Why can't there be a way to print color to last?

[ic-racer]

 

[Sal Santamaura]

...several attempts to modernize carbon like the Polaroid Permanent process, Evercolor, and Ultrastable relied on halftone techniques that visually defeated their considerable expense trying to simulate more conventional forms of prints...

What does "visually defeated their considerable expense" mean? Interpreting those words is a challenge I'm not up to.

...One of these processes was ridiculed as having " all the beauty of a plastic place mat", and did indeed resemble a laminated halftone poster...

In post #16 I describe an Evercolor print. That print does as well as any I've ever seen of duplicating the experience one gets looking at the transparency it was made from on a light box. And I've seen all kinds of prints from that transparency, including dye transfers made by the photographer, who was a friend of Eliot Porter. In fact, I prevailed upon the photographer to have this Evercolor print made because, in my opinion, dye transfer prints are so inherently unsharp that the advantages one realizes from starting with a large format transparency are wasted. I also rejected Cibachrome/Ilfochrome options as aesthetically unacceptable due to their garish surface gloss. In my opinion they have all the beauty of a polyurethane-coated velvet Elvis.

...Everybody thinks their art deserves to last forever...

"Art" is a word that means whatever the person using it wants it to mean. Which means it's a meaningless word. The OP's question was not whether color photographs 'deserve' to last a long time, but why that poster is aware of no processes that do last half a millennium. In post #4, Oren answered the question. In post #16, I provided an example that supports Oren's answer. Casting aspersions on accurate responses while pontificating about things unrelated to the question adds nothing to what should be a useful thread for the PHOTRIO archive.

 

[Photo Engineer]

What Drew said in both of his above posts!

You should also consider aerial pollutants and reciprocity in all dye fade. Many old oil paintings are fading due to pollution and oxidation. Photographic prints fade due to both of these and also are sensitive to high level and low level lights due to the diffusion of oxygen into the coatings being different for different types of dyes.

Digital prints are also subject to all of the faults of other color imaging but in addition, they suffer from smear, which is a loss in sharpness due to humidity causing the dyes to spread out. This is often glossed over by the digital image equipment manufacturers.

PE

 

[Oren Grad]

I appreciate Sal weighing in with his example. I had the market experience of Polaroid Permanent / EverColor / UltraStable in mind when I made my comment about cost.

Digital prints are also subject to all of the faults of other color imaging but in addition, they suffer from smear, which is a loss in sharpness due to humidity causing the dyes to spread out. This is often glossed over by the digital image equipment manufacturers.

What's not clear is the extent to which different inkjet papers suffer from it. The range of paper base / surface finish / coating combinations now on the market is large, and it's not obvious that all are necessarily equally vulnerable. But I don't know of any published, comparative test data addressing this for current papers.

 

[DREW WILEY]

I have great respect for the West Coast individuals behind the whole attempt to modernize carbon. I don't know if more than two of them are still alive. But Evercolor suffered horribly from its blocked-up gamut. Joseph Holmes could explain this in terms of the inherent software glitch far better than I can; but to me it looked intolerable due to the sheer lack of transparency of the pigments, even worse than inkjet in this respect. It was derived from an Agfa proofing process. Everyone has their taste issues; and Sal, you kinda remind me of Ctein, who can't stand the gloss of Ciba either. But there are certainly times that gloss can work for an image. It's like everything else, where one shoe does not fit all. I employ different paper sheens, based on the particular image and display circumstances. And I have seen some sharp dye transfer prints, even big ones. Take a look at the work of John Warzonek, an East Coast fellow who breifly attempted to keep Evercolor going there. No, not loupe sharp like a Ciba or Fuji Supergloss print, but sharp enough to sink your stereotype. In this case, a bit of dye bleeding can be a blessing in disguise, hiding registration problems which many workers did not take the extra effort to control. My situation is a bit tricker. I do have superb registration gear, but now that dye transfer papers have to be hand-made, it can be harder to control bleeding. The Kodak paper relied on a double mordant, one of which was radioactive. But I am also influenced by Vermeer, who understood how our vision is not itself perfect. It has always intrigued me if a process like dye transfer can simulate that kind of work. Soft-focus lenses and shallow focus effects certainly can't, just something else entirely. But I don't know if I have enough time or dye transfer supplies left to get that far. Probably not. I have seen handmade color carbon prints of great beauty. But as a long-time strategist of precisely controlling the picture plane, it bothers me that in carbon transfer, warm hues which we naturally respond to as advancing are found in the pits of the sandwiched emulsion, while cold tones advance. The most idiosyncratic of the commercialized pigment processes, Fresson, can be stunning for a certain variety of very grainy image, but again is not a suitable shoe for much we do. At least it looks unique. Most inkjet prints seem to me neither fish nor fowl - wannabee prints trying to look like continuous tone photographs, but not quite there.

