Anyone still printing Type C?

[Al Seyle]

Just curious if anyone else in LF land is still enlarger-printing Type C, RA-4 from color neg, or have you all gone the digi scanning route? I am invested in Durst L1200 colorhead and Jobo CPP-2, so I'm staying put for color.

[Neal Wydra]

Does it count if I use both methods?<g>

Neal Wydra

[bob carnie]

Yes I still print colour RA4

[Andre Noble]

Al, this past weekend, I made 4x5 highlight protection and contrast masks for the first time, and made subsequent Ilfochrome prints onto Ilfocochrome Classic Deluxe paper with the help of the masks to control gradation/contrast in the famously contrasty ilofochrome materials. Was a bit of labour of love, but worth the effort.

The results were far superior to anything else I've done color work wise. In my opinion, also superior to anything I've seen printed onto ink jet paper, and better than my Fuji Crystal Archive experiences from A&I. Mind you, this Ilochrome Deluxe seems well suited for landscape stuff, I don't know yet about portraiture.

I used an Omega D5500 B&W 4x5 enlarger with Ilford Ilfochrome color filters fitted above the condensors.

[Stephen Willard]

I am not sure what type C is? But I do process all my C41 color negative film and RA4 prints. When I first started I used the CPP-2 to do both. I used the 3000 series drums for processing film. I then sold that and bought and JOBO ATL Plus 2 which automates everything. I have since purchased a Fujimoto CP51 for doing most of my prints, but I still use my ATL Plus for processing film and unsharp mask.

You will find that color negative film has at least a 2.5x greater latitude than chromes which more than doubles my yields in the field. I can shoot under much more severe lighting conitions than anyone using chromes. This is just one of the reasons I have not switched to dgital because it is based on scanning chromes which I believe is not a valid film for using in outside light. A dynamic range of 3.5 to 4 stops is not plausible in nature where light ranges can be 16+ stops. I suspect a lot of people are going to challenge me on that statement.

Another reason why I have not made the jump to digital is because I do big stuff like 30x40s and 20x50s. That is what sells. I believe in order to compete with my optical images I would need between 300 to 600 mgb drum scans. Prices for this can range from a $150 to $250 a pop for high quality scans. Remember, drum scanning is an art and not a science and there are only a few who do it well. I have over 200 negatives to convert. It would cost between $30,000 and $50,000 to drum scan my existing inventory to digital.

Currently, I can produces a 16x20 Fujiflex Crystal Archive print for about $4.50. To make a 16x20 lightjet image on Fuji Crystal Archive paper is around $35.00. I believe to digitally produce a 16x20 on an archival tested paper-ink combination is around $12 to $16.

Hmmm..wet stuff is looking pretty good to me.

When most people look at my work they believe I use Ilfochrome materials because of the brilliant colors in my images. But I do not. To get those colors I print my images on Fujiflex Crystal Archive paper. This paper is some times referred to as Fuji "super gloss" paper. The surface has a mirror like finish so it produces very very sharp images. The sharpness is very evident when compared to other papers. The paper also has a very high contrast and can turn pastel colors into primary colors. The colors from this paper seem to pop off the page. The intended application for this paper is for real big commercial stuff. The draw back is the paper if very expensive, three time more than its sister paper. For example, 100 sheet of 8x10 Fuji CA paper is around $33 while Fujiflex CA paper is about $100 at B&H prices. I just bought a 40"x120' roll of this stuff for around $700 - not cheap. However, its per unit price is still cheaper than digital if you process it yourself.

I have challenged many of the local photographers in my area to benchmark their best digital stuff against my optical images. So far to date no one has come close. The difference in clarity, brilliance, and tonal range is very obvious. I suspect that some of the differences can be attributed to the fact they use a flatbed scanner rather than a drum scanner. Too bad for them and goodie for me!

