Fresh Ilfochrome paper

afriman · Oct 6, 2015

If you're having serious Ilfochrome withdrawal symptoms AND are very wealthy AND are able to source the chemicals, you just might be interested in this offer on ebay from a seller in Russia:

ILFORD Ilfochrome (Cibachrome) classic paper, roll 22in x98ft

Price:US $700.00

"Frome the last production session.Use before Jul. 2016 and still storage in freezer. We have more than 80 rolls for sale."

The auction ends in less than 10 hours, but I'm sure they'll relist if they haven't sold all 80.

As for me, I can only drool...

Wayne · Oct 6, 2015

That's a lot of paper to use by July.

EdSawyer · Oct 6, 2015

Sounds like the guys from that camera that was a large mirror-sided box they brought around the landscape...

afriman · Oct 6, 2015

Apart from the price of the paper, imagine the cost of shipping that big, heavy box from Moscow.

afriman · Oct 6, 2015

If my maths are correct, this will give you 168 sheets of 11"x14". That works out at $4.17 per sheet. If you add shipping and chemicals (Cibachrome bleach ain't exactly cheap), you're probably looking at close to $10 per print. Each of those prints better be perfect...

Roger Cole · Oct 7, 2015

Redfox61 said:
If my maths are correct, this will give you 168 sheets of 11"x14". That works out at $4.17 per sheet. If you add shipping and chemicals (Cibachrome bleach ain't exactly cheap), you're probably looking at close to $10 per print. Each of those prints better be perfect...

Never mind cheap, Ciba/Ilfochrome bleach ain't exactly AVAILABLE.

Roger Cole · Oct 7, 2015

I don't like their coffee either. My dad drinks it because it's cheap.

Roger Cole · Oct 7, 2015

Um, no, all coffee most certainly does NOT taste the same (nor is it swill.)

I know, I get you on the Pos-Pos materials. It was always expensive, contrasty, and rather quirky, but when the stars and skills aligned, beautiful. The lack of an optical Pos-Pos print process is mainly why I only shoot E6 now in 35mm for projection.

Roger Cole · Oct 7, 2015

Um, no, all coffee most certainly does NOT taste the same (nor is it swill.)

I know, I get you on the Pos-Pos materials. It was always expensive, contrasty, and rather quirky, but when the stars and skills aligned, beautiful. The lack of an optical Pos-Pos print process is mainly why I only shoot E6 now in 35mm for projection.

ndrs · Oct 7, 2015

An article here (in German) claims that Ilfochrome chemistry can be produced in small quantities by a start-up company formed by Ilford employees.

Roger Cole · Oct 7, 2015

I'm sure it COULD. Chemistry would be much easier than paper if one had the formula. But one is useless without the other.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk and 100% recycled electrons - because I care.

Wayne · Oct 7, 2015

I have enough chemicals for only about 100 sheets, if they are still good. That would bring the price up nearer $20 per print, which is only about 4 times the cost it was when I quit due to the expense.

Redfox61 said:
If my maths are correct, this will give you 168 sheets of 11"x14". That works out at $4.17 per sheet. If you add shipping and chemicals (Cibachrome bleach ain't exactly cheap), you're probably looking at close to $10 per print. Each of those prints better be perfect...

DREW WILEY · Oct 7, 2015

50/50 odds the stuff is still free from crossover, even frozen. Then the shipping issues. They have chem for sale too; but that can get tricky
to ship due to hazmat ingredients (sulfuric acid bleach). Nobody is going to revive Cibachrome. It takes an industrial scale of the base material and all kinds of high-volume expensive coating. For what? Chrome films themselves are nearly extinct, and the ones that worked best for this kind of printing are gone period. I am very grateful to have been able to make hundreds of large format Ciba prints in my lifetime. It was a beautiful medium and I miss it. And it doesn't fade in dark storage. But I've moved on to Ektar color neg film and Fuji
Supergloss, and am getting comparable results, yet easier and more affordably. Will they last as long as Cibas? Allegedly better on display,
but less ultimately in dark storage. They'll yellow in time, regardless. But I won't be around myself to give a definitive answer. People fade
too.

afriman · Oct 7, 2015

If it should become available again, one wonders how big the sustained demand will be, once the novelty has worn off (or the nostalgia satisfied, whatever the case may be). Dealing with issues like color balance, contrast, consistent processing temperature, etc. can lead to many hours of frustration and a lot of wasted material. I bet that scanning, editing and inkjet printing will soon start looking like a very attractive alternative...

