I can't get the right color filtration.

btaylor

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I depend on my viewing filters, but I see they are pretty scarce these days.
The fastest way for me to get to neutral (no color casts) is to shoot a frame of an 18% gray card in the same light (daylight or whatever) as the rest of the roll. Then start making prints until you make a print that matches the gray card. Now you have a reference point.
 

koraks

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I was actually trying to do like you said but I was a bit confused by add or substract colors and I had to ask a sort of opinion to figure out the correct combination.
It's usually a bit confusing, particularly when just starting out, changing both M + Y at a time. Start with adjusting either one of them, and then do the other.
For instance, your left image is evidently way too blue. The right image is a bit too yellow. Left has Y=150 and right has Y=120, so you could try a print on Y=130 and whatever M setting you happen to be at. If the left strip is the first one you make, and we agree that the problem with blue/yellow is in that one the dominant color problem you'd like to solve first, start with that one.
If you happened to print the right-hand strip first, the most dominant problem I would see is the green cast, so I would try and solve that first. This means adjusting the M setting; given that the right-hand strip has M=140 and the left has M=100 (and that one is probably a little too magenta), you could try a strip at e.g. M=110 or 115.

Most likely you ran into problems with these strips because you were trying to manipulate both Y and M at the same time. Start with only one, and then figure out the other. If your initial strip is either too yellow or too blue (and the magenta/green problem is less severe), start with changing the Y filter until you get as close as you can to a good strip, and you're only left with a magenta/green issue. And the other way around; if the dominant problem in your initial strip is magenta/green, then start there until you're left with a blue/yellow problem and then solve that one. In the 2 strips you've shown, assuming you fist made the left one and then the right one, you solved the blue problem in the left strip (actually, you overshot a little bit and introduced a yellow problem) but introduced a severe green issue at the same time. Perhaps that has confused you.
In this initial step, by all means make nice and big changes as you did in the test strips. Adding or subtracting 20-30CC gives pretty good insight into where you are and roughly where you want to end up.

You may have to take a few more iterations. So if e.g. you have initially fixed your yellow/blue cast as well as you could and then fixed magenta/green, it is possible that you're left with a smaller yellow or blue cast which you didn't see because of the remaining magenta/green issue. You then proceed by adjusting the Y setting to get rid of the problem. In this second iteration, you want to make much smaller changes; if you made changes of 20cc in the initial step, now try something like 5cc.

Finally, please keep in mind you only need to filter on M and Y, never on C. So the 'ringaround' that @Mr Bill mentions is absolutely fine, but you don't need to go into 6 directions. 4 is ample. Leave C at zero, at all times. But like I said, instead of trying to fix both M and Y at the same time, do it one by one.
 

MattKing

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Most importantly, don't let early discouragement get in the way of enjoying this.
koraks suggestion for a "standard" negative is a really good one because, providing that your development process and paper is consistent, once you arrive at a setting that works well for that well exposed "standard" negative, that setting will be quite close for most of your other negatives.
There will always be a few outliers - a scene illuminated by candles would be an example - but once you pin down your standard settings, the rest will be much more straightforward.
One further point - be sure to put your standard negative in a special, easily accessible place. That will permit you to use it as a check in the future, to help deal with any unexpected changes in materials or equipment.
 

Tom Taylor

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To print optically from color negative film onto RA-4 paper you need 3 things:
1. A viewing station.
2. A filter kit.
3. Beginner instructions.
Both 1 and 2 above will probably be hard to find these days as everything is now digital. However you can buy the bulbs and build a station yourself and you can probably purchase gels and make your own filters. (When I started into color printing a paid ~$250US for a small (11x14) viewing station and $44.99 for a Lee "Print Easy Viewing Kit." Check your library for color printing "how-to" books or look online for resources such as this: http://www.reframingphotography.com/content/color-corrections-darkroom

It's very important to start with a print with the correct density before you begin to color correct. A beginning filter pack of 60/40 sounds good to me.