[tim atherton]

Currently, I can produces a 16x20 Fujiflex Crystal Archive print for about $4.50. To make a 16x20 lightjet image on Fuji Crystal Archive paper is around $35.00. I believe to digitally produce a 16x20 on an archival tested paper-ink combination is around $12 to $16.

$16.00 or $35.00 - still a pretty good margin on say an $950.00 print though?

[Al Seyle]

Stephen--I am impressed! Type C prints are those made from a color negative (as yours) as opposed to Type R, those made from transparencies and using a reversal process (ie. Ilfochrome) or those using an imbibition process, ie. dye transfer and others. I'm showing my age, I suppose in calling them "C prints"!

[ronald moravec]

Sure . I used the Jobo for the older color process and it was fine. The faster stuff with the 45 sec development works ok, but I don`t like it. I bought the Nova slot system, 4 slot. Brought the fun back. The Jobo is for larger than 11x14 and developing color neg 4x5.

Use the slots for dev, 2% stop , water, blix. You need the stop bath.

I have had an Epson 4870 for a week now for scanning 4x5 color neg. I probably won`t go completely with ink prints, but they are nice if you want to apply a texture, change color saturation, change color in a particular area of a print, or do intricate burning and dodging. It is nice if you only want to make one print as it is costly to set up a color process.

Photoshop gives unbelievable control, but it has it`s own set of problems.

Went to a workshop at Calumet yesterday and they said they are selling 80% digital cameras. What does that tell you?

[Calamity Jane]

It figures!!!! After 35 years of dabbling in photography, first B&W, then transparencies, first 35mm, then 120, then 4x5 - yup, it figures - just as I am gearing up to do some colour printing, the rest of the world has moved on to pixles, bits and bytes.......

...... oh well, I'm finding some great deals on colour darkroom equipment ;-)

[Stephen Willard]

Calamity, I have found over the years that trends come and go all the time. Can you remember when Kodak was trying to move into the Polaroid market and lost a big law suite to Polaroid. Polaroid was the future. Now Polaroid is a fraction of it size and still declining.

Here is a new emerging trend. People who by art are starting to realize that computer generated images are not about a human endeavor of a talented and gifted individuals struggling to make exquisite images. It is rather about smart software and a lazy souls sitting in front of a computer for days on end constructing fictitious images and then hanging them in galleries as real photographs. Their images are forgeries. And guess what? People who buy art are not willing to pay for that.

Laugh as you may, but many of the big name fine art photographers such as Burkett and Fatali make it very clear on their websites that none of their images are generated from computers. Period! All them have been HAND processed using traditional photographic techniques. Thomas Mangeleson had resorted to making digital images with his older work, but is now making it very clear that all of his new work is done using a wet darkroom. Every time I have visited one of his galleries, the sales person has gone out of there way to make that point.

I suspect that this trend will become more pronounced as time goes on and people start to understand what digital really means. People who buy art are highly educated, have wealth, live richly, and have a great disdain for Wal-Mart art.

PS

Oh by the way, about a two years ago I bought an 8x10 color enlarger that stands 10' tall, weighs 12oo pounds, and has a 2000 watt color head for $1000. I then put $1000 into refurbishing it. The enlarger looks brand new, and I bought for less than what I paid for my 4x5 Saunders Enlarger.

[tim atherton]

"Here is a new emerging trend. People who by art are starting to realize that computer generated images are not about a human endeavor of a talented and gifted individuals struggling to make exquisite images. It is rather about smart software and a lazy souls sitting in front of a computer for days on end constructing fictitious images and then hanging them in galleries as real photographs. Their images are forgeries. And guess what? People who buy art are not willing to pay for that. "

What a load of old horse manure!

there are educated buyers willing to pay upwards of a couple of hundred thousand dollars at times for such art - and on a more regualr basis buyers who happily part with two or three thousand dollars a time for a photograph

Burkett and Fatali ...Thomas Mangeleson - very nice pictures, good craft, but it's not really "art" most of the time. It's much more fine decor along the lines of Robert Bateman prints or work by Kincaid.

