Cool. So if I understand it, you make a special neutral gray negative best you can with the ExpoDisc (perhaps aimed at midsummer's midday sun on auto), and calibrate the analyzer with that special negative that you keep forever.
Then later whenever you are out shooting, you make a color balance ExpoDisc exposure aimed at the light falling on the scene, and use that ExpoDisc negative to adjust color for a print of that scene.
Right?
Not quite right, close though.
You must first take an Expodisc negative of the light falling onto the scene you are going to photograph, with the camera on automatic, this is a reference negative.
You then photograph the scene with that light falling onto it.
Then in the darkroom, you get the best possible colour rendition you can, including correct density (time of paper exposure). Once you have done this you then place the expodisc negative into the enlarger without changing anything on the enlarger. Place the Jobo (Lici) colorstar probe in the centre of the projected image and switch the enlarger on. At the same time switch all darkroom lights off and in complete darkness adjust the dials/levers/buttons on whichever Colorstar unit you have until all the lights are out; you now have correct colour.
The last sequence is to get density (close enough only) you then adjust the time factor so that the analyser shows the exact same time as what you gave the paper in getting your perfect colour print. The time will be down to fractions of a second 1/10 of a second is as low as they go. Take note of all of these settings on the analyser and keep them with that box of paper.
You go out into the wild world find something you wish to photograph and take a frame of said wonderful scene. Immediately after taking said wonderful scene, pop an Expodisc onto the front of the lens, face the direction of the light source and with the camera on automatic, take an exposure. (if you have a manual camera, align up your aperture and shutter combination until you have what the camera metering facility says is a perfect exposure).
When back in the darkroom, take your wonderful scene negative and frame it as you would like it to be framed on the baseboard/easel. Then pull that negative out and replace it with the Expodisc negative taken immediately after. Switch off all darkroom lights, turn the enlarger on and adjust the Colorstar so that you have the settings as per your perfect original colour print. Now you will need to adjust the enlarger dials until all of the Colorstar lights go out; you will now have near perfect colour. The analyser will also give you an exposure setting, which in all probability will be different to your original perfect colour print.
Now you just pop the negative you took out a minute or so before, compose, focus then expose.
Within reason you will have an extremely good colour print and the density will probably be within ¼ to an 1/8 of a stop of what you like.
If the print is a bit light, it may look slightly cool, if it is a bit dense it may be a tad warm. If this happens, it means you are really, really close to perfect colour and density. Adding exposure will make the print more red, reducing exposure will make the print more cyan. This is how the third colour is corrected and/or obtained in the colour negative printing process.
Bill, with one exception that I know of, all colour analysers require you to obtain a perfect colour print before you actually start to use the colour analyser of your choice. The one exception that I know of and actually have and used, is Bob Mitchell's Colorbrator. Rather interestingly, it is an analogue unit, no electronics involved.
So in general, there is no really easy route to printing colour negatives if you've never done it before. However, if you do chance upon a Colorstar analyser, once you have somehow gotten the perfect print with a matching Expodisc negative, you are off and running and will wonder just how easy it really is to print really good colour day in and day out.
For what it is worth, I started serious colour printing in an industrial colour lab. The colour analysers they had were next to useless as they analysed one colour at a time; in short they took up too much time. As a result, everyone without exception, did colour by eye. Terrible waste of paper, but so quick compared to using the analysers we had. One day I brought in my Colorstar analyser and my own box of paper. We grabbed a roll of C41 and did some studio shots and with each lighting change, we took an Expodisc negative. I think we did about four scenes. We went into a darkroom and placed an Expodisc negative into the enlarger, fiddled, then exposed a frame. We ended up with a seriously good print from the get go.
The big boss was very impressed and suggested we look further into this. We didn't get them, the industry supply gurus suggested that we would be better off with video colour correction. This was fine, but on a DeVere enlarger this added about $10,000 cost. We had around 9 DeVere enlargers, but could only afford one video unit; grrrrr.
Mick.
