UltraStable - Permanent, Non Fading Color Photographs . . Color-Carbon Par Excellence

UltraStable Base

VesaL said:

I read somewherehere in the post, that it was yupo paper mr. Gangler was using.

-Vesa

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The UltraStable pigment films were coated on Kimdura, a synthetic paper (white, multilayer, biaxially oriented polypropylene film) manufactured by Kimberly-Clark that Tod continues to wash and reuse. Designed for use as packaging labels, it is available internationally from Neenah Paper Inc: http://www.neenah.com/technical/product.aspx?app_id=10&prod_id=24

Thank you all for your kind help! I Will have to take a look for this medium. Couple of days ago I coated my first successfull Gelatin layers to Inkjet paper. First I rubbed off the ink intake layer with hot water. Under that soluble layer, reveals nice smooth layer of "plasticied" coating. Much faster to prepare than using Resin coated silver gelatin paper and fiddling with fixer & long wash times.

Professionals make it look easy when thay coat the support sheet, it took me 3 nights to get the coating succesffull testing various methods :0)

-Vesa

I was wondering if quitting the use of Dichromate as a sensitizer, what concentration the Diazo should be mixed in relation to the gelatin, lets say that you would make 200ml of coating solution?
Anyone have ideas?

-Vesa

I can't give you an answer, but take a gander at this thread...

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

UltraStable in Finland

I'm posting this note I received from Stig Gustafsson for 2 reasons:

1. Perhaps someone can help him with his subscription problem...

2. The use of half-tone or stochastic screens with Epson (ink-jet) produced separations warrants discussion. Any one doing this?


But first, Stig's note:

Can You please help me,I am trying to subscribe to APUG but there is something wrong with the subscr.page and I can not find the admin to send a mail.
The Subscr. page is supposed to show a picture but there is only an empty frame!

I still have some UltraStable and if I understood correctly from the APUG site it should still work?
If making a digital negative with Epson do I have problems with highlights.I had problems when using cont tone negs with light even sky's, stochastic separations worked ok and so did line separation negs.
I remember makin 3 US prints during the night (autochrome originals)for next day exhibition and my guest from Sweden Hans&Chia Nohlberg? told me at the breakfast that they heard the noise during the night when the print slashed against the try walls!
They where very impressed of how fast you could make Ultra Stable prints.
The sound was naturally very familiar for them.
I hope You can help me regarding APUG.

Best Regards

Stig Gustafsson <gustafssonstig14@gmail.com>

Its not necessary to use Yupo as a tissue support, you can use almost anything that will hold up in the warm water developing bath. I got my yupo from a print trade paper supply firm, it should not be expensive to buy 100 very large sheets and it should be available nearly everywhere. Photopaper can be used and so can wall paper.

I have looked in to making half tone seperations, since I do not have photoshop, it can be done with the seperate+ plug in for Gimp and the newsprint action. I have decided that with modern profiling software there is probably very little advantage in doing it that way. Of course, I could be very wrong.

The iso Lab specifications for CMYK printing on a coated white substrate are easily googled. By printing a test chart with reasonably linear negatives, to the iso spec for CMYK, the process can be profiled in the same way as an inkjet printer is profiled. Also it is possible to use soft proofing to see what your colours will be like. I am shure it is possible to do theese things with half tone seperations too, but I am not shure if there is any advantage.

David

mdm said:

... Photopaper can be used and so can wall paper...

... I am shure it is possible to do theese things with half tone seperations too, but I am not shure if there is any advantage.

David

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Due to the loss of highlight detail in the carbon process, it is necessary to use high-resolution (300-400 lpi) halft-tone or stochastic screens with con-tone negatives.

And it is necessary to use a dimensionally stable support (such as Kimdura) in order to register the multiple color layers.

holmburgers said:

I can't give you an answer, but take a gander at this thread...

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

Click to expand...

Wow, there is some serious exprerimentation going on.. Thanks for the Info.!

