Thinking about doing some Ilfochrome printing....

Photo Engineer said:

Robert, I find that making an internegative on Portra VC or UC with a slight pull in development makes a good print on Endura.

I use a daylight exposure on my enlarger (100C + 20M) and f22 at 0.5" to get a very nice negative. Prints are quite good. You do have to fuss a bit to get the best negative image centered in the scale of the film, but once achieved the results are very satisfying for a good transparency.

You can also do some interesting effects, all without digital.

PE

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Yes PE. But at what cost?

Degradation of image quality - using an internegative? There is a reason, that I and most landcape photographers shoot Velvia; image quality. Portra VC or UC don't give the good enough results. Image quality is the reason I shoot 4X5.

What about hardware costs? Can you tell me where I can get a processor that will handle 30x40 or 40x50 inch prints, at a reasonable cost?

Or do I just send my transparencies to the mainland, and hope that of the dozens I print, none would get lost in the mail or by the printer?

Oh, I agree with both of you completely.

I was considering it from the standpoint of having a lot of slides that I want printed and not wanting the expense or 'color' of Ilfochrome. An internegative is the only realistic conventional choice other than scanning and printing digitally which is what we ruled out here already in a previous post. So, I addressed the alternative remaining, ie. internegative. Yes, dust and retoucing are problems, but it can work well.

When I was there, in production at Cape Canaveral, all transparencies had internegatives made of them, and all negatives had interpositives made of them. They made quite impressive reproductions in Nat. Geog among other places. Of course there is no true internegative film available anymore so the use of the VC or UC is the only means available now. Digital killed the true internegative and interpositive films for still use.

I have scanned slides and made digital prints and surprisingly although I don't like all digital, I find that a very good transparency scanned at high res and printed digitally is quite good.

My best results and preference is traditional color neg, either 400UC or VC or 160UC or VC. I rarely shoot reversal anymore.

PE

Photo Engineer said:

I have scanned slides and made digital prints and surprisingly although I don't like all digital, I find that a very good transparency scanned at high res and printed digitally is quite good.

My best results and preference is traditional color neg, either 400UC or VC or 160UC or VC. I rarely shoot reversal anymore.

PE

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I have found the same thing. For example, I had this image (there was a url link here which no longer exists) printed on both Fuji Crystal Archive with the Chromira printer and an Epson 9000, at the same size. The Fuji Crystal Archive print just blows the Epson away. Unfortunately, color negatives just don't give me the fine nuances of color, nor the sharpness that I have come to expect from Fuji Velvia. My ultimate goal is the best quality I can. Additionally, I want all my prints from a given transparency to look the same regardless of size; hard to do when you are making individual prints by hand. AA may have changed his prints from one to another, but that isn't what I want.

I apologize if I have offended anyone,

You sure did not offend me

FWIW, the only professional landscape photographer that I am aware of still using exclusively Ilfochrome is Christopher Burkett (there may be more); he says that he spends 10 months a year just printing and only 2 months actually photographing.

Wow! This thread has come a long way from encouraging someone to try Ciba's!

I have never claimed that my Ciba's represent the real color found in the natural world. What's the point in that?
Velvia + Ciba = INTENSITY! While I do try to balance close to the slide for ease of repetition, I've always considered the final print as an artistic expression of the original image. On the show circuit people are always saying "Wow, these don't even look real." To which I reply, "That's the point." The most annoying question I get is "Did you do that in Photoshop?" And like Burkett, I also spend more time in the dark, than in the light. But that's the trade-off. If Ilfochrome ever goes away, I'll copy my slides to negatives and do RA4 Fuji's with much less enthusiasm.
FWIW...

For what it is worth to all of you, Ilfochrome is probably the easiest color material to duplicate in the home lab wiithout production equipment, of all of the color products manufactured today.

I have hand coated a work alike to Cibachrome back in the 70s with commonly available azo dyes selected from a catalog, and 3 spectrally sensitized emulsions. The big hit you will take is time making it, and on-easel speed.

So, if conventional materials vanish, and color is important, Ilfo/Ciba - chrome is probably the only one that will survive in the hands of the high end art or hobby photographic expert.

