Print display life expectancy of Cibachrome/Ilfochrome vs RA-4

Sal Santamaura said:

As previously stated in post #9, my trial was neither controlled, scientific nor peer-reviewed.

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So you consider such unscientific results to be valid when you report them...

but you reject other folks' reports of their own experience under identical uncontrolled conditions.

That's rather self-serving, no?

- Leigh

Poisson Du Jour said:

I was waiting for that. So your attacks on those who used and know of the background of Ilfochrome Classic are largely indefensible. Sorry. They are. You made it clear in the last few words. It's just a hobbyist making a finding and putting those findings on a pedestal compared to Wilhelm. Drrrrft. Read what Drew said. You're having a hard time countering some facts, yes?...

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Why were you waiting? The trial description has been sitting in this thread since post #9. More ad hominem. "Just a hobbyist." Wilhelm on a pedestal? You've denigrated his results too. Facts are facts. Methinks you doth protest too much.

Poisson Du Jour said:

..."Typical consumers"? Oh my. The big twisters of all sociologists...

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Why do you have trouble remembering that Cibachrome/Ilfochrome prints weren't just sold by big-time photographers to "collectors" but also marketed as unexposed 'paper' and associated chemicals to those working in home darkrooms? Prints made at home by "typical consumers" were displayed in places frequented by "typical consumers," not under controlled-spectra illuminants as specified by the gurus you've referenced in these threads.

Poisson Du Jour said:

...What else was in your office that could effect [sic] prints?...

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There was nothing present to make either Cibachrome/Ilfochrome prints. If your question was intended to ask what might have affected prints, anything there had equal opportunities to work its fading magic on both Cibachrome/Ilfochrome and RA-4 samples.

Poisson Du Jour said:

...If your hobby is to attack photographers who produced their work to Ilfochrome Classic, you have a problem underlying that type of thinking. So we can see, evidently, you sneer at Ilfochrome Classic and sneer at photographers producing their work to it ('cause you don't like it), but your slight is based on your own odd, rudimentary experimentation with no solid review. And you're trying to shout down established fact? So your findings are easily dismissed...

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I have no attack-related hobby. The posts I make at APUG in response to those who would perpetuate the myth that Cibachrome/Ilfochrome prints exhibit better stability on display than modern RA-4 prints are solely to set straight any readers who might be misled. My dislike for Cibachrome/Ilfochrome surface gloss is a completely subjective personal aesthetic opinion which has no bearing on print life expectancy; mention of it is included solely to entertain Drew, who loves the shine. You may, of course, dismiss Wilhelm's and my findings. Other readers ought reach their own conclusions.

Poisson Du Jour said:

...I must ask you, what did you expect photographers to use when that (IC) material worked so well for the intended purpose — of showing off the best of a photographer's work?...

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I had no expectations in that regard. Every photographer was and is free to choose whatever media they deem appropriate for their own work. Nothing I've posted implicitly or explicitly criticized anyone on the basis that they made such prints before Cibachrome/Ilfochrome's poor light-fading performance should have become known to them.

Poisson Du Jour said:

And what's this about "promoting sale or resale of Ilfochrome prints?" When did we promote the sale or resale" of it? We photographed. We produced. We printed. We sold. Just like brush artists do with their work. And it was not just IC: a variety of giclée was produced too. It had to be. The market being catered for required variety, but first and foremost the market desired quality imaging. When did I bang on to a client about Ilfochrome Classic as being a pot of gold ducats? My job was, when commissioned or producing my own work, to first and foremost, make the image. The print was secondary, but it had to be bloody good for the cost of all of my work (the IC printing was a small part of the overall fee structure)...

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You've previously referenced a number of photographers who offered Cibachrome/Ilfochrome prints to collectors through galleries. While your work might have been on commission rather than speculative, collectors buying prints through galleries for "investment" expect that what they buy will last and that, should they want to re-sell it on the secondary market, materials used have a reputation for lasting. Without arm-waving specification of spectrum-limited illuminants, the display life reputation of Cibachrome/Ilfochrome is in jeopardy. Again, methinks you doth protest too much.

