How do you tell if a photo is a Cibachrome?

Photo Engineer · Apr 27, 2009

Kevin Caulfield said:
Thanks for the info, PE, but the kits never used to contain neutraliser tablets, at least not here in Oz.

All of the kits I used when it was "Cibachrome" came with neutralizer tablets and instructions on how to use them to prevent corrosion of metal equipment.

PE

Poisson Du Jour · Apr 27, 2009

Kevin Caulfield said:
Yep, fair dinkum, Poisson. I too have heard more people refer to them as Cibas than anything else. When I started printing them 13 years ago, they were already "Ilfochromes". I just pointed it out in case any youngsters got confused.

At 48, I'm still a youngster, Kev, and I was impressed at the "new" term!!

timbo10ca · Apr 27, 2009

Thanks everybody- This is definitley a Ciba I have, but I'm surprised at the thickness of the paper- it's closer to single weight and I was expecting more like double. I wish there was somebody local who could print these for a reasonable price- I have a few trannies that I'd love to have made into Cibas..... Color processing is not an option for me, let alone Ilfochrome. Ektagraphic- where is this site?

Tim

Photo Engineer · Apr 27, 2009

Ciba/Ilford is more like double weight to me and very plastic in nature. It is difficult to tear.

PE

Poisson Du Jour · Apr 27, 2009

Photo Engineer said:
Ciba/Ilford is more like double weight to me and very plastic in nature. It is difficult to tear.

PE

Mm-hmm. The proverbial "plastic fantastic"!!

I have quite a few 'seconds' (or control prints) of my images from the lab that are used to demonstrate to clients the nature of Ciba/Ilfochrome in its raw form; it is an alien concept to many and some get very silly ideas when told of its "plastic-like" nature. These "touchy-feely" bits are also useful for practising removal of smudges, droplets etc. I have never been able to tear any Ciba and even cutting with Fiskar shears takes skill.

nickandre · Apr 27, 2009

Poisson Du Jour said:
Yikes!! "...beginning to liquify and burn through the metal-lined pouches...". Imagine what this stuff will do to the environment. How, prey tell, do the "hazardous waste" sites actually mitigate this stuff?? I might even ask my Ciba printer what happens to their waste (the print lab is situated in a normal suburban street, not an industrial area).

My guess? Charge you and pour it down the drain.

Kevin Caulfield · Apr 28, 2009

Poisson Du Jour said:
At 48, I'm still a youngster, Kev, and I was impressed at the "new" term!!

I'm not far behind you, Poisson, at 44, so I must be a youngster too.

2F/2F · Apr 28, 2009

tiberiustibz said:
My guess? Charge you and pour it down the drain.

Perhaps I am spoiled by being in Los Angeles, but it is free, and they dispose of it in accordance with the law; at any rate, far better than you or I could dispose of it. All you have to do is label what you bring in, if it is not in its original labeled container. They don't even let you get out of the car. They open up your car in their white suits and masks, make sure everything is labeled, and you are in and out in a minute or two. The limit is 15 gallons. I take paint remnants, batteries, photo chemicals, rags, etc. It is funny to make the joke that they just throw it all in a truck and take it down to the ocean and dump it (I think I make the same joke every time I go down to the disposal site), but I hope that no one actually believes this and uses it as an excuse to just be lazy and dump hazardous things down the drain or put them in the trash.

2F/2F · Apr 28, 2009

Poisson Du Jour said:
What's age got to do with it...?

Well, I may try a piece or two under the enlarger first...but I don't expect much based on what I have heard about the paper's keeping properties when unexposed.

Photo Engineer · Apr 28, 2009

Kodak had a Cibachrome like product ready at one time. It was to be called Azochrome. The war intervened, as Pearl Harbor took place the day before the intended introduction on Dec, 8th.

Forever after, the support for the paper, a plastic material, was called Azochrome support. It was also used for Kodachrome print support (called Kotavachrome). I have an uncoated roll of it here somewhere.

It was necessitated by that very acid bleach which would destroy ordinary paper and RC support.

PE

PHOTOTONE · Apr 28, 2009

At one time Cibachrome had an RC paper as well as the Plastic(Mylar) support. The RC version was supposed to be somewhat lower in contrast. This is not to be confused with a Ektaprint 2, or RA-4 paper also at one time marketed by Ilford.

Photo Engineer · Apr 28, 2009

Yes, they did. This fleeting product was on and off the market before our radar detected it I think.

Our tests showed that RC would separate badly in the sulfamic acid bleach bath.

PE

coigach · Apr 28, 2009

Poisson Du Jour said:
A print from a laser printer is just bloody lousy!! You'll see the dots; no dots on a Ciba!

Not the place to discuss this in detail, but just for info, Elevator print digitally using a high-end Lambda on Cibachrome:
http://www.elevatordigital.ca/printing.html

Cheers,
Gavin

timbo10ca · Apr 28, 2009

coigach said:
Not the place to discuss this in detail, but just for info, Elevator print digitally using a high-end Lambda on Cibachrome:
http://www.elevatordigital.ca/printing.html

Cheers,
Gavin

I don't think they are doing them any more, but don't quote me on that.

nicefor88 · May 3, 2009

Ciba prints will last unchanged for 100 years we were told once. They don't fade. The paper has a plastified aspect, looks like plastic when you manipulate it. Details are very hard to get in low light and high light. That's why many photographers used contrast masks to recuperate some detail.

