Could Cibachrome come back?

[M Carter]

So we got a new film announcement today - I'm assuming this wasn't done without market research and P&L meetings, so I'd assume Kodak believes the market is strong and has potential for growth.

A lot of this film revival is young people, many shooting Portra, a few more trying E6. And Ektachrome's return has a lot of folks excited. I'd be printing color today if Cibachrome was still around. RA4 doesn't interest me.

Is there anything in the Cibachrome manufacturing process that's really a final nail in the coffin? Like, we may never see pack film again because of the engineering involved, and the waste/environmental issues on the user side. Cadmium print papers I expect are gone forever. 35mm Polaroid was too specialized and required mechanical stuff of some complexity.

Any reason Ciba couldn't come back if the market continues to trend up?

 

[Bob Carnie]

I hope not... they were lousy to deal with for the last 8 years of their existance, I doubt they would be any better.

 

[MattKing]

The company that made Cibachrome/Ilfochrome went into bankruptcy.
If someone else started up a new material for printing from slides it would be interesting, but I'd rather see high quality internegatives again.

 

[mdarnton]

I'd be OK with a new direct positive paper, but please, this time not on a sheet of plastic. :-(
I didn't like it then, and now when I haul out my old prints, I like it less.

 

[Craig]

It was a difficult material to use back in the day, and wasn't suited to all slides. To be honest, a positive-positive workflow is much better suited to digital now, as a way of taming contrast and getting a better final result.

When Ciba/Ilfochrome worked, it was wonderful, but getting to that point was't always easy.

 

[Gerald C Koch]

So we got a new film announcement today - I'm assuming this wasn't done without market research and P&L meetings, so I'd assume Kodak believes the market is strong and has potential for growth.

A lot of this film revival is young people, many shooting Portra, a few more trying E6. And Ektachrome's return has a lot of folks excited. I'd be printing color today if Cibachrome was still around. RA4 doesn't interest me.

Is there anything in the Cibachrome manufacturing process that's really a final nail in the coffin? Like, we may never see pack film again because of the engineering involved, and the waste/environmental issues on the user side. Cadmium print papers I expect are gone forever. 35mm Polaroid was too specialized and required mechanical stuff of some complexity.

Any reason Ciba couldn't come back if the market continues to trend up?

In fact there is. The bleach required an accelerant. However it has been so long that people have forgotten just what it is. Searching the web provides no information.

 

[Lachlan Young]

So we got a new film announcement today - I'm assuming this wasn't done without market research and P&L meetings, so I'd assume Kodak believes the market is strong and has potential for growth.

A lot of this film revival is young people, many shooting Portra, a few more trying E6. And Ektachrome's return has a lot of folks excited. I'd be printing color today if Cibachrome was still around. RA4 doesn't interest me.

Is there anything in the Cibachrome manufacturing process that's really a final nail in the coffin? Like, we may never see pack film again because of the engineering involved, and the waste/environmental issues on the user side. Cadmium print papers I expect are gone forever. 35mm Polaroid was too specialized and required mechanical stuff of some complexity.

Any reason Ciba couldn't come back if the market continues to trend up?

Several reasons: it's apparently very, very difficult to coat - see comments here from Simon Galley, then of Harman Technology; Adox who now own the Ciba/Ilfochrome 21" test coater have not totally ruled it out, but it would likely be some way off & would need clear evidence of continuing demand; finally, it'd be really, really expensive. Frankly, I'd rather see Panchro Matrix film for Dye Transfer make a comeback...

The Cadmium/ heavy metal salts in paper issue may have had more to do with R&D costs to find work-alike substitutes (and manufacturers unwillingness to fund such at a time when B&W papers were a shrinking part of the market from the 1970s onwards) than any other aspects. The whole area of 'lithability' & what makes the role of certain heavy metal salts important is one that seems to have been poorly studied & appears largely reliant on the anecdotal evidence & claims of people who are not photographic engineers.

 

[Mainecoonmaniac]

It was a difficult material to use back in the day, and wasn't suited to all slides. To be honest, a positive-positive workflow is much better suited to digital now, as a way of taming contrast and getting a better final result.

When Ciba/Ilfochrome worked, it was wonderful, but getting to that point was't always easy.

I remember those days. It Ciba looked wonderful when you find the right chrome. The contrast on the material was hard to tame. I'd even made 4x5 internegs of some chromes so I could print it on C printing material. RA didn't exist back then Some resorted to masking. Also, the chemistry dumped down your drain could wreck your pipes.