Leigh B said:

So you consider such unscientific results to be valid when you report them...

but you reject other folks' reports of their own experience under identical uncontrolled conditions.

That's rather self-serving, no?...

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No. It can't be self-serving since I've never purchased an "artist's" Cibachrome/Ilfochrome print and therefore couldn't re-sell one. I have no dog in that fight.

I consider real-world results under typical consumer conditions to be more useful to "typical consumers" than any controlled lab tests replete with assumptions and approximations. Before you invoke your credentials, note that I take this position as a degreed engineer. Just like you.

Sal Santamaura said:

No. It can't be self-serving since I've never purchased an "artist's" Cibachrome/Ilfochrome print and therefore couldn't re-sell one. I have no dog in that fight.

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Leigh's statement is true. You simply don't want to accept it (a repeating theme!), instead singing to a flimsy gospel all your own.

Mate, stick to engineering.

Poisson Du Jour said:

...You simply don't want to accept it...

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"Who you gonna believe, me or your lyin' eyes?"

As I replied to Drew, it ain't religion. I accept nothing without credible evidence.

Poisson Du Jour said:

...stick to engineering.

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I stuck to it through a nearly four decade-long successful career. Now retired, I'll stick to enjoying photography and helping APUG readers avoid misinformation.

To be objective, Sal, you'd have to make identical prints of different media with a full range of values and hues, like a shot of a Macbeath color chart,
which would obviously have minor differences to begin with due to specific chrome versus color neg films, but printed as closely as possible to each
other - then you'd have to display them under a variety of lighting. Fluorescent has a discontinuous spectrum, so a given type of tube might affect a given part of the color wheel much differently than another. Like I said, I'm not disputing the validity of your personal results, but am implying they are statistically misleading, or a microcosm that goes against the grain of the overwhelming quantity of observations out there. But comparing apples to apples, we have to go back to a point in time where we have an actual side-by-side track record to observe. In the meantime, there is every reason to believe that certain RA4 media have improved in display permanence. But how well were the prints washed, how are they mounted, what are the specific display conditions? I find it very difficult to believe some of these newer products will have the level of dark storage permanence of Ciba; but then, I always wished Ciba had better display permanence simply because, if I sold a print, I no longer had control over what kind of lighting was involved. I was responsible to warn people about UV. But heck, the whole point was to have them enjoy the print. The drapes and sofa will fade too. Since I still have a lot of smaller Ciba prints left (nearly all the big ones are gone), this is not simply an academic subject unless one
is just beginning to color print, in which case a darkroom might not be involved at all. But there was very little difference between home user P-30
Ciba kits and the pro chem like P-3, just sulfamic acid powder versus liquid sulfuric. The "paper" choices were the same. An amateur might even
have washed his prints better.

... So in short, Sal, I don't challenge your personal experience, but I don't even remotely believer your general opinion. Sometimes I stumble into
people who bought my Ciba prints over 35 years ago, or even longer, and have them continuously on display all these years, and tell me they look
as good as the day they bought them. But they obviously prize these images, so took sensible care of them. I'm flattered. But I don't have to worry
about people like you since you hate the look of Cibas anyway, at least your stereotype of them. Maybe you've never seen a good one yet. They
did make a matte paper too. And of course, high gloss polyester RA4 media exists now too; so you've got something new to hate.

Drew, this is about Cibachrome/Ilfochrome print fading on display, not in dark storage. You already posted that you've found nothing very effective at slowing down the deleterious effects of UV on such prints and that fluorescents are rich in UV output. I don't think there's much of a case to be made, based on those observations, that my trial was in any way misleading. It's consistent with Wilhelm's results and your experience. Enough said.

So per lighting, my advice back then, which has proven itself over time, was conventional tungsten lighting or INDIRECT (wall bounced) window light;
but no halogens or fluorescents (all prior to today's LED and wretched CFL's). I gave them same advice for chromogenic prints, though like I said,
I am still monitoring in a large Crystal Archive installation which violates some of that advice, just to see what happens over time. Doesn't matter.
It's the only choice forward anyway, at least for a darkroom production color process.

