Holy Crap what a thrill...it worked! RA-4 in open tray test #1.

rpavich · Mar 9, 2017

I got my roll of Fuji Crystal Archive paper and had my RA-4 chems mixed up. I'm anticipating getting a used Jobo CPE2 over the weekend but I couldn't resist just testing to see if I could cut a piece off of the paper, get it in the enlarger the right direction, and get SOMETHING to appear.

Wow...what a thrill. It worked!

I couldn't remember the times for the developing and blixing so I just arbitrarily used 2.5m each; I'll have to look that up.

I also didn't do anything to warm the chems up since this was just a test to see if something would appear, not that I could make art. I believe the temp of the chems was 66 deg f.

I started with 50M and 50Y and then after viewing with the kodak viewing filters It seemed like it was too red so I decided to add 10 more of each. It's hard to see from this picture but it did improve it.

To get the time, I used my analyzer pro and picked a medium grey from the image (there just happened to be something that I thought would be close to that in the picture.) I'll figure something better out when I do the real thing.

I'm just happy that something came out and it was half-way decent.

Andrew O'Neill · Mar 9, 2017

Very nice!

dE fENDER · Mar 9, 2017

Good tones.

pentaxuser · Mar 9, 2017

I looked very closely for the colour crossover that some suggest are almost certain to occur at as low as 70F, never mind 66F, but I can see any here.

pentaxuser

btaylor · Mar 9, 2017

Looks good! It is a kick to see; a couple of test prints with the viewing filters can get you really close on density and filtration. I always shoot a full frame gray card, it makes it very easy to match up density and filtration.

destroya · Mar 9, 2017

thanks for the great news! I have been wanting to try color printing for years but kept away because of the high temp many people claimed was necessary and the thinking that color balance would be next to impossible. looks like im gonna need to give it a try

mshchem · Mar 9, 2017

RA-4 is awesome. You could probably develop faster in trays than in tubes,. I have tried over developing, as long as you don't cut it short it develops to completion then stops. My prints at 100 F for 45 seconds look the same as 100 F for 90 seconds. Blix is pretty much the same story. If I had 100 identical 8x10s to print. I would get out my trays, warm the chemistry up to 105 F and go to town, replenishing along the way.
By the way using a Thomas safelight with the color filters you can see what you are doing, more or less and it doesn't bother the paper
Color printing is a blast and it's cheaper than stink jet
Mike

rpavich · Mar 9, 2017

btaylor said:
Looks good! It is a kick to see; a couple of test prints with the viewing filters can get you really close on density and filtration. I always shoot a full frame gray card, it makes it very easy to match up density and filtration.

I will definitely do that also!

RPC · Mar 9, 2017

pentaxuser said:
I looked very closely for the colour crossover that some suggest are almost certain to occur at as low as 70F, never mind 66F, but I can see any here.

pentaxuser

Crossover at these temperatures occurs with C-41, not RA-4.

Berri · Mar 10, 2017

nice job. I use a jobo drum that I roll manually. I keep my chemicals in a hot water bath with a submersible heating element. My workflow is pretty simple and I get satisfactory results.
RA4 printing is fun and easy.
printing in trays is much faster. You could make a hot water bath like mine to keep the trays at temperature and save a lot of money on the cpe.

Nodda Duma · Mar 10, 2017

Awesome.

Btw here's a print developed in a tray with RA-4 at 68F. I think this was from Ektar 100:

EdSawyer · Mar 10, 2017

It not only will be faster, but better, to do it at the higher temps if possible. Good first effort though!

RPC · Mar 10, 2017

Why is it better? Room temperature produces excellent results with Kodak RA-RT Developer/Replenisher. With drums you must pour all the solutions in and out of the drum and wash and dry the drum every print, so not faster there. Much easier and quicker in trays at room temperature. No water bath needed.

mshchem · Mar 10, 2017

If you really want to make it easy get an old school print basket that holds 12 sheets and a 1 gallon deep tank , swish swish swish at room temperature for total of may be 5 minutes , wash the prints and you are done .
Best Regards Mike

bvy · Mar 10, 2017

RPC said:
With drums you must pour all the solutions in and out of the drum and wash and dry the drum every print, so not faster there.

Absolutely not true.

