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

Poisson Du Jour · Nov 7, 2016

DREW WILEY said:
Or they might have been incorrectly referring to the need to make a black and white mask for high-quality results.

This is the single frame of film that is supplied with each and every one of my Ilfochrome prints; along one edge it has what looks like foil Christmas wrap sticky tape (often in wild patterns, including one somewhere with Spongebob Squarepants!). For years we referred to these easily-lost (and extra charge) things as "internegs", even though DW has pointed out their correct term: "BW mask".

DREW WILEY · Nov 8, 2016

Different custom than I was familiar with. The pro labs around here reserved the term "interneg" strictly for color negatives generated from chrome originals for the sake of making chromogenic prints. For Ciba they always listed an extra service charge for what was religiously termed a "mask".
Most made film masks, but a few tried photochromic glass. The terminology of masking was inherited from graphics and color printing techniques
going way back, including dye transfer, and has hence been inherited by PS technique. Darkroom workers squirm and scream because Pan Masking
Film isn't made anymore. But ordinary FP4 or TMX does a better job if you have the right developer tweak.

Bob Carnie · Nov 8, 2016

DREW WILEY said:
Different custom than I was familiar with. The pro labs around here reserved the term "interneg" strictly for color negatives generated from chrome originals for the sake of making chromogenic prints. For Ciba they always listed an extra service charge for what was religiously termed a "mask".
Most made film masks, but a few tried photochromic glass. The terminology of masking was inherited from graphics and color printing techniques
going way back, including dye transfer, and has hence been inherited by PS technique. Darkroom workers squirm and scream because Pan Masking
Film isn't made anymore. But ordinary FP4 or TMX does a better job if you have the right developer tweak.

Same here in Toronto

Interneg was a pos to neg process, Masking was done for cibachromes and reversal prints, and could be very pricey

Poisson Du Jour · Nov 8, 2016

Bob Carnie said:
Same here in Toronto

Interneg was a pos to neg process, Masking was done for cibachromes and reversal prints, and could be very pricey

You bet.
The price list from August '06 lists the Precision Masking step as AUD$40.00 on top of the Ilfochrome Classic print jobbing.
Today I squirm (a lot!) at such an "impost" compared to the straightforward, no-fuss, easy repeatability of hybrid RA-4. But I'll never be selling my remaining IC prints, nor disposing of the masks. I should frame a few of the remaining prints, but even that is more costly than it once was (something about the obscene upward trend of wages in Australia...).

DREW WILEY · Nov 8, 2016

Forty bucks AU upcharge? Heck. I rarely printed for others, but a $200 US upcharge would have been a bargain, and would have been unrealistic for
the work I put into it if I were attempting to achieve the same level of quality I expected for myself. Hybrid RA4 might mimic certain things more easily, but home cookin' still tastes the best, even if it is a lot more work! The secondary steps of scanning and digital profiling are more like using
a microwave for a TV dinner.

Poisson Du Jour · Nov 8, 2016

DREW WILEY said:
Forty bucks AU upcharge? Heck. I rarely printed for others, but a $200 US upcharge would have been a bargain, and would have been unrealistic for
the work I put into it if I were attempting to achieve the same level of quality I expected for myself. Hybrid RA4 might mimic certain things more easily, but home cookin' still tastes the best, even if it is a lot more work! The secondary steps of scanning and digital profiling are more like using
a microwave for a TV dinner.

That charge was for 35mm. Masking, where required was $65 for MF and $90 for LF (my work was confined to 35mm). I never knew or, nor saw any IC prints being produced from negatives, only transparencies. Somewhere earlier in this thread it was mentioned that IC prints were produced digitally. I have no knowledge of that in the strict digital sense. However, in 2009 the lab introduced a service to print IC prints from digital files (unlayered / unprofiled .tiffs ). A more seismic shift away from analogue because of that could not have been imagined... I kept going for just 12 months more, finishing in September 2010.

DREW WILEY · Nov 8, 2016

The biggest lab around here went bankrupt because it bought into digital too early, and was still paying off the gear while everyone else was getting
something better at half the price. It didn't help much that the warranties and service contracts fell though too, even before payoff. When a tank gets mired in the mud, it just gets left behind. Lots of Ciba was being done, but all optically. Laser printers were pretty disappointing for awhile, and simply not powerful enough for Ciba. About the time it started making sense, Ciba was going extinct anyway, largely due to distribution issues. But I'll never regret learning a wide range of masking tricks or acquiring the special punch and register gear involved. There are certain times even now that it's just what the doctor ordered!

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

Poisson Du Jour

DREW WILEY

Bob Carnie

Poisson Du Jour

DREW WILEY

Poisson Du Jour

DREW WILEY

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