Easiest Prints from Slides - Polaroid?

Hi All,

I'm trying to figure out the best way to make prints from slides (both 35mm and 6X6). These are not going be for exhibition or anything, mostly for displaying and journaling but I'd like to have chromes so if I want to make a large print I can have it scanned and printed professionally. I'm guessing the easiest method is with a Daylab printer of some kind. I'm not set up to print of process color and don't see that in my future at this point and I don't want to do this digitally so are there any other options?

Take care,

Jim

The only way to make instant optical color prints from slides is with a Daylab type tabletop printer using Polaroid materials. As Polaroid continues to discontinue films, make SURE you get one that uses an available film. The largest size you are probably going to be able to get an instant print in would be 3 1/4 x 4 1/4 from a film pack. At this moment there do not seem to be any color films from Polaroid left in 4x5. I do not believe there is an available 8x10 Polaroid color material anymore, but I could be wrong. Some vendors still have some in stock, but this method of making 8x10's is very very expensive. Very expensive. like $20 per print I think.

The other way to get "real" prints on Photo paper is to take your slides and negatives to a mini-lab. While the original film will be scanned, the print is a true print on real RA-4 color photo paper exposed by a modulated light beam, and processed in RA-4 color chemistry.

Well there is the fuji 4x5 pack film (fp100c45, fp100b45....) and it is very, very good. If the fuji 4x5 holder fits the daylab unit, that's the way I would do it. I cannot say enough nice things about my experience with the fuji instant films. My only disclaimer would be that they don't make particularly good transfers, but the colour emulsion lifts are amazing - very durable.

PHOTOTONE said:

The only way to make instant optical color prints from slides is with a Daylab type tabletop printer using Polaroid materials. As Polaroid continues to discontinue films, make SURE you get one that uses an available film.

Click to expand...

Ditto. This is actually what I do a lot of. I also make Polaroid Type 55 negs this way for alternative process printing.

Regards, Art.

Hi Jim, If you're interested there is a Vivitar 35mm slide enlarger for 3.25x4.25 polaroid pack film in the darkroom classified section. Yea, it's me trying to sell it
regards
Erik

there is the option of reversing RA-4 thats an easy process, also that way your nto as tightly bound to the problem of size.

Stephen Frizza there is the option of reversing RA-4 thats an easy process, also that way your nto as tightly bound to the problem of size[/QUOTE]QUOTE]


Stephen, could you give a pointer to some literature about the process please.

RA4 Reversal

Steve and I did some on Sunday, and I would have posted some results but I can't get a decent scan. I'll be doing some more this Sunday so you can expect a post early next week.

There is a fair amount of information both here and on photo.net, mostly by Photo Engineer (Ron Mowrey).

The basic process is:

• Expose (duh!)
• Black and White develop 2-3 minutes (to completion) - in complete darkness. Some developers work, some don't. Dektol does, we used it 1:3.
• Stop 30s
• Wash 2 min
• Expose - both sides of paper, this can be done during the wash and/or the later part of the stop.
• Normal RA4 process - can be done with the lights on

A few notes -

• You can expect high contrast - stay tuned for some examples or find the one Ron has posted.
• Expect a degree of mottle in areas of flat colour (eg sky)
• Some papers apparently work better than others - reports are that Kodak Endura works the best, I can report that Kodak Edge works as well. Fuji CA is apparently not very good (although some success has been reported (see photo.net posts). Ron reports that Kodak Supra (ie pre-Endura) doesn't work at all.

As mentioned I will post examples of my results early next week.

Happy Experimenting!

David Grenet is a champion!