Best of luck,

Thomas
 

Sirius Glass

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I like the way you wrote this up. Thank you.
 

Mr Bill

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Finally, please keep in mind you only need to filter on M and Y, never on C. So the 'ringaround' that @Mr Bill mentions is absolutely fine, but you don't need to go into 6 directions. 4 is ample.

No, you really do "need" all 6 to cover the three primary colors. For individual magenta and yellow filter corrections you can get plus and minus magenta (minus magenta is green) on the print, and plus and minus yellow (minus yellow is blue) on the print. But you will be missing the red thru cyan sequence of colors. If you are ever gonna have a red thru cyan error on your prints then it's useful to include this in your ringaround.
 

koraks

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Yeah, I see your point. It can be useful, but perhaps for a novice printer also slightly confusing as they might be inclined to adjust a red/cyan issue with the cyan filter. Not that it's fundamentally wrong to do so, but it can get one farther away from home.
 

Mr Bill

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I was actually trying to do like you said but I was a bit confused by add or substract colors and I had to ask a sort of opinion to figure out the correct combination. Anyway I'll try your suggest too. Thank you !!

The rule to "always do the wrong thing" is virtually infallible. Just decide what the print has too much of, then plan to add that to the filter pack. Except that you will only be working with magenta and yellow in your filter pack. So you need to find the equivalent to "add." I say "add" because the equivalent of adding one color to the filter pack is to REMOVE that color's complement.

As I said before, if the test print is too blue then you say, "I need to add blue to the filter pack." But... since we don't work with blue filters you have to find the equivalent of adding blue. If you draw that color diagram I described earlier, if you start at blue you can see that the color directly opposite is yellow. Since yellow is opposite, then you figure that removing yellow is equivalent to adding blue.

If you understand and follow this method you won't need to make errors in your corrections. The only problem will be in identifying the actual color, as well as its strength. And actually printing a color ringaround will help with this.
 

pentaxuser

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Just out of interest what negatives are these test strips from? Others seem to be able to see images from a negative projection onto a piece of RA4 but all I can see is a mid to dark blue section with a light blue section under it and on the other side green sections both of which seem similar in colour with some beige sections and a thin darker green streak

I am beginning to wonder if I am the only one to see the strips this way as it seems to be only me who finds it impossible to make a comment other than all pieces are either much too blue or much too green in terms of a cast on what may or may not be a negative projection.

By the way were these test strips done in total darkness except the exposure of the negative or are these blank strips of RA4 on which no negative was projected but simply exposed to the two filter settings you mention?

Thanks

pentaxuser
 

pentaxuser

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It still isn't clear to me what Flavia's method for test strips was nor how she decided on the method of making test strips or indeed why she chose those filtration figures.

I am sure she will reply. RA4 printing isn't something that you can expect to get a good print from at the first attempt but if you just "have a go" without any real basis for your method then you might give up after a few hopeless attempts believing it to be just too difficult which it is not if you have a plan that is based on some knowledge.

B&W isn't easy but if you simply "have a go" then you will probably get a picture that is good enough to make you try again. However I found RA4 a much more difficult process at first than B&W

pentaxuser
 

Vaughn

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Remember that blue is not the same as cyan. The actual color blue is around the color circle towards magenta from cyan...sometimes known as violet, I believe. Blue's opposite is yellow, and cyan is opposite orange.

Sometimes one should change both magenta and yellow filtration at the same time. That's how you balance cyan. If the print is too cyan, reduce both M and Y. Cyan always stays at 00. Dang, it has been a long time...had to really think that through!

Viewing filters are nice...the trick is not to view the print through them. In the normal viewing light, look at the print...then flash a correction filter over the image and quickly judge the color. Don't hesitate for long...over the print, off the print, back over the print, and so on...and do not hold the filter over your eyes and look at the print. This keeps the brain's auto-white system from kicking in and throwing bias into the system.