Berri · Mar 10, 2017

RPC said:
Why is it better? Room temperature produces excellent results with Kodak RA-RT Developer/Replenisher. With drums you must pour all the solutions in and out of the drum and wash and dry the drum every print, so not faster there. Much easier and quicker in trays at room temperature. No water bath needed.

my workflow is as follow:
pour developer
start rolling and timer on 45"
pour dev. out pour blix in
start rolling 45"
blix out water in
start rolling 45"
water out water in
start rolling 15"
water out print out in on "hold" in a water tray. drum upside down

i don't dry it and never had a problem. total less then 3 min.

rpavich · Mar 10, 2017

Berri said:
my workflow is as follow:
pour developer
start rolling and timer on 45"
pour dev. out pour blix in
start rolling 45"
blix out water in
start rolling 45"
water out water in
start rolling 15"
water out print out in on "hold" in a water tray. drum upside down

i don't dry it and never had a problem. total less then 3 min.

45 seconds?
At what temp?

bvy · Mar 10, 2017

I appreciate that drums aren't everyone's cup of tea, but let's not prejudice newcomers with the same old myths. A quick rinse with warm water is the only washing between prints you need to do. If you rinse your print in the drum as I sometimes do, then there's no need to do even that.

If you process at warmer temperatures, then a prewash is recommended anyway to temper the drum and paper. Not sure why a drum has be bone dry to accept paper that's about to get wet anyway. Granted you don't want to put dry paper in a dripping wet drum and walk away from it. Process it right away. Even so, a quick wipe with a paper towel is more than sufficient.

The other option (for small drums) is to do just the opposite of drying it. Fill it with tempered water before loading the paper. This also circumvents the need to do a prewash at all. Unicolor put this tip in the instructions for their drums.

As far as timing, pour out and pour in takes 30 seconds at most. Maybe you can do it faster with trays, but we're talking seconds now. With funnels, the solutions go from the drum right back into their bottles. No mess, no smell. And you can work with the lights on.

bvy · Mar 10, 2017

rpavich said:
45 seconds?
At what temp?

That's the prescribed time for 98F-100F, I believe.

rpavich · Mar 10, 2017

bvy said:
That's the prescribed time for 98F-100F, I believe.

Oh..ok thanks.
I'll have to pull out the directions and go over them.

Mainecoonmaniac · Mar 10, 2017

Nice! You might want to try processing RA in a Beseler drum. An 8x10 takes less than 2oz of chemistry and you can work in daylight.

RPC · Mar 10, 2017

bvy said:
Absolutely not true.

I guess I imagined the longer times all those years I used a drum. You should rinse the drum well, and if it and the end caps aren't dry, you can get streaking on the next print. You should always use a pre-wet and stop bath with a drum, for uniformity, not required with trays, adding more time. Why do all that pouring and heating of solutions? And you must load and unload the paper from the drum. Not a lot more time, but it all adds up. Some drums only take one size sheet of paper so small test prints are hard to do. With trays, easy. Consistency is easier at lower temperatures, great for the home as opposed a machine environment. I used drums for years and when I switched to trays at room temperature, my productivity jumped.

To inspire newcomers to this process it should be as easy, fast, and cheap as possible, and this is the case with trays.

Berri · Mar 10, 2017

bvy said:
That's the prescribed time for 98F-100F, I believe.

yes 35°C
I actually use the same water bath for both film processing and paper chemestry, so I regulate the heter to 38°C.
I pour the chemicals at 38° into the drums I never checked what temp it goes when it gets in contact with the room temperature paper but I don't really care since this process doesn't give me any trouble. You are right it is a very quick process and I prefere drums also because I find it less messy.
But if someone is doing BW already he might not have drums and only trays so there's no need to buy other equipment.

Berri · Mar 10, 2017

RPC said:
I guess I imagined the longer times all those years I used a drum. You should rinse the drum well, and if it and the end caps aren't dry, you can get streaking on the next print. You should always use a pre-wet and stop bath with a drum, for uniformity, not required with trays, adding more time. Why do all that pouring and heating of solutions? And you must load and unload the paper from the drum. Not a lot more time, but it all adds up. Some drums only take one size sheet of paper so small test prints are hard to do. With trays, easy. Consistency is easier at lower temperatures, great for the home as opposed a machine environment. I used drums for years and when I switched to trays at room temperature, my productivity jumped.

To inspire newcomers to this process it should be as easy, fast, and cheap as possible, and this is the case with trays.

A science teacher of mine told me that theory is only true if not proven otherwise by experience. I never encountered those issues in years of RA4 printing, therefore I'll stick the the one method that gives me good and reliable results; no stop bath no pre-wetting, no drying.

Berri · Mar 10, 2017

RPC said:
my productivity jumped.

my productivity jumped when I started using the colorstar analyzer (few days ago)

Holy Crap what a thrill...it worked! RA-4 in open tray test #1.

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