RA=4 Reversal Processing

[Christopher Osborne]

Jeff Neale seems to have resolved the colour issues with RA-4 reversal printing. See Link to a detailed article at SilvergrainClassics

[Drew Wiley]

I'm somewhat skeptical. Depends what you mean by "solved". An improvement perhaps. One would have to start with a master color target and make comparisons via different methods. I can get far more accurate color than Cibachrome via color internegs from chrome originals, then onto Fuji RA4 paper. I formerly specialized in Ciba and knew all kinds of tricks with it. But my current interneg route is a bit involved and won't catch on with many; but the result is way better than what previous commercial color internegs delivered, somewhat due to me relying on masking rather than flashing for contrast control. Since I mainly do that for 8x10 chromes, it's just getting too expensive. 8X10 Portra (my preferred interneg flilm), along with processing and sheets of 8X10 masking film, adds up to around $70 per image, before I even start printing. It's cheaper just to print newer color neg originals themselves. But wow, the result itself the interneg route ... most accurate hue rendition I've ever gotten, and vivid clean colors, especially when printed on Fujiflex, the new Cibachrome look.

Making in-camera RA4 color positives is a whole different ballgame. A lot of filter stacking and tedious experimentation, I'd imagine.

[Christopher Osborne]

Drew. Would you mind sharing some images of your results? How large are you making the final prints? Christopher

[koraks]

Well, I'm probably skeptical as well if I were to apply a very strict criterion concerning color accuracy. The imagery in the examples suggests that there is still some crossover, but it's hard to tell exactly how much on each channel in these kinds of foliage scenes. However, how strict of a criterion should we apply? If this is about making decent-looking prints with not too much fuss, it looks like a success to me. Will it work for all types of scenes? I have my doubts, especially when it comes to more challenging ones such as scenes involving neutral greys at different densities, and of course skin tones.

All considered this looks like an admirable feat and the examples are quite nice indeed. It's a massive leap forward compared to anything I've seen so far in terms of RA4 reversal, that's for sure.

[Christopher Osborne]

Yes. It looks much better than many other attempts. I think the difference here is that the contrast is controlled during the 1st development stage.