Another suggestion -- I wasted a lot of paper and chemicals creeping up to the proper color balance 5 units at a time. Bigger jumps at first, 10 or 20 units -- go too far and then back up. That will save you time.
 
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DREW WILEY

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Cyan is opposite red on the color wheel. In conventional subtractive printing, increasing cyan reduces red light from white light; increasing yellow reduces blue; increasing magenta reduces green. Violet is between blue and magenta.
 

Vaughn

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orangy-red...

But then I'm color blind in one eye and can't see out of the other worth a damn (kidding).
 

DREW WILEY

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The old color printing articles in photo magazines could be fun, because those old color neg films were so off that they'd speak of dialing in a pumpkin hue instead of yellow, an off-green instead of cyan, etc. Ever look at the work of Stephen Shore? Almost every image is based on a deliberate clash of pumpkin orange and poison green; but the secret was in his judicious balancing of color proportion. When enlarger colorheads started using more efficient filters, and films and chromogenic papers started to improve, Lo and Behold, one could actually start seeing relatively clean primaries and tertiaries, though most yellows and oranges are still a bit dirty. Additives enlargers are an even cleaner avenue, but that's a different topic.
 

mklw1954

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Getting the right filtration is frustrating at first because you don't know in which direction and how much magenta and yellow should be adjusted (use cyan = 0). When I did this the first time, I scanned a negative and then adjusted the color filtration in the software (RBG, or red, blue, green values) until it resembled my print that was off. That way I could see what colors had to be adjusted back and by roughly how much to get a good balance. Of course you have to translate the RBG changes to M and Y changes. Once you get a good balance for your enlarger, paper, and brand of film, you'll be close for future printing and you'll develop a feel for what adjustments are needed.

For fine tuning filtration, make sure you get good whites.
 

Mr Bill

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Blue's opposite is yellow, and cyan is opposite orange.

Cyan is opposite red on the color wheel. In conventional subtractive printing, increasing cyan reduces red light from white light; increasing yellow reduces blue; increasing magenta reduces green.

There are a number of different color wheels (both historically and today). The one that should be used in modern subtractive photography is the one described by Drew.
 

MattKing

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One trick that I always found helpful was to concentrate on an area of the subject where the light transitions from highlight to shadow.
A really good example is the area on a person's face starting at the fully illuminated cheek and continuing over the chin into the shadowed area underneath.
That transition from highlight through mid-tone to shadow will give you a nice range of densities, which in turn will reveal subtle colour casts.
This subject makes for a good standard:
 

Mr Bill

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This is pretty much the usage one can get from printing a color ringaround. Except that the color appearance will be more exact because the actual color printing mechanism is used rather than a computer simulation.
 

Vaughn

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There are a number of different color wheels (both historically and today). The one that should be used in modern subtractive photography is the one described by Drew.
What I remember from printing color RA4+ is that the opposite of cyan was orange or close enough, which was made up from magenta and yellow...and that my 1971 Superbeetle that I drove for ten years and 150,000+ miles was not red and was not orange, but was perfectly in between.
 

koraks

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I have learned that issues related to the real world appearamce of colors of a certain name I better leave to my less hairy half. Although I believe I can discern hues fairly well, I always end up with the short straw if we're discussing if that hue in-between green and blue is closer to one or the other...
 

Mr Bill

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I think that perhaps the artist's color wheel (Itten?) has orange opposite cyan. But I don't recall the standard photographic stuff, from 1970s on, being anything other than cyan vs red, etc. This pretty much has to come about if the film/paper dyes are called cyan, magenta, and yellow, and the appropriate layers are defined as being sensitive to red, green, and blue, respectively.