CMB said:

Due to the loss of highlight detail in the carbon process, it is necessary to use high-resolution (300-400 lpi) halft-tone or stochastic screens with con-tone negatives.

Click to expand...

That may be true but I am not prepared to take it as gospel without trying it myself first. There are people making very nice highlights with QTR digital negatives and a double transfer too, and others with film. My highlights suck at the moment, however I think a large part of the highlight problem with carbon is due to its straight line characteristic curve, as a result the highlights tend to be percieved as high contrast. If you linearise your negatives for L instaed of density, 50% grey is printed much paler to match human sight and the highlights are printed with much less contrast. Check out this by Gary Baker http://www.fotosavant.com/Contest/Gallery_Exhibit/pages/04_Baker MilkweedPod.htm

Regards
David

Highlight Loss in Carbon Printing

The loss of highlight detail (i.e. densities less than .20) in con-tone carbon printing is a physical process problem and is not ameliorated by the use of any variations in curve shape, gamma, density. QTR, etc. Charles Lighton first described this in detail in the September 1927 Photographic Journal (pgs 418-419) and other photographic researchers have reported similar findings.

Unlike chemically hardened layers of gelatin which have sharply defined boundaries, light hardened gelatin has a soft and diffuse border between the hardened and unhardened portions that is uneven, variable and easily washed away. Many carbon workers resort to "fogging" (chemical or light ) or multiple-printings to artificially place density in these areas. While this can produce highlight density, it does not provide highlight detail. This can be seen in the milkweed print where the quarter-tone highlights are "mushy" and without definition. Similarly, the fine details of a brides white-on-white wedding gown will be lost in a carbon print made from a con-tone negative.

Sightings of highlight detail in con-tone carbon prints are a lot like sightings of Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster - many have claimed to see them but none have been able to offer any (photographic) proof.

We may want to start a new thread over on DPUG about digital half-tone negatives, however it seems it would be better to keep it all here. I have started attempting/experimenting with half-tone negatives from an inkjet printer. I have not gotten results worthy of attempting a carbon print yet, as the screen is still too course. But I'm still at very early stages of trying different methods. Most the info out there is from silk screen printers, who don't need the resolutions we need with a carbon print. There is some stuff from photogravure people and they are using aqua-tint screens in combination with digital negatives. That may be the way to go, but there are still more methods to try first.

I started this quest after seeing the highlight detail in CMB' prints. I'm far from a great carbon printer, but I can't even get close with a digital negative to his examples with half-tone negatives.

This is a very interesting discussion. I'm putting September 1927, Photographic Journal, pages 418-419 on my library list and if I can easily find it I will post it.

Just for the sake of mentioning it, analog half-toning is also an option and it doesn't sound that difficult (but what do I know..). However, I guess you'd need a process camera, or a copy camera with a provision for placing the line-screen at various points in the optical path.

F.E. Ives discusses the principle of the "optical-V" in his autobiography (which I can share if anyone is interested, just drop me a line, I've scanned it... shhh...). The key variables are (a) number of lines per inch in the line-screen, (b) distance of line-screen to film plane and (c) f/stop.

If I may chime in on this topic...

Many years ago I was an avid reader of (I believe it was titled) "Darkroom Photography" magazine and in those issues, the magazine quite often detailed many alternative processes including color carbon printing. If you manage to find any back issues, you will find a veritable treasure trove of information on the topic.

Cheers, Eros

This is somewhat related to the OP, Nick Knight has an exhibition on at the moment that includes one of well known images as a hand coated pigment print, I will see it in the gallery next week however i am quite surprised at the size of it at 40x60 inchs (http://showstudio.com/shop/product/devon_nick_knight) Would like to know who is printing these, I heard it was someone in the U.S. Charles do you know if Todd printed this, if not who did?

The one of Kate Moss is smaller however is selling well i believe @ £30,000 (http://showstudio.com/shop/product/kate.

thanks

Tod did not make the prints. My guess would have been "Mac" MacGowan who makes mural size monochrome carbros but I hear he has been ill for the last year or so. Perhaps it was that Frenchman who lives on your side of the pond.