DREW WILEY · Oct 7, 2015

No. Scanning and inkjet (in particular) are NOT an acceptable alternative. It's a whole different look. Someone with a big pro laser printer and drum scanner setup can achieve similar results on Fujiflex from chromes if they're really good at it. But that's an expensive service and with very expensive overhead and equipment investment. If you want a high-end darkroom revival in color, join the list of folks who want dye transfer matrix film revived. This can be done (and has been in a couple of batch orders). But there's only one way to currently get a Cibachrome-like look in the darkroom and I've already mentioned it. Doing a good job with Ciba requires a lot more than just hypothetically
reviving the print media itself. You also need the right type of chrome films, masking films, distribution (the paper doesn't keep well), etc.
Time to move on. I've only got one box of it myself in the freezer, and don't know if it's still good or not.

Bob Carnie · Oct 7, 2015

not to take this off topic but - a dye matrix film - could one substitute pigments with this instead of dyes.. I was actually reading a book on how to easy make dye transfer prints. and I started to wonder about what exactly is the matrix film and if it could be made today and could it be designed to use pigments. Making the separation negatives or positives is a piece of cake.

I really liked the idea of this but do not know enough about Kodak Matrix film and its makeup.

Drew could you elaborate a bit.. please keep out any story's about bears and hiking or enhanced masking techniques.. thanks

Bob

DREW WILEY said:
No. Scanning and inkjet (in particular) are NOT an acceptable alternative. It's a whole different look. Someone with a big pro laser printer and drum scanner setup can achieve similar results on Fujiflex from chromes if they're really good at it. But that's an expensive service and with very expensive overhead and equipment investment. If you want a high-end darkroom revival in color, join the list of folks who want dye transfer matrix film revived. This can be done (and has been in a couple of batch orders). But there's only one way to currently get a Cibachrome-like look in the darkroom and I've already mentioned it. Doing a good job with Ciba requires a lot more than just hypothetically
reviving the print media itself. You also need the right type of chrome films, masking films, distribution (the paper doesn't keep well), etc.
Time to move on. I've only got one box of it myself in the freezer, and don't know if it's still good or not.

Lachlan Young · Oct 7, 2015

Bob Carnie said:
not to take this off topic but - a dye matrix film - could one substitute pigments with this instead of dyes.. I was actually reading a book on how to easy make dye transfer prints. and I started to wonder about what exactly is the matrix film and if it could be made today and could it be designed to use pigments. Making the separation negatives or positives is a piece of cake.

I really liked the idea of this but do not know enough about Kodak Matrix film and its makeup.

Drew could you elaborate a bit.. please keep out any story's about bears and hiking or enhanced masking techniques.. thanks

Bob

What about CMYK carbon? You're already working with pigments/ gum in register I recall. As you're using a Lambda you can even avoid the double transfer issue.

To the best of my understanding the main reason for the shift from Carbon/ Carbro to Dye transfer was due to being able to repeatedly use the same matrices to roll multiple prints & each transfer taking only minutes to complete as opposed to needing to wash out each carbon tissue, double transfer them etc.