In the real world there are all sorts of variations. I had sort of an awakening way back, maybe 1990ish, when digging into some sort of photo problem. I decided that I was gonna look up the formal "specs" for what constitutes red, green, and blue, etc. I mean with respect to wavelengths and that sort of thing. (I had been using color densitometers for some years, and knew the spectral sensitivity functions, etc., I just wanted to know how wide the "allowable" spectral range was.) What I found is that there is no such rigid definition. It turns out that the definition of colors is a vague thing - if something gives you the sensation of red, then that's what red is.

So we end up with things such as artists using paint primaries of blue, red, and yellow, whereas photographers see their subtractive primaries as cyan, magenta, and yellow. I mentioned before that people new to RA4 printing tend to "mistake" cyan for blue, and magenta for red. So one might notice that the artist's blue and red perhaps have a strong similarity to the photographer's cyan and magenta. So are the artist's and photographer's primaries much closer to the same thing, just using different names? I considered getting some paints and taking spectral measurements, but after reading a bit (obviously I am not an "artist") I find that if the artist has a certain named paint primary that has a certain unwanted tint, then they change to a (same) primary with a different name. So it's all a moving target.

Anyway, these things have a certain vagueness built in, so if you ever want to really specify a "color" you have to do it with something like a Pantone or Munsell color specification, or spectral data, etc. The whole thing is much deeper than that, but my point is that things are not as cut and dried as we might think.
 

Vaughn

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Women generally have better color vision...sometime accutely so.
 

DREW WILEY

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They're always right about everything, Vaughn. But it's a myth women have better color vision. They do often pay more attention to it. Color discernment is both psychological as well as physiological. I trained pro color matchers, and at one time did a lot of architectural color consultation on the side. There's a lot to it. Not only is a great deal of experience with specific ingredients required, but some basic understanding of comparative light sources, how eye exhaustion works, metamerism, color theory. My eyes have certainly not gotten better physiologically with age; but from decades of experience, I know much better what to look for than I once did, what to compare. I can generally detect 1cc differences in color balance (but that also requires a colorhead system itself capable of that kind of tricolor accuracy). It doesn't matter what gender great painters are. The best I knew understood color per se far better than any color photographers I've known. This included not only artists; even really good house painters understood more about applied color theory than most professional color photographers. Some of them lived as artists for a few years after a big sale, then resorted to house painting in the lean seasons. There is good money in architectural color if someone is really atop their game.
 
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Mr Bill

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At the photo chain outfit were I spent a lot of years my department used to oversee color tests for people who aspired to be color correctors. We considered the best test to be the Farnsworth-Munsell 100 hue (or something like that) test. Not the online "game" sort of thing, but the real thing (costing the better part of a thousand dollars US). Basically there are a number of color sample "caps" of moderate saturation and making a complete hue circle. Within each limited hue section of the test the first and last caps are fixed in place. The testee tries to place all caps in the correct order. If they have any significant color deficiencies they won't be able to do this; they can't tell some of the caps apart. So it's a very good way to evaluate the ability to discriminate small color differences. A small number of people could get perfect scores, pronto! No hesitation or doubt. A certain number of people would get several caps wrong. A lot would have a lot of "noise" in their score - no obvious color bias, but random errors all around, as though they had just been sloppy. But... if they retake the test they don't get much better, so it seems like simply a lack of "sensitivity" for lack of a better word. Now something like 5 or 10 percent of the males had really big error rates in certain hue regions, which basically means they have a so-called color blindness. (This is almost exclusively a male trait, per the literature.) Out of all these, only a handful of people knew they had a color "deficiency." Typically they knew this because they had seen certain colors that they couldn't distinguish but their friends could.

Women generally have better color vision...sometime accutely so.

I'm not sure that is correct provided that you weed out the males with definite "color blindness." We didn't really notice such a thing in our tests, although it coulda been.

Anyway, there is a wide range between people with respect to ability to distinguish between color hues. Now for me personally, I could get a perfect score IF I was very careful and double check each sequence. But like I said, some people can just go bam, bam, bam and immediately nail everything. So they are much better than me in this respect.

Anyway, it's an interesting thing to look at.
 
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