Maybe I am foolish to say this, but I am thinking that one could simply make the colour seperation negatives from regular black and white large format film? Of course, digital negative printing has its conveniences, but I presume there is nothing against going about it in the old fashioned way? As one might conclude, I am suggesting this since I am a bit of a dunce when it comes to using digital workstations.

Also, I am slightly curious about the albumen coating emulsion that was demonstrated in one of the videos. Albumen, water and bichromate of potash - how much of each is used to create the emulsion solution?

Here is a paper from the Yahoo! carbon group that gives instructions for making a temporary support with dichromated albumen.. Dead Link Removed

Suggesting analog colour separation negatives is as right as rain.

I thank you deeply for providing relevant reading material, but the link appears to be broken. I cannot access the document

Ahh shoot... lemme try again...

This should work, I just saved the word file and attached it. If not, you can join the Yahoo! Carbon Transfer group, go to Files, then Sizing for Art Papers and it's the top 1 I believe.

Excellent! That worked superbly. Thank you ever so much.

Henry Wilhelm's Take on UltraStable

Charles was kind enough to share this document with me, and I hope he doesn't mind if I share it with you.

It is the author's opinion that UltraStable Permanent Color prints likely will last even longer than carefully-processed, fiber-base black-and-white photographs!

For me the holy grail of carbon printing would be a set of highly transparent process colors rather than the relatively opaque traditional choices. Truly premium watercolor hues would be far too expensive to make in quantity, and commercial varieties inevitably tend to incorporate preservatives
which cause serious problems, and don't offer an equally permanent yellow anyway. There is a way
to enclose cadmium in clear titanium, but anything to do with cadmium is now outlawed in the EU where they know how to do this. I've got a good lead on serious alternative technology, but am stuck with finding a suitable process cyan. So far, can only get there by mixing pthalo blue and green. Would like a cleaner magenta too. Custom mfg of process colors per se would be very expensive, but technologically very feasible. The problem is, that in industrial usage, opaqueness is
an asset. Don't want to divulge too much at this point, since I simply don't have time to test this
or that. Maybe after I retire I can contribute some tidbit to the carbon theme, since I love the look
of these prints and understand pigments better than most.

Considering the difference of opinion over the Wilhelm tests of Endura vs CA papers, I would say the tests depend on the test conditions which should also include heat, humidity and pollutants. Henry is not covering everything in that article IMHO.

Transparent carbon "pigments" were sold years ago on tissues for printing color carbons. I think Defender was one of the suppliers.

PE

Since carbon tissue pigments don't have to be ultra-fine like inkjet color, this allows more flexibility in choice,
including better permanence, though in certain pigment categories, very small particle size can equate to better
transparency in the overall sandwich. Old-school Fresson prints used a choice of process colors which by today's
standards would be considered poor from both a hue and permanence perspective, but I wouldn't be surprised if they were more permanent than most current inkjet offerings, simply because you've only got CMYK to deal with,
and not a complicated blend of many different programmable jet nozzels. Then folks started looking into auto pigments etc. Certain watercolors were used also, and I certainly preferred their look to the more mechanized
schools are pigment printing, but can understand their relative inconvenience due to batch variability. I've had
some pretty extended conversations with Aardenburg and do think he intelligently addresses some of the shortcoming in Wilhelm's approach. But having had many years of experience dealing with industrial pigments and how accelerated aging tests work, I take all of them with a degree of caution. For instance, I would never ever claim any print I sell will last so many decades because some lab extrapolated it. That's marketing bull as far as I'm concerned. But given an intelligent choice of pigments, a modern carbon print should resist fading longer than any of the common alternatives, including inkjet. The integrity of the sandwich and substrate is a
whole different issue, however, and has its own weak spots in prediction.

Hmmm, thinking this over, how about breaking open a set of C/M/Y pigment inkjet cartridges and mixing them into glop! Then you can test them out in Carbon printing.

PE