do not have severe color blindness but there are certain shades and hues I see only as grey, and god forbid a small amount of green should be placed against a field of red with an equal brightness. There is no way I will be able to ever print my own color work. I have been trying to work with a color calibrated monitor and do my color stuff digitally. I just don't have the ability to see what needs to be done. If I shoot something in color someone else is going to have control over my printing, otherwise it gets very expensive having things reprinted.
I love the look of ilfochromes; the saturation, the in your face colors, everything. Unfortunately in this day and age the wet printers are either disappearing or getting really expensive-personally I think it is to offset the cost of going digital. Most places will scan and print on a Lambda or lightjet thus creating a print that labs I have inquired into say "for an extra fee we will work with the photographer on getting the colors just right". What the hell does that mean? I used to just ship off a tranny or neg and got a real good print.
That was the background, here are the questions:
1-What is the state of professional color printing today? Once my regular printer went completely digital I have not had anything printed, maybe three years ago.
2-How useful are polaroids as test prints to say to the printer "this is what I am looking for"-I've never actually used color polaroid for anything.
3-Is there light at the end of the tunnel?
Those of you who do not do your own color printing
I'm shooting both 4x5 transparency and neg material.
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