Anyone have preference of paper/chemistry for printing directly from Velvia? I h ave not tried this yet, but am about to take a wack at it, and would be interest ed in hearing opinions regarding papers and/or chemistry.
Printable View
Anyone have preference of paper/chemistry for printing directly from Velvia? I h ave not tried this yet, but am about to take a wack at it, and would be interest ed in hearing opinions regarding papers and/or chemistry.
My favorite subject. I have only done one type of tranny printing, and thats Ilfochrome. Other, less expensive options are available-Fuji Type 35 paper, which is reported to be very good but does not have quite the long-term stability of Ilfochrome, and Kodak Radiance (I think) which I dont know anything about. Ilfochrome is very saturated, and prints on it can be very contrasty. Thats the drawback, which can be overcome by contrast lasking. Other than that, and the expense, I think Ilfochrome is the best choice. Nothing beats a fine Ilfochrome, IMO. But it depends on what results you want and how much effort and money you are willing to expend. Contrary to what many will tell you, I think Ilfochrome is very easy to learn. It does, however, take time to master it (still working on that after 5 years). Any other questions about it, fire away.
I've always gotten good results with Fuji Type-R through a lab. I tried an Agfa paper (I believe it's Agfa) for transparencies, and didn't care for it. Fuji also has a "super-gloss", which I'm told is difficult to work with. This paper helps to snap up the contrast a bit, and could be an alternative for low contrast situations.
Hmm, whats contrast lasking? I believe what I meant was contrast masking, yup yup. BTW, with the Velvia Ilfochrome combo you will almost certainly want to learn masking eventually, although theres no need to start masking right away. It doesnt get any more contrasty than that. Ilfochrome can be bought in low contrast super glossy, but only in 100 sheet boxes ($$$). Prints on it are still not THAT low contrast however- it is an improvement over the high contrast stuff but it can have some color crossover problems at times.
I dont want to discourage you from trying Ilfochrome, quite the opposite in fact. The world needs more Ilfochrome printers. Before I started printing myself, I had a lab do some for me and once I saw that super glossy, metallic look of Ilfochrome I've never looked back. You might want to have a lab print some on different papers and then compare, just in case some other process floats your boat better.
To answer the other part of your question, Ilfochrome can be processed in either P-30 or P-3 chemistry. the latter is less expensive but the bleach is more nasty. P30 only comes in 2-liter kits, for about $40. This will process roughly 45 8x10's, with partial reuse, or about 25 sheets one-shot. The P3 components are available separately. The cheapest way to go is to use the P3 bleach and mix your own developer and fix. But for starters I'd use the P30 kits.