The closest thing I saw to Cibachrome was digital prints on aluminum. The colors looked almost liquid. I don't know if those digital prints will last as long as Ciba though.

 

[Poisson Du Jour]

Ilfochrome Classic provided the very best printing results at the time for E6 materials. It was very uncommon (and nowhere near as spectacular) to have negatives printed to Ilfochrome simply because the result didn't match expectations in terms of parallel visual quality (the transparency film e.g. Velvia, Provia, Ektachrome, Agfachrome). Now we are seeing E6 waning, the probability of Ilfochrome returning is vanishingly small. For the machinery to work, it requires a high production throughput. By association, this also requires a huge amount of cleaning and maintenance. This just did not exist at all from 2008 to 2010 when costs for prints curiously skyrocketed but the quality of the finished material left a lot to be desired.

In any case, modern hybrid RA4 methods assure much better quality control, easy repeatability and scaling, near-identical matched colourimetrics and no problems with contrast that bedevilled Ilfochrome. I do not miss Ilfochrome (by the way, that is what the name is, not Cibachrome, which is 30 years out of date!)

In 2007, digital printing to Ilfochrome Classic was introduced, but with very mixed results. I certainly was not happy with the results after a small set of 4 runs. From 2009 digital-to-Ilfochrome was discontinued here (in Australia) at the same time there was a marked uptick in problems with the materials being shipped out. The rest from 2010 of course is history.

 

[Photo Engineer]

Several reasons: it's apparently very, very difficult to coat - see comments here from Simon Galley, then of Harman Technology; Adox who now own the Ciba/Ilfochrome 21" test coater have not totally ruled it out, but it would likely be some way off & would need clear evidence of continuing demand; finally, it'd be really, really expensive. Frankly, I'd rather see Panchro Matrix film for Dye Transfer make a comeback...

The Cadmium/ heavy metal salts in paper issue may have had more to do with R&D costs to find work-alike substitutes (and manufacturers unwillingness to fund such at a time when B&W papers were a shrinking part of the market from the 1970s onwards) than any other aspects. The whole area of 'lithability' & what makes the role of certain heavy metal salts important is one that seems to have been poorly studied & appears largely reliant on the anecdotal evidence & claims of people who are not photographic engineers.

I said in that other thread how difficult it was to coat the azo dyes. I've tried. It really takes expert know how to do it right. However, AFAIK Cibachrome used no paper emulsions. They were film emulsions due to the high speed loss imparted by incorporated image dyes. This also meant that the grain was very coarse. There apparently was no Cadmium or other heavy metals present for image toning as there would be for a B&W paper.

PE

 

[Photo Engineer]

In fact there is. The bleach required an accelerant. However it has been so long that people have forgotten just what it is. Searching the web provides no information.

The earliest catalysts were quinolines or phenazines. The best was a condensate between Diacetyl and either o-Phenylene Diamine or 3,4 Dimethyl o-Phenylene Diamine. Just for your information.

The former 2 are easy to get but may be carcinogens. The later is hard to get as it is difficult to make.

PE

 

[Craig]

As a somewhat related question, does the bleach go bad? I have a number of P30 kits and don't know if they are still good. I'm assuming the fixer is typical B&W paper fixer and only the bleach is really unique. Thoughts?

 

[dE fENDER]

As a somewhat related question, does the bleach go bad? I have a number of P30 kits and don't know if they are still good. I'm assuming the fixer is typical B&W paper fixer and only the bleach is really unique. Thoughts?

You can make your own bleach with phenasine. Look for PE receipe here in the forum.

 

[BMbikerider]

Commercially it may be a non starter. The original Cibachrome processing involved some quite aggressive chemistry. There were anecdotal stories that it was capable of damaging plastic piping in the drainage unless it was heavily diluted before disposal, although I cannot claim to know this for certain. The later chemistry was a bit kinder but still could be a bit of a problem unless disposed of correctly.

The current state of hysteria where environmental contamination is concerned, causes the local authorities to go into warp drive.
On a scale of 1 to 10 what is the likely hood? I would say about 3

 

[Lachlan Young]

I said in that other thread how difficult it was to coat the azo dyes. I've tried. It really takes expert know how to do it right. However, AFAIK Cibachrome used no paper emulsions. They were film emulsions due to the high speed loss imparted by incorporated image dyes. This also meant that the grain was very coarse. There apparently was no Cadmium or other heavy metals present for image toning as there would be for a B&W paper.

PE

I should have made the distinction clearer between the two paragraphs! First one was about the Ilfochrome/ Ciba process & second about the endless hypothesising that seems to go on around what specific ingredients make papers respond to 'lith' processes in particular ways.