OK. So per Wilhelm, he actually revised his estimated display life of Cibas downward from his original numbers. But a lot of people have since noted
serious flaws in his overall methodology. He basically did two things: 1) he reviewed older extant photographic media in order to see what had happened over time and therefore how to best preserve such things; 2) he otherwise adopted a relatively naive kind of light and heat torture testing
from other industries and saw how photographic dyes behaved in relation to that. Due to my own background in industrial pigments, I know the kind
of misleading results that can be derived from this kind of accelerated aging testing. I does have a degree of relevance, but needs to be strongly
moderated by other kinds of tests. Post-Wilhelm, others have made significant improvements to his initial approach. But there is never going to be an
actual substitute for sheer time under a variety of conditions. But I personally knew enough to never ever claim a quasi-indelible quality to any photographic media. I told my Ciba clients how to best protect their prints if they chose to display them, and what I to protect them from. But there
were individuals and galleries going around spinning sheer snake-oil salesmanship, just like is going on now with inkjet media. Heck, show me even
a yellow house paint that doesn't conspicuously fade in a couple of years under sunlight!

Cadmium Yellow does not fade! But then who wants to paint their house with that.

PE

Photo Engineer said:

Cadmium Yellow does not fade! But then who wants to paint their house with that.

PE

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As long as the trim is blue I would love a house painted this way... btw RA4 , before that was ? I should know as I made thousands of prints.

Here's the deal with cadmium: it was mostly used for "schoolbus" yellow, which is orangish, not pure yellow. There was a huge Sherwin Williams factory not far from my office here when I first moved into town. Now it's illegal to even drill a hole through the concrete or asphalt anywhere in the
area without a special hazmat permit, due to all the lead and cadmium in the soil. As you know, cadmium is outright banned in both the EU and US
except for very small quantities in artist's oil colors. Ironically, Germans patented a system of coating cadmium particles with inert colorless titanium,
much like brass hardware can now be coated in a vacuum chamber, so that even if ingested, the human body is incapable of absorbing the cadmium;
BUT they aren't allowed to acquire to cadmium to begin with, so have no way to offer a safer artist's pigment. Typical higher-quality true yellow pigments are now mono-azo lakes. Yellow oxide is exactly that - "dirt" or "clay", and not really yellow. If anyone wants to know what the truly lightfast pigments are, just look at the surface of Mars, or Artist's Drive in Death Valley. The second tier would be synthetic pthalo blue and pthalo
green, which obviously is neither a true green or ideal process cyan. Once you get further down into reds and yellows, well, you know the story.
The holy grail lies in transoxide nano-pigments, which are highly transparent, very permanent, and so small as hypothetically pass through even an
inkjet system better than anything available now. But despite all the research going on, nobody has come up with a matched process set for these either. Oh well, I'll just have fun making RA4 prints, and if someone complains about them fading, they can leave a note on my own grave.

Bob - I have a blue and yellow house combination myself. But I mixed the pigments in such a manner that as the body color gradually loses yellow,
the shift towards tan still looks good in relation to the trim. Everybody, even Van Gogh, knew the trick. You mix some of the complementary color
into the more saturated one. But the blue itself? - I mix it differently for the roof trim than the porch. Why? Because the setting sun is blocked by houses across the street, leaving the roofline in orange afternoon light, but the porch under potentially deep blue shade. But I'm a poor plebian, so never got fancy like I would for an actual architect or color consultation client (north side of the house different than the south, etc etc). I did have a few tricks up my sleeve, which my competition didn't.

Drew tell me more about transoxide nano-pigments - where do I get them, are they compatible with gum and ammonium dichromate?

Bob Carnie said:

btw RA4 , before that was ? I should know as I made thousands of prints.

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EP2--Ektaprint 2, at least that is what I used from Kodak.