DREW WILEY · Oct 7, 2015

Please bear with me while I hike thru your query, Bob. Strictly speaking, matrix film absorbs dye and transmits it via pH and/or a mordant. Therefore the same sheet of film can be reused a number of time per the same dye color, but allowing the effect of the specific dye to be altered. Creating a relief on
gelatin containing pigment to begin with would rather refer to carbon or carbro printing, while certain other techniques used the hardened relief to accept
a colored pigment transferred by pressure. There were all kinds of variations and patents in the past. But dye transfer had the most success because of
its flexibility. Dyes also tend to look more transparent than pigments or inks, so could achieve things difficult to do with pigment process colors. Inkjet is neither fish now fowl, because this uses a mixture of dyes, pigments, and lakes. (Lakes are bad because they attract bears.) Now here's what you really
need to know. Dichromate sensitizers are getting outright banned over the entire EU. That means US EPA and Canada are likely to follow suit. There goes
traditional carbon printing and many other UV processes. And as a commercial lab, even stocking up now might not protect you from a user ban down
the road. So people are starting to search the medical patents, experiment and so forth for other ways to tan gelatin. Stay tuned with Sandy King on this
one, because it's his back yard it will land in. With dye transfer technique, I've simply reverted back to the previous wash-off relief technique that uses
relative common innocuous ingredients. I don't know why Kodak did otherwise except to speed production time. I've since learned that some of the
big color houses stuck with wash-off relief all along, right to the end of commercial relief film production. The other contact you want to mine is Jim
Browning, who deserves a lot of credit for reviving dye transfer printing. But this is all gelatin talk. Gum and casein are build up.

DREW WILEY · Oct 7, 2015

Lachlan - the other big advantage of DT was that it was based on silver, and the color separations can simply be enlarged by using a
pin-registered ordinary pro enlarger. It's not a UV process. Therefore it is relatively easy to make a film specially suited to it. I can be done
today if someone forks out the money for a batch run.

Lachlan Young · Oct 7, 2015

DREW WILEY said:
Lachlan - the other big advantage of DT was that it was based on silver, and the color separations can simply be enlarged by using a
pin-registered ordinary pro enlarger. It's not a UV process. Therefore it is relatively easy to make a film specially suited to it. I can be done
today if someone forks out the money for a batch run.

Wouldn't disagree, my only issue is regarding the paper mordant choices - I recall the options were toxic or radioactive which would make manufacturers less inclined to work with them - or are there other options?

The materials for the rest of the process are not extremely complex to make, relatively speaking. If anyone puts a kickstarter together to get Adox or similar to make pan-matrix film I'd be in like a shot.

On the other hand, CMYK carbon is attractive as it allows you to do use arbitrary colours in a less expensive manner than Dye-transfer.

DREW WILEY · Oct 7, 2015

DT will never be commercially revived on any wide scale. There is a couple in Germany doing it, but keeping the latest materials only for their personal use. But for amateur use, ordinary b&w can be fixed out and mordanted. Dyes are readily available in bulk. Plenty of literature is out there. I'm just a beginner at it and only have enough supplies for about five years of work. But what I have done so far is proven to myself that all the masking and color separation techniques can still be done fully analog using current films and developers - and be done far better than back in the heyday of DT. But I simply won't live long enough to get proficient at it before arthritis kicks in and mangles my fingers. It's time consuming and expensive. And frankly, most people will be producing better inkjet prints in two weeks than a dye printer after twenty years of experience. But when something is specifically shot for this medium, it can "wow" like nothing else, just
like a true Technicolor movie, which was itself a form of dye transfer. Mordants need not be radioactive, and the ones that were, were relatively benign, too weak to even penetrate the skin. There are all kinds of potential mordants, including ordinary aluminum sulfate, which was the first one commercially used. One thing that killed off Technicolor was the industrial quantities of pyro they used and the
associated hazmat issues. All the dyes and cameras still exist. No tanning pyro is needed in the wash-off relief version of processing. Just
an ordinary developer like HC110 or DK50, followed by glyaxol post-hardening. It does use a lot of acetic acid, but mainly at 2% concentration; but that still warrants serious darkroom ventilation. It's a heck of a lot safer than ordinary RA4 processing, which is my go-to for fast predictable results. Color carbon printing is another story completely. You get one crack at it, and after a week or work, might
watch the entire thing wash off into the drain. Then you have to start over. With DT matrix film, you produce a printer, not a print. The
colors can be fine-tuned with all kinds of tricks using the same set of matrices. Once you see a really good dye transfer print, it's hard to
forget.