 

[Oren Grad]

And I have seen some sharp dye transfer prints, even big ones. Take a look at the work of John Warzonek, an East Coast fellow who breifly attempted to keep Evercolor going there....

For those who are curious:

https://www.lightsongfineart.com/

 

[Vaughn]

...
One print I thought was fading was of my daughter on he graduation day, but on closer inspection it was the glass in the frame was simply covered with dust that could not be removed with a simple wipe over with a duster. Removing the glass and washing it cured that.

You just removed the UV blocking layer!

PS...the painting used as an example by the OP was restored in 1995/96...it probably would have been a lot cheaper to just print another one...

 

[Lachlan Young]

I have great respect for the West Coast individuals behind the whole attempt to modernize carbon. I don't know if more than two of them are still alive. But Evercolor suffered horribly from its blocked-up gamut. Joseph Holmes could explain this in terms of the inherent software glitch far better than I can; but to me it looked intolerable due to the sheer lack of transparency of the pigments, even worse than inkjet in this respect. It was derived from an Agfa proofing process. Everyone has their taste issues; and Sal, you kinda remind me of Ctein, who can't stand the gloss of Ciba either. But there are certainly times that gloss can work for an image. It's like everything else, where one shoe does not fit all. I employ different paper sheens, based on the particular image and display circumstances. And I have seen some sharp dye transfer prints, even big ones. Take a look at the work of John Warzonek, an East Coast fellow who breifly attempted to keep Evercolor going there. No, not loupe sharp like a Ciba or Fuji Supergloss print, but sharp enough to sink your stereotype. In this case, a bit of dye bleeding can be a blessing in disguise, hiding registration problems which many workers did not take the extra effort to control. My situation is a bit tricker. I do have superb registration gear, but now that dye transfer papers have to be hand-made, it can be harder to control bleeding. The Kodak paper relied on a double mordant, one of which was radioactive. But I am also influenced by Vermeer, who understood how our vision is not itself perfect. It has always intrigued me if a process like dye transfer can simulate that kind of work. Soft-focus lenses and shallow focus effects certainly can't, just something else entirely. But I don't know if I have enough time or dye transfer supplies left to get that far. Probably not. I have seen handmade color carbon prints of great beauty. But as a long-time strategist of precisely controlling the picture plane, it bothers me that in carbon transfer, warm hues which we naturally respond to as advancing are found in the pits of the sandwiched emulsion, while cold tones advance. The most idiosyncratic of the commercialized pigment processes, Fresson, can be stunning for a certain variety of very grainy image, but again is not a suitable shoe for much we do. At least it looks unique. Most inkjet prints seem to me neither fish nor fowl - wannabee prints trying to look like continuous tone photographs, but not quite there.

I'd agree regarding the sharpness of Dye Transfer - I even like the grain of Super-XX separations... Regarding Fresson, I think their process also benefits in the highlights from what is essentially an inherent stochastic halftone dot from the film grain - the sharp imaging of which is probably helped along by their mildly terrifying carbon arc point source enlarger (there's a video around that shows it). The whole history of pre-digital stochastic screening is quite fascinating involving all sorts of arcane solutions including 'grain screens' and various kinds of etched glass. Colour carbon & colour gum interest me intensely, but making them work without dichromates & in a fully analogue process without digital intermediates might take some significant work...

 

[Sal Santamaura]

...Digital prints are also subject to all of the faults of other color imaging but in addition, they suffer from smear, which is a loss in sharpness due to humidity causing the dyes to spread out...

The Polaroid Permanent / EverColor / UltraStable prints Oren commented about and I described an example of are completely pigment based. No dyes. Not "inkjet."

 

[Sal Santamaura]

...Take a look at the work of John Warzonek, an East Coast fellow who breifly attempted to keep Evercolor going there. No, not loupe sharp like a Ciba or Fuji Supergloss print, but sharp enough to sink your stereotype...

