Does a book exist for making color separation negs?

[Natenaaron]

Even something smaller than a book but something detailed with clear explanations. I was wanting to read about the process. I know very little and tend to shy away from the computer processing, But it looks like I will need to go that way sooner or later. Because of this I might as well look into learning something I find interesting.

[IanG]

You might try getting a copy of D A Spencer's "Colour Photography in practice it's a 1940's book but excellent. Spencer was a Director of Kodak Ltd.

Ian

[sanking]

You might try getting a copy of D A Spencer's "Colour Photography in practice it's a 1940's book but excellent. Spencer was a Director of Kodak Ltd.

Ian

The 3rd edition of D. A. Spencer's Colour Photography in Practice has a good section on making separation negatives, and also some interesting chapters on the color assembly processes of the 1930s and 1940s. There are also many standard references dedicated only to color separations, such as Color Separation Photography by Erwin Jaffe, Edward Brody, Frank Preucil and Jack W. White. All of this applies to analog photograpy.

In modern photography color separation photography is primarily practiced by alternative photographers who make two and three color gum prints, or some variation such as gum over cyanotype, palladium over cyanotype, etc, and sometimes color carbon. Typically these workers create the separations in Photoshop, then output to digital negatives with inkjet printers, and the negatives may be CMY or CMYK.

It is of course still perfectly practical to make three color (tri-color) separations on Black and White film through Red, Green and Blue filters, and you can merge the layers in Photoshop to make a full color image, or print them directly with a process like three-color gum. With a subject that will not move while you expose the three shots three-color separation work can give very high quality results, as good or better than color negative or color transparency film.

Sandy

[Drew Wiley]

There are all kinds of old books giving theory. Nothing is in print that I am aware of that addresses current films etc. But separations really have to be matched to your specific output media, and there are certain websites dedicated to some revived processes. Sandy has just chimed in, and he'd be a good source for hybrid
techniques related to carbon printing. Jim Browning maintains a site dedicated to dye transfer printing. And I know how to make separations totally analog in the darkroom using modern films, which requires quite a bit of practice and testing. What exactly are you interested in doing?

[SMBooth]

Could be something in here. Although its more about masking.
http://thelargeformatblog.com/2013/08/05/book-masking-andy-cross

[pdh]

There's a chap in France called Philippe Berger doing some tri-colour carbons:
http://www.philippeberger.net/fr/accueil.html
http://www.galerie-photo.com/philippe_berger_heliochromie.html
He has a couple of threads at APUG about it.

[Emmanuel BIGLER]

Choice of separation RGB filters: Wratten #25 - #47 - #58

More here on Henri Gaud's tricolor blog
http://trichromie.free.fr/trichromie/index.php?post/2010/03/06/LEE

http://trichromie.free.fr/trichromie/index.php?

other info on Flickr
https://www.flickr.com/groups/92087504@N00/discuss/

[Drew Wiley]

A slower to expose (denser) but more precise set would be 29, 47B, and 58.

[sanking]

Drew,

I made tri-color carbon and carbro prints in the 1980s with in-camera separations on B&W film. I had more success with carbro since making the bromide allowed more image control than trying to print directly with the negatives. Working in color with digital separations would allow for a lot more control, but even with this control three-color carbon is a very daunting process, and there are only three or four persons in the world currently working who have truly mastered the process.

One of those persons is Tod Gangler of Seattle. Tod recently had an exhibition of color carbon at the Nordic Heritage Museum in Seattle. His subject was Ballard, and he chose to work at night, with long time exposures. For this body of work he used one of the modern folding 6X7 cameras made by Fuji, the GF667. Watch the interesting video of the project and his work at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VllqsEbOJyA


Sandy

[Drew Wiley]

Andy down under, mentioned a bit above, has an interesting perspective on all this. He's an optical engineer who teaches digital photography academically, but does quite a bit of his personal work old-school darkroom, in both dye transfer and color carbon, and previously Ciba as well. But I kinda doubt your statistics,
Sandy. I'm not in a position to keep track, but as little as fifteen years ago, there were about six people very proficient in color carbon within a one-hour drive radius of where I am right now, and one of them was expert in color carbro too. Maybe two of those people are still alive now. I don't know. Perhaps the most
skilled person nobody ever heard of. He didn't exhibit. But I saw his work -all processed in an apartment bathtub! Guess he bathed in the sink, wouldn't surprise
me.

