Transfer in motion picture uses on the Technicolor web site or under the history of Technicolor. The Dye Transfer expert is Jim Browning. You should google his web site and then get the PDF file with complete details.

PE