"Loupe sharp" is a phrase used to pooh pooh an aesthetic preference for high levels of sharpness. Dye transfer, no matter who the practitioner, is/was less sharp than not just Cibachrome/Ilfrochrome prints, but other prints on 'standard' media such as RA-4. For those who want sharp, that's unacceptable.

...In this case, a bit of dye bleeding can be a blessing in disguise, hiding registration problems which many workers did not take the extra effort to control...

Great argument for dye transfer's inherent unsharpness. It covers up bad printing practice.

For centuries after I'm dead, during which time anthropogenic global warming might very well make alpine environments like the one it depicts disappear, unless no one wants it and it's destroyed, the EverColor print currently hanging on our wall will remain unfaded, unsmeared and perfectly compatible with the gamut of its (not Velveeta-exaggerated) natural scene. If the OP could obtain -- and afford -- prints like it today, I suspect the apparent level of frustration discernible in #1 wouldn't exist.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Yeah, but both Polaroid Permanent and Evercolor had conspicuous halftone dots and weren't critically sharp at all. Heck, I discussed all this in person, right in their facility. They were aware it, but couldn't find a way around it without forfeiting the integrity of the layer bonding. They were hoping to experiment with upcoming versions of stochastic dots, but were either premature or it simply didn't work. Joe H. in my neighborhood ordered a few Evercolor prints from his chromes but they
looked absolutely horrible compared to the Cibas he made at home. The greens looked like sign paint. Evercolor wasn't the last commercial venture into carbon; the next one is rumored to have gone down due to layer blistering. Todd Gangler does more of a traditional way of coating rather than a production line using big rolls of factory pre-coated carbon tissue. I have a good idea how to improve the transparency of the process colors involved and still maintain high volume consistency, but it's pretty low on my list of priorities. Inkjet might not be ideal, but there is sure as heck a lot of R&D and marketing behind it, and it's ubiquitous in a "good enough" sense for the masses. So the odds of reviving any of these more laborious processes on a commercial scale isn't very tempting, investment-wise. There will always be a few niche opportunities for hired-gun custom printers who can keep their overhead in rein. I personally have zero interest in commercial printing. But Sal, since you're
so confident on this topic, name me one permanent process yellow that doesn't involve cadmium. Did you even know that
most of those yellow "pigments" in commercial carbon were mono-azo lakes, DYED particles? Lakes sometimes last better
than the original dyes behind them; but the only yellows which are truly permanent at all under sunlight are yellow oxides,
which are more tan than yellow, and are utterly useless as process colors. Ever ask why fresco painters almost never use
actual yellow?

 

[DREW WILEY]

But per your "sharpness" comment, Sal. I know how to make extremely sharp prints. The whole point of dye transfer, however, is the unparalleled ability to reproduce color. Even in the highly-funded movie industry, Technicolor, which is a form of dye transfer, still remains the gold standard for color per se. But if you look at that little flick posted earlier, you can see just how primitive the setup was that Eliot Porter and Jim Bones used. Sometimes Porter did contract with a big NYC dye lab. But even my personal lab is far better equipped than anyone in that era was. And working with modern TMax 8x10 film gives far better control than old grainy 4x5 Super-XX. There are also now practitioners who generate their separations using 8X10 film recorders or even go straight from a scan to exposing printing matrices using blue laser light. So once again, generalities can be misleading. I'm just a beginner at this particular process, which in my rendition is really a modernization of the
previous Eastman wash-off relief process rather than dye transfer per se. All kinds of tweaks exist. The same kinds of disparaging stereotypes could be made about C-prints or even cake recipes. It just all depends who is making what.

 

[Photo Engineer]

The Polaroid Permanent / EverColor / UltraStable prints Oren commented about and I described an example of are completely pigment based. No dyes. Not "inkjet."

Only time will tell.

PE

 

[Sal Santamaura]

Yeah, but both Polaroid Permanent and Evercolor had conspicuous halftone dots and weren't critically sharp at all...

The EverColor print on my wall is sharper than any dye transfer print ever made. Halftone dots aren't conspicuous; they are far smaller than grain of the scanned film and not evident, even with one's nose on the print.

...ordered a few Evercolor prints from his chromes but they looked absolutely horrible compared to the Cibas he made at home...

This is an aesthetic, not technical, opinion. In my aesthetic opinion, almost any other print makes a Cibachrome/Ilforchrome ultra-saturated, ultra-glossy abomination look horrible. To each his or her own.