In addition, some of us prefer to photograph nature rather than set fire to it...

You are talking about a very narrow market with an equally narrow view of what constitutes art. The approach above may been fine for you, but it demonstrates a fundamental lack of understanding about the creative act, artisitc endeavour and photography.

[Stephen Willard]

Tim, I suspect when you say "two or three thousand dollars a time for a photograph" you actually are referring to computer generated art. Perhaps you can share with us a website where computer generated art is selling for that much? If there is a market for this as you claim, then clearly, there should be MANY websites on the internet which solicit that market at those prices.

I do not believe my definition is narrow. I believe art cannot be art unless it is human made with human hands. Weaving, sewing, painting, welding, sculpturing, carving, sketching, pasting, and fine art printing require skillful hands and are examples of what constitutes art. The contents of the art is a reflection of the human vision, and the skill of the human hands are what molds into a physical and viewable object. People who possess both the vision and talent of the hands are special and are called artists. Those who are gifted become great artists. My beliefs are based on talking with my own clients and many other people in the art world. I do not think you will find to many people out there who by art believe pushing a mouse and punching a keyboard to control smart software is a act of skillful hands. To them it is more like "gaming" rather then painting.

So back to the initial question. Yes Al there are people out here who are using type C methods, and I encourage you to also do so. It has many advantages as outlined in "Post Exposure by Ctein" over the current approach of slide film. If you would like to sell prints then I would encourage you not to go digital. Selling digital prints is an uphill battle at best.

[Bruce Wehman]

Tim, you have a couple of good lines there. Ditto.

As far as the Type “C” process goes: No, I gave it up for digital 9 years ago. Since all of my color work is commercial, this is understandable. C has its niche in the snapshot/large print/home darkroom markets. It is and has been about the cheapest way to make a decent color print. Its less than stellar archival properties have kept it out of the big city, fine art market….with a few exceptions. Those who have been successful with it, like Richard Misrach and Joel Sternfeld, have taken advantage of the long scale that C provides to make images that rely heavily on pastel tones. Although there are emulsions available that provide a wide range of contrast and saturation, generally when you think of C you think of long tonal scale.

Like any other medium, it can be abused or used with sensitivity and vision.

[Al Seyle]

I have been making prints from color neg since the 1960s and truly enjoy the process and the results. I have also been using Photoshop extensively since ver. 1.0 (for my employer), so I know of it's virtues. Just wish there were a way to enlarge that PS image onto photo paper/film in my own lab. I know there are places that do that, but I like to have total control. Hmm...any one know of a digital enlarger head to fit my L1200?

Anyway, I have been reading this forum since it's inception and have noticed that most q&a's regarding color prints have been about digi printer output. So I wondered if very many are still shooting and printing color neg. Judging from the proportionately few responses to my query, it looks like the answer is, well, very few.

[Nick_3536]

The problem is most of these threads get hijacked by the digital forces. So many of us just ignore them.

[Kirk Gittings]

Printing for clients has declined over the years as high quality color Xerox and office scanners have become so prevelant. You make them one print which they then copy. You really can't control it. We mostly sell scans now anyway. But, after printing C prints, processing with a roller transport processor etc., for 25 years a few months ago I bought an Epson 4000 with Imageprint etc. etc. etc. For awhile, as I taught myself photoshop, I ran both depending on the job. It has now been a couple of months since I printed C prints. The machine is idle and I will probably be junking it soon to make more room in my darkroom. An Epson 4000 is a vastly more useful piece of technology than a C print processor. If you don't run a processor a few times a week the chemicals go bad, which means every time you go to print you have to mix a fresh batch for the tanks. I also think for commercial clients that digital prints are a superior product.

For art prints I never liked C prints anyway or the Fuji Crystal Archive either. While inkjet may not be perfect. the technology is getting there very very rapidly.