Bob, there are some art supply sites now selling small quantities of transoxide powders, or in water dispersement. But only in conspicuously oxide colors. So you'd have a process yellow that would be strongly amber - not a bad thing if you want a Godfather movie look through a Harrison & Harrison amber filter. Decent reds have been engineered for automotive paint. But trying to get a cyan??? It would be off, kinda like chromium oxide hue. But I can't find it except by custom mfg lots measuring in the TONS. That's why I didn't tip you off earlier. If someone did order up an industrial batch of transoxide green, there might be leftovers you could secure. But the overseas sources might be contaminated with foreign metals that would
"poison" your gelatin cross-linking. I don't know the susceptibilit of gum arabic. And the "yellow" options are still too rusty to be suitably across the color wheel from a blue separation.

The processes were EP3, EP2, RA4. EP3 was introduced in 1970. It was Dev, Blix, wash, Stab but then they eliminated the stabilizer and used Dev, Stop, Blix and wash. EP2 was Dev, Blix and wash. These were at 85 to 88 degrees. RA4 uses Dev, Blix, wash or Dev, Stop, Blix, wash depending on process equipment.

EP = Ektaprint. Before 1970, it was Ektaprint C, Dev, Stop, wash, Bleach, wash, Hardening Fix, wash, Stab.

IMHO, using a Stabilizer will at least double print stability if not more.

The stabilizer I would choose is based on citric acid buffered at pH 4.5 with some Benzoic Acid and Sorbitol.

PE

RPC said:

EP2--Ektaprint 2, at least that is what I used from Kodak.

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I think Ron was laying down a trick question, when did Fuji come out with their product. I actually think I worked with Agfa Chemicals at school in the 70's

IIRC, Agfa had a paper called "type B" that used a process different than EP-2 up till the 80s or 90s . Don't know about Fuji.

I'll forward you the details of a much more realistic process pigment set somewhat later, Bob. Micro-ground rather than transoxide, and industrially
common in small quanitties, but with very high quality large-batch control, already dispersed. There are categories that the carbon printers etc are unaware of because of their art-store only mentality; while, on the other hand, these particular pigments aren't really suitable for inkjet machine, but would be superior in manual coatings. But in terms of permanence, they should be distinctly superior to anything inkjet.

Fuji came out with a compatible product a bit later than '70. GAF actually had a product that worked well in EP3 but they sued Kodak anyhow and won as did Pavelle and Berkey. In the US, Agfa sold paper in numbered series such as Type 7 and 8 and then they adopted the EP3 process. Their process used a blix long before Kodak did, as did Gevaert. They used a high pH developer with a now unavailable color developer.

Until Agfa changed to EP3, both Fuji and Konica used an Agfa type paper and process.

PE

Regarding some of the above comments on UV light and fading, my search has led me to an article by Dr Krause of Ciba. He stated that there was no UV absorbing layer in their reflective print material. There is in Kodak and Agfa materials.

PE

Bob Carnie said:

Today I feel the inkjet materials are better than any C print, and I am experimenting with pigment in gum prints for my thirst for permanent prints.

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You have to be kidding if you think inkjet prints last longer!
Unless you are using a special ink for your printer, I find they fade rather quick, within months mine have faded, even ones ive kept in the dark have faded.

I also have trouble with colour reproduction, all my prints ive done on my inkjet turn out very yellow, and i cant for the life of me calibrate it either.

I think thermal dye sublimation is far better than inkjet, and our photoshop does very cheap prints this way, but even better still, the colour is perfect!

Update on Cibachrome materials.

Just before their demise, they went from 9 layers to 13 layers, and may have added a UV absorber. This is based on patent research.

PE

Nzoomed said:

You have to be kidding if you think inkjet prints last longer!
Unless you are using a special ink for your printer, I find they fade rather quick, within months mine have faded, even ones ive kept in the dark have faded.

I also have trouble with colour reproduction, all my prints ive done on my inkjet turn out very yellow, and i cant for the life of me calibrate it either.

I think thermal dye sublimation is far better than inkjet, and our photoshop does very cheap prints this way, but even better still, the colour is perfect!

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Judging by your problems with inkjet I can understand your comment.