Ilfochrome - sales drive

[Photo Engineer]

Interesting. Is there a specific "matte spray" you have in mind?

I tend to forget that, in my convoluted mind, matte often means "not mirror like." My favorite paper surface was the "glossy" version of Bergger VCCB papers.

For Ilfochrome, I would prefer a sort of ~not quite pearl/semi-gloss, if I was in a position to be choosy.

The hybrid color carbon prints made by Art & Soul are what I had in mind when I thought about a gelatin application. If anyone is interested, have a look at their website, and if you have a chance, do check them out in person. I have never seen finer prints anywhere, period. Unfortunately, they run about $1000 for about an 8x10: http://www.colorcarbonprint.com/

I have no specific spray in mind as there are several out there AFAIK. I also happen to believe that this is a Bad Thing To Do to this type of print.

PE

 

[MMfoto]

Fair enough. But isn't that how matte papers are made? What's the difference?

 

[Photo Engineer]

A spray on or paint on overcoat can separate, can yellow, can turn blotchy. It can be uneven and it can totally ruin a print. A machine coated overcoat is designed and tested to match the rest of the layers and be of much higher quality than can be obtained by hand. It is the difference between your getting your car freshly painted by a pro, and you painting it yourself with housepaint and a 4" paintbrush.

PE

 

[Tom Kershaw]

Velvia is referred to the gold standard for Ilfochrome printing.

I'd have thought Velvia produces excessively amplified colour saturation and contrast printed onto Ilfochrome.

Tom

 

[Poisson Du Jour]

From my Cookbook first started in 1995, there are a few points to note exposing Velvia destined specifically for Ilfochrome printing:

• Overexpose slightly. +0.3 from iso50 (or EI40) will work in a lot of typical cases
• Avoid point light. Diffuse illumination works best for Velvia 50, 100, 100F
• Provide additional exposure in very flat light: ISO50 +0.6, or EI40 +0.3
• Avoiding heavy, thick shadows completely is better than using flash to fill them.
• Polarisation: carefless full polarisation will over-saturate primaries
With 100F, polarisation is especially troublesome; it can introduce totally unnatural
hues in the red spectrum (browns come out as peculiar reds; greens are subdued
and yellows mustard in appearance) 100F has a subdued palette which is awkward
• Velvia 100 requires careful exposure due to sensitive whites and highly saturated
green and red. Prints on Ilfochrome from Velvia 100 can look just way too over-
powering. Individual preferences determine which film you use, how and when.
• Don't push or pull the film. A gain will result also in a loss. Get the exposure right through experience.

I very rarely expose Velvia 50 at ISO50; it is almost always 40 or 32; 100F is good 'as is', unfiltered (no POL or other filters, especially SKY1B which can introduce more of a pink hue).

Ilfochrome will introduce its well-known 'punch' into primaries, and this is its strength. The 'wow' factor of punchy primaries has been successfully exploited by Australian photographers in both the harsh mid-day sun with simple compositions (desert sandhills, blue sky, yellow plant, white cloud) and especially dawn and sunset imaging.

 

[sandholm]

If I were able to get P-3 bleach and a good supply of paper, I would love to try it with current films.

Were do you live, US you have freestyle, Europe you have several retailers in the UK, Germany, or Belgium that will ship you chems and papers.

Store promotion:
Also, one of the photo stores here has just promised to start carry ilfochrome and we will make two ilfochrome enlargements and place them alongside two RA-4 and inkjet. This is going to be fun to do. We will use the same motive, same camera (Hasselblad 503cw) but use chrome/negative and a leaf back. When it all finished i will try to take some repro photo and publish here.
The hope is to get people back to print on ilfochrome and also get other darkroom people try ilfochrome.

cheers

 

[sandholm]

Their statement is simple: As long as someone buys it, we make it.

No marketing.

Yes

No R&D.

I am not sure about that, the material has changed of the the years, it has become easier to work with and the chemicals went from really toxic to not that toxic. So there are research going on, they just dont tell anyone about it ...

 

[sandholm]

I'd have thought Velvia produces excessively amplified colour saturation and contrast printed onto Ilfochrome.

Tom

No, i shoot more or less 100% Velvia when it coms to ilfochrome and it works perfect. It has to be exposed perfect (at least in the range of 1/2 to 1/3) stop, for the extream stuff i do snip test and fix the development. In the end (if) the contrast range is large I do a contrast mask (but i do this for B/W also...)