Ektagraphic · May 3, 2009

I can't wait to get some back!

Poisson Du Jour · May 3, 2009

nicefor88 said:
Ciba prints will last unchanged for 100 years we were told once. They don't fade. The paper has a plastified aspect, looks like plastic when you manipulate it. Details are very hard to get in low light and high light. That's why many photographers used contrast masks to recuperate some detail.

Depending on how you frame and store Cibas, their viewing quality will last a lot longer than 100 years. Some photographers have speculated 300-400 years, though I remain untouched by such seemingly fanciful longevity. I'd say 120-130 years with MGCS framing (cotton rag mat, UV-retard glass, hermetic sealing). Can we compare framed cibas with Old Masters works of 400-600 years??

Regarding hi/lowlights, You need to expose your film very carefully if a Ciba print is planned; that means diffuse light rather than point light and keeping spectrals fairly flat. A ciba print will gain about 1/2 stop more contrast than the tranny, which is why I get about 3 to select from, but it's a narrow call most times.

It is the printer that creates the mask to control contrast.

lightwisps · May 5, 2009

If anyone is looking for a place to do Ilfochrome, we are located near Ottawa, Canada and do a lot of it. Just email me at lightwisps@yahoo.com. Not trying to spam, but it seems that it is getting very hard to find anyone doing it anymore. Don

yellowcat · May 5, 2009

A long time since I printed Ciba. The first bench top machine I used had no replenishment system - you had to keep a log of the surface area of material used and after so many square meters you had to dump half the volume of each tank and top up with fresh chemistry. The chemicals were really nasty you had to mix the waste chemicals in the right order or you would fill the room with choking fumes.

Later I used an Ilford processor made by Kreonite that would process both Ilfochrome and black&white - the developer and fixing stages of Ilfochrome are the same as B&W, the machine had guide that could be moved down to divert B&W paper over the Bleach. That lab closed about ten years ago and as far as I know the processor went for scrap.

Fuji at one time made an RA4 Ultra hi gloss material that had a polyester base just like Ilfochrome, the 'character' of the print was close but not quite the same as Ilfochrome.

jgjbowen · May 5, 2009

How do you tell if a photo is a Cibachrome? Well, if the back of the print says "paper made by Kodak," then it probably isn't a Cibachrome

Nathan Potter · May 17, 2009

By The Way current Ilfochrome material CPM.44M (Pearl) has a thickness of 0.25 mm (10 mil) so is reasonably thick. But it is highly flexible so has a low modulus and gives the appearance of being thinner than it actually is. The plastic base is Melinex made by DuPont Teigin Films.

There is some disagreement over the longevity so let me say that some testing was done by the Permanance Institute at RIT. Their measurements indicated a differential fading between M, Y and C. Conditions of light exposure of 450 lux for 12 hours per day at 40 to 50% RH and 25 to 35 degree C produced a density loss in C of about 0.1 logD in 10 years while M was near 0.0 and Y was about log 0.04 in the same 10 year period. Using fade protection covering the density loss is greatly reduced. I think this may be somewhat at odds with Wilhelms results IIRC.

The resolving power of the material is listed at 60 lp/mm. way beyond the acuity of the eye which is perhaps about 5 lp/mm. This is one reason that the image from a high quality chrome can look so astoundingly sharp when transferred to an Ilfochrome.

BTW I use the recommended processing in a drum as so:

Developer 120 sec. 30C
First Rinse 30 sec. 30C
Bleach 120 sec. 30C
Second Wash 30 sec. 30C
Fix 120 sec. 30C
Wash 180 sec. 30C
Hang dry 4 hrs. 65 - 75 F

Nate Potter, Austin TX.

One shot chemistry. 75 ml per 8 X 10. 150 ml per 11 X 14. 360 ml per 16 X 20. All original Ciba drums.

Pupfish · May 18, 2009

CPM1M was the Ilfochrome RC product I used most. It was still expensive compared to RA4, something around a buck a sheet for 8x10 in a box of 100, and had reasonable contrast. Chemistry was roughly another buck per sheet for 8x10's as one-shot from P-30 kits, as I recall. CPM1M is marked as such on the back, but the "Classic" mylar/polyester based stuff has no markings on it, and was nearly 3X as expensive. Unlike CPM1M (which to me is more realistic) Classic has a metallic sheen. There was at one time a slightly more normal contrast version of it, which was nice stuff that somewhat lessened the need for unsharp silver masking.

The RA4 print from neg material Fuji made huge inroads on Ilfochrome with was/is Crystal Archive Supergloss, and it also has a metallic sheen to it. It's what several places still use to make Lightjet or Chromira prints (from digital files back out to chemically processed photo paper). Crystal Archive might easily be mistaken for a well-masked Classic Ilfochrome. Wilhelm cited Crystal Archive as more archival than Ilfochrome back in the 90's; Ilfochrome popularity went into a tailspin. It also became increasingly difficult over time to procure fresh Ilfochrome stock here in CA because as mentioned above the bleach is very caustic and is classified as Hazmat, requiring ground-only shipping (with a courier having a Hazmat certificate). Low volume places simply can't get P3 jugs anymore, is what I'm told. When this happened, stocks of paper went unsold and there was a lot of it available but out of date, locally.

How do you tell if a photo is a Cibachrome?

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