...The greens looked like sign paint...

I've been to the place pictured on my wall. The greens in that print look exactly like the greens in nature there look.

...name me one permanent process yellow that doesn't involve cadmium...

It didn't take the banning of cadmium to put Polaroid Permanent / EverColor / UltraStable out of business. Their demise happened because of the market's unwillingness to pay their cost plus the unmet challenge of repeatability.Technical improvements in digital equipment over the last two decades make me confident that whatever obstacles Berger/Nordstrom faced could have been overcome by now. I'm equally certain that there still wouldn't be enough customers willing to pay for pigment prints to keep the businesses going. Heck, fewer and fewer people are printing using any process, even the ubiquitous inkjet. Who needs more than a JPEG displayed on their phone in 2018?

 

[Sal Santamaura]

The Polaroid Permanent / EverColor / UltraStable prints Oren commented about and I described an example of are completely pigment based. No dyes. Not "inkjet."

Only time will tell.

PE

I suspect that neither you, nor I, nor even the youngest PHOTRIO member reading this thread has enough time left alive to see either smear or fade in the EverColor print hanging on my wall.

 

[Photo Engineer]

There are accelerated tests that may show the result pretty well though. I've run many of them myself.

PE

 

[Sal Santamaura]

There are accelerated tests that may show the result pretty well though. I've run many of them myself.

PE

On Polaroid Permanent / EverColor / UltraStable prints? If so, please do share the results.

 

[removed account4]

hi op
there are ways to make color photography that lasts.
it all depends on the type of photograph it is.
IDK about kodachrome, some say it was an archival medium
my lab person has told me that the fuji paper she prints on
and the prints she makes have the capability of lasting hundreds of years.
gum overs like bob carnie makes and color carbon prints like vaughn makes can last forever too..
my uncle used to make dye transfer prints and they lasted for ever .. i saw an irving penn show
a while ago and his dye transfers looked beautiful.

how long did you want your photography to last ?
out of direct sunlight in a humidity controlled place that is not
excessively hot or cold probably makes even regular lab machine prints
last longer than expected.

 

[Vaughn]

Small correction, John. I make monochrome single transfer carbon prints.

As in many alt processes, carbon has many variables from gelatin types, pigment types, sensitizer types, undercoats, overcoats, single transfer, double transfer, multiple single transfers, and so on. There is a good group of people who communicate thru Sandy King's carbon site who are pushing carbon printing into the 21st Century -- basically taking over from the early 20th Century demise of carbon printing...and building on the work of late 20th Century commercial color carbon ventures. A lot of it is probably rediscovering the wheel, but updating the wheel from stone to carbon fiber.

There is always the question is how the new materials and/or new methods will impact the longevity of a carbon print. And with the variety of materials and methods there is no solid number of years. It would be safe to say a carbon print made with care has the potential of outlasting its maker and the next few of his/her generations.

 

[Photo Engineer]

On Polaroid Permanent / EverColor / UltraStable prints? If so, please do share the results.

I have never tested Polaroid products although I'm sure associates have done so. In any event, I have none of my tests. They remained at EK and have probably been destroyed due to their 20 year records retention limit.

PE

 

[BMbikerider]

You just removed the UV blocking layer!

PS...the painting used as an example by the OP was restored in 1995/96...it probably would have been a lot cheaper to just print another one...

Nah! It was plain scruffy!

 

[Berkeley Mike]

In the greater picture color is a fairly recent thing. BW film has somehow claimed "fine art" and color at that level is just starting to be accepted. Silver prints are "naturally" pretty stable. Color (C-41) was largely developed for the mass market. All other process served much smaller markets. I have heard that 98% of film shot through the early 2000s was C-41. No need to secure any archival function as the shoebox of 3Rs was the ultimate destination of such work. As such, other more stable, processes serve specialty (read small) markets.

 

[removed account4]

Small correction, John.

thanks vaughn !
i thought you did color ones as well ..
you folks who do the carbon stuff, and gum overs
are a force to be reconned with !
john

 

[barzune]

.....it's extremely labor-intensive, and requires a fair amount of experience to do it well consistently......

I would imagine that Botticelli ran up against those conditions, but he came through with flying colours !!

 

[Vaughn]

...I have heard that 98% of film shot through the early 2000s was C-41...

Or whatever processes the movie industry used -- that probably was major use of color film in 2000.