 

[John Meyer]

P3.20 at B&H

I would like to know what the difference between the B&H "kit" bleach and the
one they wouldnt ship for the last 20 years
Is it as good . Did they change something or just give in to shipping it.
I still have Ciba paper but just gave up a year ago finding the chems for it.
In the past i would have to drive 800 miles to Chicago,Il to Calumet for p3 20 L
Now i dont think i would even bother asking Calumet if they would bring in a load
of chems for me , i know what the answer would be.
Crazy when i think about it.
John

 

[sandholm]

I still have Ciba paper but just gave up a year ago finding the chems for it.
In the past i would have to drive 800 miles to Chicago,Il to Calumet for p3 20 L
Now i dont think i would even bother asking Calumet if they would bring in a load
of chems for me , i know what the answer would be.
Crazy when i think about it.
John

In the US freestyle will gladly ship you paper and chemicals, no problem getting them (just got an email from a person on the forum that got his last friday and started to use the material).

cheers

 

[Poisson Du Jour]

No, i shoot more or less 100% Velvia when it coms to ilfochrome and it works perfect. It has to be exposed perfect (at least in the range of 1/2 to 1/3) stop, for the extream stuff i do snip test and fix the development. In the end (if) the contrast range is large I do a contrast mask (but i do this for B/W also...)

Contrast masking is usually done as a matter of course, unusually as an 'option', because Velvia is contrasty to start with (100F being slightly less so, responding better to slight overexposure than its 50 stablemate). There is not in my folio a single Ilfochrome 1+2 (test print plus second print of alternative contrast media) that has not been contrast masked. And those tiny 35mm masks are easily mixed up and flutter around.

My printer once told me that 0.3 stops were better on SLRs running Velvia, with 0.5 stops best for MF and LF. I remembered this but not the technical reasoning given; might have been something to do with preservation of highlights; some early 0.5 stop Velvia trannies have grossly blown highlights while later ones are balanced but still require judicious additional exposure in places. Aint this something the digital brigade will never get to understand without a background in film, hmm?

 

[Film-Niko]

......

So we are doing a new marketing drive and I'm sure a few new Ilfochrome workers will emerge! .....

http://www.ag-photographic.co.uk/ilfochrome-classic-296-c.asp


If anyone has anything to add to this page: http://www.ag-photographic.co.uk/information-about-processing-and-printing-with-ilfochrome-345-c.asp

Please drop me a line any time - the key to growing use of traditional photo products is educating the customer, especially with specialist products such as Ilfochrome.

Matt

Hi Matt,

thanks for your efforts! I think it's the first step in the right direction.

But it is still lacking an essential part: You have to explain the potential user why he should use Ilfochrome.
What are the advantages of Ilfochrome (unsurpassed color brillance, unsurpassed color dye stability, unsurpassed long term stability of the PET base material (more than 500 years), favourite color paper of museums and archives, legendary reputation at collectors because of its proved stability.....and so on).
What makes Ilfochrome unique?

So it is absolutely necessary for an effective and successful marketing for Ilfochrome that you tell the visitors of your shop website why they would benefit from using Ilfochrome.
Make a site with the advantages of Ilfochrome.

And in a further step it would be helpful and very good marketing to add some interviews with some famous Ilfochrome printers and their view on the uniqueness of Ilfochrome.

 

[Tom Kershaw]

Over hyping a particular process is hardly sensible. There are good reasons why one might choose an RA-4, Ilfochrome, colour carbon, gum dichromate print etc. Photography is a process and one is often balancing a set of considerations.

Tom

 

[Film-Niko]

Over hyping a particular process is hardly sensible. There are good reasons why one might choose an RA-4, Ilfochrome, colour carbon, gum dichromate print etc. Photography is a process and one is often balancing a set of considerations.

Tom

I fully agree, Tom.
And I am not talking about "over-hyping".
I am talking about the advantages Ilfochrome definitely has.
Ilfochrome makes sense for certain applications, there it has its place and is unique.

And if a distributor wants to start a sales drive for Ilfochrme, then he obviously should explain his potential customers where Ilfochrome has its strenghts.
Thats the abc of successful marketing, fundamental know-how.

 

[sandholm]

Over hyping a particular process is hardly sensible. There are good reasons why one might choose an RA-4, Ilfochrome, colour carbon, gum dichromate print etc. Photography is a process and one is often balancing a set of considerations.

Tom

True, but just look at the world today, most color prints are made on an inkjet, some prints are made with RA-4 process, the problem is that most people dont even know of the ilfochrome process. Personal I use inkjet to produce digital negatives for platinum, RA-4 for my "day-to-day" pictures, but pictures i really want to shine/"art" they all go on ilfochrome.

So the problem here is not to over hype the ilfochrome, but the shear lack of information. This is just me, but i guess that the following processes that are discussed here are like:
1: B/W
2: RA-4
3: Platinum
4: alt process
5: ilfochrome

I just got commissioned three images on RA-4 and ilfochrome to show in a local photo shop just to display the material and what it can do. We will also show ink-jet image (made professional so i will only capture the image). All images will be shoot with the same camera, only difference will be film and process. This is the only way to judge the process and the material, and personal i think that ilfochrome stands way out from the other one (if produced correct)

cheers

 

[Tom Kershaw]

One of the issues that Ilfochrome faces is the apparent lack of a modern reference work or user guide. The B&W silver gelatin process has many; although I acknowledge there isn't a direct comparison, as the subject is probably more extensive, at least from the perspective of how the technology is employed by the end-user. I have relied on a few various photo.net threads, the Luminous Landscape Ilfochrome article and the 30 year old, 'Complete Guide to Cibachrome Printing' by Peter Krause and Henry Shull.