PE

PE, how would you say making your own Ilfochrome compares to coating your own color carbon?

davetravis said:

Wow! This thread has come a long way from encouraging someone to try Ciba's!

I have never claimed that my Ciba's represent the real color found in the natural world. What's the point in that?
Velvia + Ciba = INTENSITY!

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Threads do tend to take a life of their own, like a conversation.

Don't get me wrong, I love Cibachromes. I have one that has been hanging on my wall for the past 20+ years, without a hint of fading; it is just as brilliant today as the day I printed it. My issue is not that Cibachrome isn't a great process, it is. But, it is also very labor intensive, and I don't have the time, nor desire to spend all my spare time in the darkroom; I prefer actually taking photos. The other issue I have is repeatability - I want my 11x14s to look just like my 30x40s, and I want the first print to look like the 30th print. Even so, I would consider a limited edition run on Cibachrome (I have a Saunders LPL 4500II enlarger in a box, somewhere), but I simply don't have any place to put it - I live in a one room studio apartment; in Hawaii, housing is simply too expensive right now to move (1 bedroom apartments are going for about $1200 a month now).

Robert, you need to spend winters in Minnesota or someplace other than Hawai'i with a nicely heated darkroom, so you won't want to go outside and take pictures.

David A. Goldfarb said:

Robert, you need to spend winters in Minnesota or someplace other than Hawai'i with a nicely heated darkroom, so you won't want to go outside and take pictures.

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I could easily be tempted, if we were talking about New Zealand, say Queenstown.

David A. Goldfarb said:

PE, how would you say making your own Ilfochrome compares to coating your own color carbon?

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Due to the thickness, carbon is hard to coat. You just about have to cast it. I would like to reformulate it to get a better coating quality and methodology, so carbon is not neat or clean.

OTOH, the Cibachrome is coated in 6 stages or 5 depending on formulation, but can require up to 8 or 9 stages if you do it according to the Ciba/Ilford method. As you do each stage, you reduce the yield due to coating imperfections and you also have to do this all in total darkness.

So, they are both hard and messy.

Actually, coating matrix film as Jim Browning does is probably the best route to color printing if you like spending lots of time in the darkroom. The time taken making 1 dye transfer is about the same as the time to coat a few sheets of the Cibachrome material, and the yield might be comparable. The difference is that the dye transfer has more control knobs to turn and the dye transfer matrices allow you to crank out duplicates by the dozen until they wear out.

So, actually Matrix and Pan Matrix film are the other contenders for color, but dye transfer is not a true 'color' material in the sense of chromogenic and dye bleach materials.

What I fear is that if conventional color ever vanishes from the marketplace, it will be almost impossible to re-start manufacture as it is so cost intensive to start up and so 'art' intensive. As the engineers die off, this will become a very real problem for the future of conventonal, making a 'restart' virtually impossible. (remember, I'm talking color here - there are a lot of B&W engineers out there at very good companies such as Ilford, Kentmere and others)

PE

outofoptions said:

I thought that conventional is being used in most of the places that do digital now anyhow? Cheaper than inkjet so folks are taking their prints in... Or do I have this wrong... again... sigh....

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It has pretty well dwindled down. There are only an handful of color papers on the market now, as far as I can tell; Fuji has 6 or 7 papers (mostly variations) and Kodak has 3 (Kodak has RA-4 Black and White paper), only 1 type R, Ilfochrome left (as far as I know). There may be more, but these are the only ones I am aware of.

Matt5791 said:

I want to try some Ilfochrome printing of some of my slides.

Anything I should know before I start - I have a Jobo drum for processing.

What I am wondering about is colour balance - presumably there is not much to do here?

Any hints and tips greatly appreciated

I see the chemicals kit is quite expensive - anyone know the best prices in the UK?

Thanks for any help,
Matt

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I'm attaching a .pdf file about Ilfochromes that documents my success with home-brewed, divided developers for controlling contrast. It's also a big money-saver.

Larry

Maine-iac said:

I'm attaching a .pdf file about Ilfochromes that documents my success with home-brewed, divided developers for controlling contrast. It's also a big money-saver.

Larry

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Thanks very much Larry - very interesting.

I will study this more when I am at home (in office at present)


Thanks,
Matt