? getting started optical printing

[Denis R]

with all of the spring colors, I am starting to transition from monochrome to color film, not necessarily developing film

I have a box of fujicolor pro 160c 120

as such, I figure it's time to switch to color printing

for equipment I have a roller tank and base set, and two sest of cibachrome filters, I also have a kodak color print viewing kit

I would like to do color separation prints, and regular prints

what materials are available and required?

what is the process?

what is a good "optical" paper available in sheets?

I did try searching, but usually ended up finding minilab.......

for now the film and one set of prints will be made by the photoshop
one roll I had them do turned out nice, it was old K gold 100 in a p&s

I do know monochrome start to finish, everyting from bulk loading to hanging in a gallery

 

[perkeleellinen]

Can I infer from your avatar that you're in Sweden? Assuming that you are, the links are all to Ag Photographic in the UK, who are great!

Regular prints - you need the RA4 process chemistry, specifically Kodak Developer, Replenisher:

http://www.ag-photographic.co.uk/kodak-ra4-developer-kit-4x5l-295-p.asp
http://www.ag-photographic.co.uk/kodak-ra4-blix-kit-4x5l-296-p.asp

Paper - this is more fluid as we're in the middle of a major discontinuance of Kodak Supra Endura.

Get it while you can, there's not much left:
http://www.ag-photographic.co.uk/kodak-supra-endura-172-c.asp

Or try Fuji Crystal Archive:
http://www.ag-photographic.co.uk/fujicolor-crystal-archive-171-c.asp

I'm not aware of any other cut papers.

 

[Rick A]

Hi Denis(in Madrid Iowa) Freestyle sells Fuji, which from several accounts, is good quality paper. You will also need some RA-4 chemistry. You will have to find a publication on color printing, Kodak is a good place to start. I used to print color years ago, but havent since the late 70's, I'm sure its gotten much easier since then. Have you tried Amazon for manuals, maybe Googleing 'manuals for color printing photos'. Are you going to use a dichroic head on your enlarger, or filter packs? I would recommend night vision goggles to make it easier to work in total darkness. Its really not that difficult, its just a little more finicky with temps and such.

 

[Bob-D659]

If you are in the lower 48 of the US, order RA4 Dev/Replenisher Mfr. Part: 8415580 Bleach/Fix Mfr. Part: 8309031 and Kodak paper from www.adorama.com There are a dozen or so threads here about using this chemistry at room temp. It works great.

 

[ic-racer]

If you want to make color separation prints, its going to be difficult. This link may help: http://www.charlescramer.com/dyetransfer.html

Otherwise, use RA4 as the others have suggested.

Don't forget to turn the safelight off

 

[Bob-D659]

Beseler drums and a motor base also mean you can do most of the work in a "light room".

 

[fschifano]

The color print viewing filter set is a "nice to have" item, I'd say darned near indispensable if you want to get the colors on your prints right. I'm not sure about the cibachrome filter sets. They may or may not have the proper amounts of filtration necessary for your set up. For printing from C-41 negatives onto RA-4 paper, you will likely not need the cyan filters at all. See what you have there and compare it to the filter pack starting point recommended by the paper manufacturer. Kodak publishes very comprehensive documentation about cc filters and color printing. See this example. Fuji is less clear about the subject, or at least makes the information a little harder to find.

 

[Mike Wilde]

I printed with Cibachome acetates for the first 10 years of my colour printing before a dichroic enlarger came my way; they will be fine 05, 10, 20, 30 40 and 50 in Y,M and C as I recall. Mine were 6" square, trimmed a bit to fit into a Besalar 23C. It was a condenser enlarger, and I bought a UV absorbing glass to keep the acetates from fading.

There is a bit of math involved in changing filters that then changes the required expoure time. The filter viewing kit should have a card that gives the density of the different filters. You multiply them out and make adjustments. Cyan will never be needed with RA-4 unless you need neutral density. Yellow is very thin. 1.1 filter factor, and usually not a big deal. Changing the Magenta is where fiter adjustments are more pronounced.

My chems I used to run at about 75F, since this allowed the blix to be a shorter temp than room temp. I used to have a small wash tub I would put in the darkroom sink that had a hole drilled in one end so it would not overflow, and a series of plastic mugs that hung on its side wall that would have the different solutions pred into to be ready to put into the tube. I would stand glas bottles of chems in the tub to temper them too. Wash water was scooped from the same tub. I used to prefill with 250-300mL to warm the tube, and wash off the overcoat ( I recall someone called them the green meanies if you processed in a tube without the pre-wet, but that was back in ep/2 days.) then about 50mL per 8x10, stop, wash, blix, wash, wash. For developer time I used a chart that came with my tubes that would give temp in/temp out of the pre wet water to give an average drift though temp of the developer.

Give yourself a treat, and find more than one tube. They have to be dry, so lots of towels and papewr towl are the order of the day. Print at 4x5 is a handy way to do test exposures, if you have the ribs to let the daylight tank be sub-dividie into smaller sizes.

I now have a roller processor, but have kept the roller base tube collection (up to 20x24) for the day when the roller processor dies

Exposure times are typically 5 to 20 seconds, and you need a repeatable timer, so a Gralab 300 might not be the best suited timer, if that is what you are using now.