[tim atherton]

"For art prints I never liked C prints anyway or the Fuji Crystal Archive either. While inkjet may not be perfect. the technology is getting there very very rapidly."

And will most likely turn out to have much better longevity

[Mark_3899]

I make 16x20 and 20x24 C-prints. I've been making them first with EP-2 chemistry then RA-4. I shoot 4x5 color neg and I just like the exposure latittude and long tonal scale that Bruce mentions. I'm set up for it, the paper and chemistry is easily obtainable, and I know my materials. This is "Art", not commercial photography so I see no reason to change unless I have to. When I do have to change however, I don't see how that print is any less mine than a RA-4 print. After all I'm making the decisions. Do my hands have to move in the light path of the projected image to do something magical in making a print? I don't think so. I can look at a monitor and judge what I would like opened up or held back just the same, and I'll admit with more precision. As for Stephen, I work in the "Art World" there are people out there that buy the concept of an artist, nevermind something as tangible as a computer generated work.

[Paddy Quinn]

"You will find that color negative film has at least a 2.5x greater latitude than chromes which more than doubles my yields in the field. I can shoot under
much more severe lighting conitions than anyone using chromes. This is just one of the reasons I have not switched to dgital because it is based on
scanning chromes which I believe is not a valid film for using in outside light. A dynamic range of 3.5 to 4 stops is not plausible in nature where light
ranges can be 16+ stops"

Many photographers scan color negatives "I have not switched to digital because it is based on scanning chromes" is simply incorrect.

But why stop with latitude as a way of deciding what is or isn't valid in photography (are you trying to copy reality or make a photograph by the way?).

Photographs are two dimensional, the world is three (at least) so perhaps that should make all photographs invalid?

Then there are those pesky little rectangles that a photographs seems to put around everything? I don't see many of those out there in nature? I think that would invalidate a lot of photographs?

I also looked at some of those photographers you mentioned (I couldn't find where your work was online?) - they seem to impose a lot of perspective on their views - which is most certainly unnatural. I would have though the imposition of such an outdated Renaissance theory on the natural world should also invalidate most of their work? (take me to the vanishing point and I'll show you the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow)

[tim atherton]

" If there is a market for this as you claim, then clearly, there should be MANY websites on the internet which solicit that market at those prices. "

Here is one simple example from another thread (okay it's B&W) - but that seems like the typical sort of price for a digital inkjet B&W 20x24 price - some go for somethign above that, some below. There are plenty more out there like this


http://www.diallophotography.com/g_abroad.html (http://www.diallophotography.com/g_abroad.html)

Nice to see even the Weston Gallery is selling digital prints...


http://www.westongallery.com/artists/j_pickford/joel_pickford.html (http://www.westongallery.com/artists/j_pickford/joel_pickford.html)

[Kirk Gittings]

" If there is a market for this as you claim, then clearly, there should be MANY websites on the internet which solicit that market at those prices. "

I think the web is drowning in attempted sales by people who are new to the market and who undervalue their work. Selling 16x20 prints at $300 matted is a net loss as far as I am concerned. It is not worth your time at that price.

The web is perhaps not the best place to market expensive art objects. I had a conversation a couple of months back with Andrew Smith of the Andrew Smith Gallery in Santa Fe. He observed that established artists in the upper ranges (2,000.00 and above) are holding there own in this market even when they have switched to inkjet. Also I know for a fact that the Art Institute of Chicago is specifically working on building a collection of inkjet photography. Inkjet is competitive if you value you work and educate your clients.

[tim atherton]

"I suspect when you say "two or three thousand dollars a time for a photograph" you actually are referring to computer generated art. Perhaps you can share with us a website where computer generated art is selling for that much?"