Lachlan Young · Oct 8, 2015

DREW WILEY said:
Mordants need not be radioactive, and the ones that were, were relatively benign, too weak to even penetrate the skin. There are all kinds of potential mordants, including ordinary aluminum sulfate, which was the first one commercially used. One thing that killed off Technicolor was the industrial quantities of pyro they used and the
associated hazmat issues. All the dyes and cameras still exist. No tanning pyro is needed in the wash-off relief version of processing. Just
an ordinary developer like HC110 or DK50, followed by glyaxol post-hardening. It does use a lot of acetic acid, but mainly at 2% concentration; but that still warrants serious darkroom ventilation. It's a heck of a lot safer than ordinary RA4 processing, which is my go-to for fast predictable results. Color carbon printing is another story completely. You get one crack at it, and after a week or work, might
watch the entire thing wash off into the drain. Then you have to start over. With DT matrix film, you produce a printer, not a print. The
colors can be fine-tuned with all kinds of tricks using the same set of matrices. Once you see a really good dye transfer print, it's hard to
forget.

I'd always assumed that the wash-off version was more in the carbon-transfer spectrum & had not investigated further - useful to know about that variant.

What would you recommend for the highlight masks/ contrast masks/ sep negs today?

Bob Carnie · Oct 8, 2015

The Lambda I have is a extremely large Image setter, to date we have made films that can be contacted in various process up to 30 x40 inches.
getting the right negative is not an issue at least in my shop, .

Not sure Drew if you explained it right for this Cold Canadian.... I am specifically asking why dye?, which does not have the life expectancy of pure pigments. As well this matrix film, could a current
manufacturer make it if there was a demand.

I love dye transfer prints, I love complexity of multiple layer printing, I am also completely loving gum over palladium, but right now I am researching how to make better separation
negatives without UCR and GCR and I have picked up a old dye transfer book and for the most part the Dye transfer process is a lot like what I am going with gum overs.

There fore the interest in combining my pigments with a resuable matrix intriques me.. I am sure I am missing something.

Lachlin, I think with the advent of digital negs , the world has changed ... for example if you can find a LVT image setting house in Europe, you could send files to them
to make your negatives with perfect results.

Bob

Lachlan Young · Oct 8, 2015

Bob Carnie said:
Lachlin, I think with the advent of digital negs , the world has changed ... for example if you can find a LVT image setting house in Europe, you could send files to them
to make your negatives with perfect results.

Bob

If I were heading down the DI route, I'd probably go with QTR/Piezo - I'm also interested in the purely analogue process for various boring art reasons...

On the matter of quixotic plans, I'm currently trying to get on with making some collotypes - I have access to the right kind of presses, I know someone who has the right kind of oven to make the plates... all I need is a temperature/ humidity controlled room...

DREW WILEY · Oct 8, 2015

Bob - dye transfer is exactly that - the dye is absorbed by the matrix film, then transferred into the via pH as well as mordant affiliation.
This requires true dyes, which must be carefully selected for not only transfer properties, but process purity, transparency, retouchability, permanence, etc. The elegance of the system is that specific dye sets could be selected for the intended color suite. Technicolor movies often employed specially selected dye sets to match the costumes and decor; but it can be done for still prints too. Other processes tanned gelatin sheet with a relatively hard relief to fill the void with colored ink, which could be pressured rolled onto paper; but this was something else. All kinds of patents and tweaks have existed. The problem is that any custom run of relief film has to be engineered for a
specific application, and that requires some kind of prototyping on a small-batch slot coater, then ample testing, then a million or so bucks
for a volume run, which might or might not perform exactly as desired. It's risky, financially. But with dye transfer per se, the desired
qualities of the end product are fairly well known, and there MIGHT still be enough users to split a batch order. I personally bought up the
last of Efke's custom run of matrix film. But the next run (in Germany) was customized for blue-laser exposure and use by just one dedicated lab. Print permanence per se is its own kind of subject. Even true pigment prints sometimes fail due to the layers blistering as
the gelatin over-hardens through crosslinking over time. The whole topic in involved. There are all kinds of dyes and pigments. And ironically, many inkjet inks contain the same dyes used in certain versions of the dye transfer process; so inkjet is not a true pigment process at all.

Fresh Ilfochrome paper

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