[sanking]

Drew,

Fifteen years ago I communicated by mail on a regular basis with three master color carbon printers from California, so could be that you lived at the epicenter of color carbon work in the world and did not realize it. Unfortunately, a lot of water has gone under the bridge since the year 2000.

And for sure, people who bathe in sinks and don't exhibit their work, or write about it, do remain unknown to the rest of us!!

The aggravating issue about working with color carbon today is that it does not suffice to know how to print, you must also be able to make the tissue and make or prepare the temporary and final supports. I think it is about five times more time consuming than my own work with monochrome carbon. And making high quality color carbon prints is a whole different beast than knowing how to make them.

Sandy

[Drew Wiley]

Well, Richard Kaufman and Charles Berger were here in the Bay Area and have long were conspicuous in alt process color work, along with several commercial
ventures in pigment printing, including Polaroid Permanent, Evercolor, and Ultrastable. But there were several other people doing strictly handmade. The bathtub
fellow was quite a story, a reclusive starving artist if ever there was one - he lived his process, spent every minute of his time and every cent he had, then barely made enough selling one-of-a-kind prints one at a time, all 14x17 (paper area, including borders), simply because that was the largest tray he could carry through the bedroom door to the bathrub, and Kodak had outright given him a stash of discontinued 14x17 film for his separations. Watercolor pigments. Average of one week per print, with about a 1:3 success rate, so that equals three intensive weeks per print. Final transfer onto watercolor paper. Heard all the details. Probably passed away from either malnutrition or sensitizer poisoning years ago.

[sanking]

I corresponded for many years with Richard Kaufman. He was a great color printer and very generous in sharing his vast knowledge of the carbon and carbro processes. He collaborated with Charles Berger in developing the Ultrastable process, but supplies are long gone. Tod Gangler still prints with the Ultrastable process, as does John Bentley of Toronto. Berger still lives in California, and has contributed from time to time on the subject of color carbon printing on APUG and on the carbon forum on Yahoo.

McGraw Colorgraph Company, or Devin McGraw, was also located in your area, in Burbank. I believe Kaufman was involved with McGraw, but am not certain.

It would sure be nice if there were a history in print of all of this. The memories, with the experts, are going fast.

Sandy

[Natenaaron]

Sandy I fully expected to have to do this digitally. Is there literature out there that covers this?

[Drew Wiley]

Sandy - there was another fellow in Sacramento who routinely did color carbons. But you should link up with Andy Cross in Australia, because he learned it from
a completely different source than anyone around here. Then there was another outfit that attempted volume commercial color carbon back East with their own
proprietary method or trade secrets, distinct from when Evercolor briefly moved to Connecticut - though none of those halftone versions ever appealed to me
like continuous tone prints. A history would be nice. But at least I've gotten to see quite a range of prints in my lifetime, even if I never have the opportunity to
fiddle with the process myself. Of course, a lot of these things were admirable for the technical challenge and craft per se. Not all prints are artistically compelling as compositions or for any sophisticated color strategy. Some of Kaufman's work appeals to me from a homesickness standpoint - carbro images of
the Sierra almost in my back yard, when I grew up.

[Drew Wiley]

Almost forgot - Ctein filled me in with some background about Kaufman, including the time he watched him working with emulsions. But Kaufman owned and ran
the publishing company that did his hardback coffee table books. That is what allowed him access to the equipment, and gave him the necessary financial muscle.
He had money. But as image-maker, he controlled everything from the shot to the final printing plates and book run himself, a jack of all trades and master of them all, it seems.

[Bill Burk]

Natenaaron,

I don't know if you need a "book" to run out a set of color separations digitally. But maybe I just know too much and it seems so obvious to me.

Just get a RIP and submit the print job.

Are you looking to become an expert at process color for offset or electronic press print production? Then we might look for resources related to the printing trades. Search for things like Color Management, Device Independent Color etc.

[bob carnie]

There also was a dude from Drew's area who first showed me the complete process at Maine Photo workshops. All his work was on Melimex and was very good landscape, mostly sea related.
He was very active in San Fran in the 90's doing tri colour carbon.. Charles Berger sponsered the week long workshop, unfortunately the Maine workshop location was very poorly equipped for this, no hot water, no registration , no solid source of negative, so it was a bit of a cluster.,,,,


John Bentley and I were both interested, at this time, John continued on , I was running a business and decided I could not do the process as it required outside expertise which I was not
willing at the time to do. 20 years later, I have the equipment and the client base, but I am not going down the colour carbon route.
I have decided tri colour gum over palladium suits my colour pallette and vision.. Not as visually real as John Bentley or Todd Gangler's prints but they do have their own beauty. Think Steven Livik
carnival series if you have ever seen them , then that is what is in my mind.

