Wet Printing

[thefizz]

I'm curious to see if many people are still printing from colour negs by wet printing in trays with RA4 chemistry?

I mainly shoot B&W but lately I've had the desire to do a little colour printing again.

Peter

 

[Derek Lofgreen]

I am just getting the last few bits I need to start printing color.

D.

 

[Nick Zentena]

Not tray but drums.

 

[digiconvert]

I'm curious to see if many people are still printing from colour negs by wet printing in trays with RA4 chemistry?

I print colour RA4 . I am no expert but a Durst Labometer off ebay does a good job of sorting things for me . It make no sense at all from a financial point of view given the cost of digital prints but it is great fun to hold a colour print that you have done ! I use trays or drums, trays do tend to be a bit messy . Get a room temp kit from Tetenal (about 20GB.€25) and some Kodak paper from Morco (5x7 is really cheap here) and play is my recommendation

 

[bill williams]

color wet printing

I've worked with a wet B&W darkroom for some 40 years, and I've been printing color in a wet darkroom for nearly 10 years. I've use a lot of hobbyist kits like the Tetenal, but was convince by PE's contributions to try the Kodak chemicals. Now I use them almost exclusively, both for film and paper. It was a good move. I still use kits like Tetenal, but only occassionally.

Even though I do have an old Nova slot processor, I've gone back to trays. I will work mainly with B&W for 3 or 4 months and then take a month to catch up on color. I'm just hoping that the materials for the wet darkroom, both color and B&W, remain available long term.

 

[pentaxuser]

Like Nick, I use Jobo processing and in my case at 35 degrees C with drums. As you use the word "again" I assume you already have the equipment and are simply finding out how many of us on APUG still do it. Anyway Digiconvert has covered the "how" and "why" quite well.

pentaxuser

 

[thefizz]

Yes its been four or five years since I did any colour prints in trays so I'm looking forward to doing it again. I enjoyed it at the time but B&W took over.

 

[Bob F.]

Just recently started. I've been using trays but have recently scored another 12x16 Nova on the 'bay so will be using that in future. Chemistry is Fotospeed room-temp kit but as PE says you can happily use the Kodak chems at room temp I'll probably switch when the Fotospeed is finished. Been using my amber LED safelight with the wick turned right down to avoid bumping into the furniture...

A bit slow as being somewhat colour-blind I need to use my X-rite 810 densitometer to check a neutral part of the print to get the colour balance right...

Cheers, Bob.

 

[thefizz]

I always worked in the dark and found it a novelty but I got a safe torch from Rh Designs which is very handy.

http://www.rhdesigns.co.uk/darkroom/html/safetorch.html

 

[srs5694]

I've been doing it for about 2-3 years. I don't print all my color photos myself, though; for small prints, it's usually cheaper and requires much less effort to scan the negatives (which I do anyhow) and have them printed digitally from the scans at the local Walgreens. If I put the effort into it (or get lucky), I can usually get better results in my darkroom than I can from scanning and printing digitally; I find that scanning tends to exaggerate the grain, which can be objectionable with films faster than ISO 200.

Unlike some others who've posted to your thread, I use open trays -- the same ones I use for B&W. I've tried drum processing, but I find that it slows me down, since it takes so long to dry the drum adequately. If the drum isn't dry, it tends to drop water on the print, which causes greenish streaks. I don't mind working in total darkness for a couple of minutes, which is what it takes to expose and develop in room-temperature (RT) chemistry. Others have other preferences, of course; this is a personal preference matter. Using "regular" chemistry at RT requires longer processing times, which gets a little disconcerting for me, so I stick to the RT stuff. (I use a mix-it-yourself formula of which Photo Engineer does not approve, but I'm satisfied with the results. YMMV.) Of course, a processing machine would be really nice, but the last time I checked, they were a bit more than I could justify spending, even used on eBay. Maybe one day I'll spring for one, but for the moment trays work fine for me.

 

[Neal]

Dear Peter,

Search the forum using RA-4 Trays. You will see lots of folks doing color printing in trays as well as how they are doing it.

Neal Wydra

 

[Ian Grant]

Another Nova user, I first started colour printing with the Pavelle process around the late 60's, and tray processed for a few years. Buying a second-hand 12"x16" Nova tank made a huge difference, they are so easy and quick to use, and the results are so consistent with RA-4

Ian