I understand computer generated art (from working with artists doing this) to be art which is created entirely on the computer - it may involve use of photographs, freehand digital drawing etc or a multitude of other things. It exists entirely within the computer and is not input into the computer from some form of previously existing matrix - eg a scanned negative, digital capture image file etc. There are numerous artists of all calibres exploring this from David Hockney down to folks making stuff for local craft fairs. But that is not what I was talking about.

I was talking about photogrpahic work - either from digital capture, but mainly from traditional/analog production, which is then scanned, adjusted in Photoshop and then printed either onto C-Print type materials, Fibre based paper (for B&W) on some form of lightjet printer (either LCD or laser) or printed via inkjet, to produce a photograh.

There are a number of websites where such work is sold, but I am talking mainly about work sold through traditional (more or less) galleries. My experience is that discerning buyers still refer to buy the art they purchase in person rather than online. Only a small number of fine art galleries have succeeded online - many more have failed.

Your views about the p lace of the hand in art may have some merit up to a certain point, but they clearly display your own biases and rather blatant blindspots as well as what seems to be a misunderstanding about the sort of processes outlined above. Lets take one simple example - many of the finest photogrpahic artists have not produced the prints of their own work - they have often gone to a master craftsman printer to do that work for them. Within your narrowly defined parameters that would seem to exclude the "work of their hands" from producing the final prints? (of course we can go down this road for ever)

One of the most stunning pieces of art I have experienced recently was one you couldn't even see (which, of course is the case with most music) Janet Cardiff's Forty Part Motet - although in a way you can see a picture of it here:


http://www.tate.org.uk/liverpool/exhibitions/janetcardiff/ (http://www.tate.org.uk/liverpool/exhibitions/janetcardiff/)

But what place does the hand play in that? In holding or placing the microphones to collect the original sounds? In digitally mixing them together to produce the final project? Would it have been more authentically "art" if she had only used analog tape which she then cut ands spliced by hand? I think you can see the problem with such a narrow vision of what makes art.

I would add that at times David Hockney has been a strong proponent of your view of the eye and hand relationship being an important element in the making of true art - but he carried his argument through to it's logical conclusion and thus excluded photography from, in the end, ever being true art because even the kind of work you outline lacks that real connection - you are in fact making reproductions not original pieces - so you can see where your statements lead (and has been discussed vigorously here many times... I doubt we need to do it again). Of course Hockney was to some extent playing Devils Advocate - but it does emphasise what underlies the approach you seem to hold with.

This discussion started with a discussion of colour Chromogenic dye coupler prints (That's what C Prints are). You seem to believe there is a siginificant difference between such a pritn that has been produced negative>enlarger>paper and one that has been produced negative(or digital capture)>scan>digital printer labelling work which doesn't fall into the former realm as "forgeries".

Like many here I produce work both ways and there are plusses and minuses in working both ways - but the end result is not either a "real" photograph or a forgery.

There are more ways of producing a wonderful piece of work than just in the darkroom. The darkroom pritn is one way which has and continues to bring some wonderful visions from the hands of creative artists. But there are other, equally valid ways of doing so.

(or perhaps I have just been had as some have pointed out offline - that you trolled a series of tasty bated hooks here and I went and grabbed one...)

[tim atherton]

just saw this elsewhere - never knew St. Ansel wrote such a thing.

In the introduction to "The Negative" Ansel wrote "I eagerly await new concepts and
processes. I believe that the electronic image will be the next major advance. Such
systems will have their own inherent and inescapable structural characteristics, and
the artist and functional practitioner will again strive to comprehend and control
them."

Ansel Adams 1981

[Kirk Gittings]

Tim,

That is one of my favourite quotes from Ansel. I had a few conversations with Ansel in his later years and found him to be deeply curious about everything and new technical areas especially. Contrary to his worshipers today, his work in the 40's and 50's was not traditional but was avant-gaurd. If he poped up now I doubt he would be working "traditionally", but he would always insist on the highest quality, vision and creativity and do it with a deep respect for the Earth.