Interesting to learn about the use of film (AgBrI as opposed to AgBrClI emulsions?) for the dye bleach processes - something that has probably been talked about previously, but which I hadn't noticed!

 

[Photo Engineer]

Fast AgBrI emulsions were used, and thus an agressive fix was used. Reports are that the paper did not keep well, but IDK personally. The developer and fix were normal but the bleach was essentially strong Sulfuric Acid or Sulfamic Acid and could harm most anything but some plastics. The bleach kept fairly well.

PE

 

[DREW WILEY]

Doing even large Ciba prints in a drum with one-shot chemistry was simple because you could drain the bleach into a bucket containing ordinary baking soda in it and instantly neutralize the acid. But at a commercial lab level using big replenishment processors, the costs to equipment & plumbing maintenance along with human health could be formidable. More stringent hazmat rules in many cities today would make it unrealistic.

 

[Craig]

In the P30 kits it said that mixing all the spent chemistry together neutralized it for safe disposal. Easy to do from a Cap 40 machine.

 

[Photo Engineer]

Some kits came with neutralizing pellets that would render the bleach "safe". This did not address the question of the other chemistry present.

PE

 

[Poisson Du Jour]

Doing even large Ciba prints in a drum with one-shot chemistry was simple because you could drain the bleach into a bucket containing ordinary baking soda in it and instantly neutralize the acid. But at a commercial lab level using big replenishment processors, the costs to equipment & plumbing maintenance along with human health could be formidable. More stringent hazmat rules in many cities today would make it unrealistic.

The EPA Permit for disposal of used chemicals/discharge for the long defunct Adelaide lab in South Australia was around $23,400 per year (2007 figure). There were several big fines over the life of the lab's service, chiefly for noxious fumes (the lab was situated smack-bang in the middle of a residential area) and discharge. Costs for maintenance of their Ilfochrome machinery were also huge — far too high for any company large or small to consider today, even if parts were available.

It seems to me and others that the only people wanting Ilfochrome back however so badly or fondly, are those that cannot be bothered looking at the very effective modern-day alternatives — alternatives that have none of the problems that dogged both labs, customers and Ilfochrome alike.

 

[DREW WILEY]

P30 contained sulfamic acid rather than sulfuric, was not either cost effective or convenient for large prints, and not in fact devoid of the ability to ruin metal drainage pipe even mixed with spent developer. It was a beautiful medium, and prints I made 30 yrs ago look like they were made yesterday, unless they were baked in direct sunlight for years on end. I can get a very similar look on Fuji Supergloss from color neg film like Ektar, even more predictably, but wonder about the permanence. I'll never know, because I'm fading faster than the prints.

 

[Carter john]

I really liked to see Cibachromes when it was being done. But all the above complaining is depressing. I bet the Chinese could do it, and even with all of your barriers.

 

[Poisson Du Jour]

But all the above complaining is depressing.

You think the Chinese could do it? Right. About as good as the crap they dump in Aldi stores because nobody else will accept that shit quality.
And I wouldn't say what you are reading equates to 'complaining', rather a reflection on real-world wide experience: ridiculous costs, lousy quality control, no-show stock, chemical/machinery maintenance woes... on and on. So many people think Ilfochrome has no barriers whatsoever to being re-introduced 'tomorrow', they will all come and splash their thousands of dollars on prints and all will be rosy in the world. Fact is, it would be a wild and airy stretch of the imagination to find a company anywhere willing to take on that stuff now. What actually remains of it as serviceable...

 

[DREW WILEY]

There are still a few beautiful dye-bleach prints made in the 1930's. But on an industrial scale with user convenience, like Ciba-Geigy did it, no, doubt it will ever reappear. No market for it, and the cost would be ridiculous. What are you going to print on a direct positive medium? Transparency film is almost itself extinct. The Chinese make what they are incentified to make. And when your primary clients happen to be Wal-Mart and Home Cheapo etc, go figure. Ciba or Ilfochrome was hard to mfg to begin with, and rapidly experiences highlt crossover once it's thawed. To be realistic it needs constant demand, along with dimensionally stable chrome film suited to mandatory masking, and an abundant supply of the special polyester base material. All the amateur users in the world wouldn't add up to sufficient commercial demand.

 

[Wayne]

I'd love to see it come back at 1995 prices. But if it does come back, it wil be at 2020 prices that are worse than the 2010 prices that helped kill it. But it really was a special material and the fact you could judge it against the slide had big advantages over RA-4.