I would describe my process look as something between a dye transfer print and a fresson.






I corresponded for many years with Richard Kaufman. He was a great color printer and very generous in sharing his vast knowledge of the carbon and carbro processes. He collaborated with Charles Berger in developing the Ultrastable process, but supplies are long gone. Tod Gangler still prints with the Ultrastable process, as does John Bentley of Toronto. Berger still lives in California, and has contributed from time to time on the subject of color carbon printing on APUG and on the carbon forum on Yahoo.

McGraw Colorgraph Company, or Devin McGraw, was also located in your area, in Burbank. I believe Kaufman was involved with McGraw, but am not certain.

It would sure be nice if there were a history in print of all of this. The memories, with the experts, are going fast.

Sandy

[bob carnie]

Steve Sherman and I are doing a workshop (hopefully over New Years) that is going to go intensive into separating digitally for alt process.


Sandy I fully expected to have to do this digitally. Is there literature out there that covers this?

[bob carnie]

Drews words.


Re: Does a book exist for making color separation negs?

Sandy - there was another fellow in Sacramento who routinely did color carbons. But you should link up with Andy Cross in Australia, because he learned it from
a completely different source than anyone around here. Then there was another outfit that attempted volume commercial color carbon back East with their own
proprietary method or trade secrets, distinct from when Evercolor briefly moved to Connecticut - though none of those halftone versions ever appealed to me
like continuous tone prints. A history would be nice.



I think the guy I am referring to is this guy.. I just forgot his name and I know he is not doing them now as I researched him when I wanted to start back into it.

I agree with Drew... I do not like the halftone look as much as other methods...

I am using continuous tone lay down with four registrations on the aluminum mount. I am getting very happy with the results.. so far fingers crossed its laying down well

[bob carnie]

I should add I am not dissing the halftone as it is a very strong way of laying down precise colour that will stick. John Bentley's colour palette is beyond belief and accurate , I do not
think I will ever capture the clarity of this method. I just prefer the fresson, dye tranfer and gum over look.

As I am doing gum colour which may blend easier than the others as the layers just kind of sink into each other.

I have found a lot of intelligent thought in the books Dan Marguilis wrote about digital files. I remember the four courses I took with him were based on a simple premise that
all colour images have a DETAIL black image underneath with three colours over top. He would sharpen the black negative and slightly soften the colour negatives to get believable
look. He rarely sharpened any of the colour separation negative but rather let them blend into the colour.
I have taken this to heart and now my palladium negative is sharpened and holds all the image detail.
All the colour negatives are not sharpened .

Also the Blend If function is extremely important for tri toned over palladium, I just figured this out thanks to a thread on this site about separating tonal values.
This creates an interesting phenomenon much like un sharp masking which is surprising as we have made 10 x10 prints from original Iphone capture and the detail is extraordinarily sharp
within the image. This simple delightful surprise is very encouraging as I move up in size and will do tests to see how magnification of print size is affected by playing with the four negatives sharpness.

[Bill Burk]

I agree with Drew... I do not like the halftone look as much as other methods...

I am using continuous tone lay down with four registrations on the aluminum mount. I am getting very happy with the results.. so far fingers crossed its laying down well

I don't like the halftone look either. Oh it's fine for printing presses because that's what they need. But for individual prints, if a continuous tone is possible... I prefer that.

[Natenaaron]

Natenaaron,

I don't know if you need a "book" to run out a set of color separations digitally. But maybe I just know too much and it seems so obvious to me.

Just get a RIP and submit the print job.

Are you looking to become an expert at process color for offset or electronic press print production? Then we might look for resources related to the printing trades. Search for things like Color Management, Device Independent Color etc.

I want to do tricolor carbon printing. That is the ultimate goal. In the future. Just looking for literature right now.

[bob carnie]

You may want to send an email to Todd Gangler, he is the expert on this matter and I would hope he would send you in the right direction.
Your ultimate goal is a difficult path to follow but if you can make it work Wonderous.


I want to do tricolor carbon printing. That is the ultimate goal. In the future. Just looking for literature right now.