RGB remote LED bulb for enlarging RA-4 papers?

I worked at a lab and video analyzed (color balanced) color film from youth sports photographers from all over the country before the lab went all digital. About 95% of the film was processed at our lab and the rest sent in from the photographers pre-processed. The pre-processed film always required radically different color balancing than our own for a given type of film. Ours was very consistent as we ran daily control strips for our processing. Not sure if the photographers processed it themselves or another lab did it. None was ever rejected, but it goes to show differences in processing that can show up when you have good way to tell they are there.

I develop my own C-41film with good results but it is easy to mess up the processing if temperature is off, developer is mixed improperly or contaminated, pH is incorrect or other problems occur. With a little diligence, however, high quality can be achieved.

MattKing said:

For clarity, it wasn't that it was impossible for someone other than a lab to develop film properly.
The problem was that he was unable to develop film properly.
He was using equipment that was not working properly, and he was not suited to either getting it to work properly, or to use it properly once it was working properly.
He was also chronically short of money.
Some photographers are not well suited to procedures that benefit from care and attention and accuracy of detail. He was one of those photographers.

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that sounds more plausible. The OP has several issues with the prints he's making and it is hard to tell wether it's because of the lamp he's using or because of different factors. For example, his shots on portra 400 look extreamely grainy and the colours look odd in such a way that it may not be possible to get a proper white balance. I think that someone who would want to run such a test, shoud first make sure he has all the right equipment; fresh films, a reliable camera, good processing skills & equipment and then produce a test negative (like a portrait with 5500K light, a colour checker and a grey card) then should make a reference print of that negative on fresh colour negative paper under a tungsten light enlarger so that the colours are spot on. Only then he should start using the RGB lamp to see wether it is or it is not possible to make the same quality print under this new method, and if it is worth the hassle

I use this lamps in my enlarger and they are widely available for purchase, perhaps you shoud consider buying a new enlarger?

Thanks for the responses.

Later this week I will burn a roll taking test shots in daylight to get neutral colours, some grey frames then printing. I do also have some lab processed negatives from last year that I will try printing. And a few negatives from 20 years ago when labs had higher output. Unfortunately I am very stubborn and badly want this to work I think it's close.

If you have a shot that includes the Kodak colour checker ( or others, like Macbeth)) that would be great. Then you have something consistent to check against.

I do not currently have a color checker. I've been using photoshop to analyze color and have done some tweaking to my printing. There was some inconsistent lighting due to a defect either in the enlarger or the shape of the bulb, causing a color cast on peripheral parts of the image. Bandaid solution was to adjust position a little and stage the negative farther from the light source. Still looking for a solution but I have done some tweaking and obtained fairly neutral results without a color cast that I am very pleased with. Criticism is very welcome:

Portra 400 on Endura print 2 by Aaron, on Flickr

Portra 400 on Endura print 2 by Aaron, on Flickr

Gold 200 on Endura print 2 by Aaron, on Flickr

Gold 200 Endura print 1 by Aaron, on Flickr

Very nice. Congratulations.

PE

Thankyou! It's rewarding to finally be getting good prints at home without a computer. Hope to post more results soon.