In the Luminous Landscape Ilfochrome article, Michael Reichmann mentions an ILFORD (Switzerland) publication: Ilfochrome / Cibachrome IIA, Ilford catalogue # 725634 but I've yet to hear from ILFORD as to whether this is still available.


Tom

 

[Poisson Du Jour]

Poke Ilford-HarmanTech in the belly and see if they'll fire up an advertising blitz.
Chances are it will be a bland "sorry, not interested". So it's up to photographers to the advertising for them?
Ilford HarmanTech — the one in Switzerland or wherever, has been conspicuous on this thread by its silent absence.

A 600-700 year lifespan of MGCF-standard finished Ilfochrome has been cited overseas somewhere, additional to ChromaColour here in Australia, but how are we to know definitively? Heck, we're not going to be around to find out for sure, but there's no harm in leaving a lasting image...

 

[AgX]

It's "Ilford Imaging" in Switzerland.

The other company in the UK is Harman Technologies with their b&w "Ilford Photo" department.




"Who gave names to all these animals?"

 

[Ronald Moravec]

Ilfochrome is the easiest product to make a print from. It is the most difficult to get a good print from.

You must mask or pull process slides to partially tame the contrast. I used to use an uncoated 50 Summar, Ektachrome 100 shot at 50 with reduced development, and got slides that looked just plain YUCK. They printed on the V35 beautifully with the exception of the red curves crossing giving balanced highlights and red shadows. The cure for that was removing the slide, adding a 50 cc cyan and flashing the paper.

In the end, I went back to controlable color neg printing.

 

[sandholm]

Ilfochrome is the easiest product to make a print from. It is the most difficult to get a good print from.

You must mask or pull process slides to partially tame the contrast. I used to use an uncoated 50 Summar, Ektachrome 100 shot at 50 with reduced development, and got slides that looked just plain YUCK. They printed on the V35 beautifully with the exception of the red curves crossing giving balanced highlights and red shadows. The cure for that was removing the slide, adding a 50 cc cyan and flashing the paper.

In the end, I went back to controlable color neg printing.

Well, i dont know what you did, but I usually say "if it looks perfect on the light table it will print perfect, if it looks slightly of on the light table, you are in trouble". The key with ilfochrome is to have perfect exposed negativs, which a good contrast range, if so its the most easy material to get a superb print from. If you start to play around with the chrome then you are in trouble, so your printing process to underprocess your film made you to start playing around with filters and then it gets messy.

Negative color film is easy to shoot, you can overexpose 3 stops and underexpose 2 stop and you can tweek the paper into an acceptable print. Chrome on the other hand must be exposed in 1/3 of a stop, and if so it will print wonderful, but it comes down to get that good exposure (and the use of filters when exposing the film).

 

[Marco Gilardetti]

What were we saying...?

Just called fotomatica.it by phone and asked once again when they will have Ilfochrome for sale in their range. The operator said that they tried to get this product again last year, but the delivery was incredibly slow. Also, it was impossible to know when and who was going to process the order, nor they could get any information about the batch they were going to receive. So, at the end of the endless wait, they got a batch of paper which was going to expire few days later.

Thus: considered the lack of professionality of Ilford Imaging sales department, considered that a serious seller refrain from selling almost expired Ilfochrome to their customers, considered also the risk of getting stuck with expired paper on their shelves, they decided to quit with Ilfochrome immediately.

End of the story. Good luck with their orders from Disney. It's good to know that Cibachrome is still alive, even though I will never print on it again. Better than nothing, I mean.

 

[Tom Kershaw]

Marco,

I've had fresh stock of Ilfochrome paper from Silverprint as recently as November.

Tom

 

[Owen Boyd]

Still printing Ilfochrome here!

I offer a Cibachrome (aka Ilfochrome) service from Kent in the UK. All prints are made by hand with conventional enlargers - no scanning etc. One of my clients is currently showing four prints in the AOP "A celebration of Kodachrome" exhibition in London. They are the only direct prints in this show, the others all being scan to C-type, Giclee, inkjet etc. There is, in my opinion, no comparison! I print for clients across the world, including USA, Australia, far East etc, using post or courier services. www.owenboyd.com

 

[Wayne]

You might want to post that again in this thread too.

(there was a url link here which no longer exists)

 

[nickrapak]

Good to know you're still printing! There was a rumor in (there was a url link here which no longer exists) that you had stopped.

Excellent work, and at the most reasonable price anywhere in the world.