Cibachrome vs Digital Prints

[Kirk Gittings]

I was just there last week. Kirk's right ... if anything I saw more type-c prints than cibachromes. And there were plenty of inkjets and lambda-type prints. They collect and show whatever kind of print the artist chose to make.

FWIW, I was more impressed by the architecture of the new wing than by most of the photographs.

Paul, Me too. The architecture is stunning. I thought the selection of photographs was rather random and from my point of view did not represent the best of their modern collection. It was an odd show for the grand opening of the museum? Many people I know there are disappointed also by the space allocation to photography. The belief is that the curator was nearing retirement and not up to the political fight for more space.

[Brian Ellis]

Hell, I print digitally (at least color) and still recognize the absurdity of your argument. "Not handmade in any usual sense of the word?" If silver prints aren't handmade, then neither are the works of a potter creating a set of pots on a pottery wheel. From the pug machine and wheel all the way to the kiln, he's working with a bunch of machines and only using his hands at one step to "minimally" shape the outcome -- not unlike manually dodging and burning. By your definition of handmade, very little would make the cut anymore.

If you'll explain to me what makes a silver print "hand made" and why it's any more "hand made" than a digital print I'll be glad to reconsider. But just informing me that my statements are "absurd" isn't going to do the job.

[Marko]

Marko

I'd disagree strongly that the use of a digital negative in creating an alternative process print elmininates the "handmade" part of the process. In general, it can simplify the matching of the negative to the emulsion being used with much more accuracy and efficiency (for example, for in camera negatives, there is often quite a bit of trial and error to match the correct "mixture" of restrainer and Pd to obtain a matching contrast and correct exposure for the negative when making a palladium print; whereas with a digital negative, the calibration of the negative to a specific mixture of restrainer and Pd as well as exposure, can simply remove some of the trial and error involved in making numerous time consuming tests). In no way would it impact the hand process of coating (or manufacturing emulsion like carbon tissue) the substrate, exposing it and developing it. It still is a "handmade" print (for whatever that is worth - and IMO, that's significant) despite the fact that the original image may not have been made on the same negative from which it was contact printed. A poor printer will only be able to make prints which are just as poor from original negatives as from digital negatives. The printmaker's craft, does not suddenly just "count for nothing" when a digital negative is being used. It has exactly the same importance in the production of the final print.

Don,

Clumsy wording on my part. By "eliminating the handmade part" I was NOT referring to the coating and mixing chemicals, quite to the contrary, I called it the only really handmade part. It is the rest of the process, the part that is common to all - the repeating and repeatable part as Brian described it, that gets eliminated through digital processing.

Buying manufactured papers, waving a piece of cardboard over them while exposing them to light and then developing them in manufactured chemicals does not make the print handmade, it only makes it traditional.

This part of the process can be done much more precisely and efficiently through the use of the computer, by waving a mouse instead of the cardboard. And then waving it only once instead for every print. That's what the computers are made for, to automate the repeatable. The creative part remains very much creative, it's just that it gets freed from the manual drudgery, at least the repetitive part of it.

[Brian Ellis]

Only some of the alternative printers who mix their own emulsions and coat their own papers could match your definition of handmade and even they are turning to digital negatives and eliminating the "handmade" part of the process being discussed here.

I deliberately referred only to "silver prints" and "color prints" so as to leave alt processes out of it. I've done quite a bit of gum printing and to me that particular alt process is in some ways more analogous to painting than it is to making a standard silver or color print in a darkroom. But there are so many different kinds of alt processes and so many different ways of making them that it's difficult to generalize (and kind of pointless because the people who usually glorify darkroom printing as some sort of higher artistic calling because the prints are "hand made" aren't for the most part alt process printers anyhow).

[Brian Ellis]

jeesh - I hadn't seen this was a thread from 2004 that had been re-animated adn that I'd already posted in...

Happens all the time. We have no statute of limitations apparently. But the important thing isn't that you responded before, the important thing is that the responses be consistent. What's really embarassing is to take two diametrically opposite positions in the same thread.

Incidentally, it's nice to see you back. I used to enjoy your posts and your blog and have missed both.

[SamReeves]

There's no question cibas are vibrant and are still the cream of the crop. Question is what do you do with the spent toxic chemistry, and the cost of doing it is prohibitive. Digital wins out at the moment IMO.

[rdenney]

2) The idea that a digital printer simply presses a button and a print spits out suggests that anyone (regardless of skill) can make a good digital print. The truth is that many photographers spend countless hours optimizing their image in Photoshop. Generally many more hours than what would be spent on any one wet dark room print.

This is absolutely true. Part of the reason is that with a Cibachrome print, we can adjust the filter pack in the enlarger and the exposure, either for part or all the image and for different parts of the exposure. As much complexity as that allows, it's nothing compared to being able to manipulate tone curves separately for each component color. I've spent hours trying many different alternative approaches, lacking the experience as yet to know which will do what I want most effectively and easily. I've only been doing the digital printing thing for 7 or 8 years, so I'm still a beginner.

Yes, this is an old thread, but since it was started, Tom Till has announced that he will no longer be making Ilfochrome prints, and the stated reason is that the materials are not what they used to be. I'm sure that's been discussed here before (I confess I didn't search)--I don't check Till's website but once in a great while. (He's also sold his large-format stuff and is now doing digital--thr HORRORS!) Is he just slowing down? Does he have enough great images to keep his gallery open in Moab for the foreseeable future and now he does photography just for fun? More to the point of this thread: Has Ilfochrome declined?

Rick "whose digital prints look better than his old Ciba prints, mostly because of execution--experience comes slowly and expensively making Ciba prints" Denney

[Kirk Gittings]

Happens all the time. We have no statute of limitations apparently. But the important thing isn't that you responded before, the important thing is that the responses be consistent. What's really embarassing is to take two diametrically opposite positions in the same thread.

Incidentally, it's nice to see you back. I used to enjoy your posts and your blog and have missed both.

Brian, he's not back. His post was from September 2007.

[Nathan Potter]

Yes Brian you're confusing the hell out of me. I've picked up on this thread because I still print using Ilfochrome - I love the medium. But I've also started to print digitally from 35mm to 4X5 chromes.

The whole thread is replete with silly arguments, but as always the points of view are interesting.

Fact is that IMHO a high degree of technical craftsmanship is required in any and all photographic processes in order to achieve the highest quality images. This is generally what we all strive for. However it is about half of the task at hand - the other half being the uniqueness of vision and the capturing of it on film. I am finding that some images are still nicely suited to Ilfochrome renditions while others can fit my vision in Inkjet.

Per Rick Denny above - I think I'm recently having a bit more trouble with doing Ilfochromes than several years ago. I can't put my finger on it yet but can't seem to get the original snap - perhaps it is a muddiness in the print that bothers me. Maybe it is a trend of me choosing lower contrast chromes as originals to avoid the Tmax masking complexities.

BTW per other discussion here on longevity. My oldest Ilfochrome was made in 1974 and displayed in room light for the interim 35 years half in MA and half in TX. It's mounted under sodalime window glass and cropped by the overmat (museum board) around the edge. Removed a year ago the image under the mat shows no visual fading compared to the bulk of the print. Of course this says nothing about what past and current material may be like nor anything about processing variations or display condition variables.

Nate Potter, Austin TX.

[Drew Wiley]

Sam - toxic disposal of small volume Ciba chemistry is extraordinarily simple. The bleach
is mainly sulfuric acid, and, if you are using the chemistry one-shot, you simply drain the bleach into a plastic bucket containing a little baking soda, and it's instantly neutralized. The problem comes at a commercial level when significant quantities of the
bleach are stored in replenishment systems, which generally end up requiring some very
fancy plumbing and hazardous permits, plus risk your lungs. What I have is a 30x40
processor on a cart which actually goes outdoors. The exposed print is loaded in the
light-tight drum in the darkroom, while the chemical mixing and processing are done
outdoors on the patio. A lot less irritaing than RA4 chemistry, but still relatively expensive. The supply of Ciba materials is spotty - you need to order well in advance
and freeze the paper itself. The P3 chemistry is fairly stable until it's mixed. I mix only
enough at a time for one print, so it's always fresh and predictable. But I haven't
encountered anything yet regarding a quality issue, so am pretty skeptical about those
kinds of rumors. The point is, this process offers a look which is very,very "photographic". No one is going to mistake it for an inkjet!