The Future of Colour Materials?

[Don Wallace]

After a year of playing with scanning and printing colour, my successes have been few and my disappointments many. The computer software that is available I simply find too frustrating. Thus, I am seriously looking at doing colour in the darkroom, something I have not done before. I would not process film but only print. What do folks think about the future of colour chemistry and paper?

[Bruce Watson]

After a year of playing with scanning and printing colour, my successes have been few and my disappointments many. The computer software that is available I simply find too frustrating. Thus, I am seriously looking at doing colour in the darkroom, something I have not done before. I would not process film but only print. What do folks think about the future of colour chemistry and paper?
I think you haven't been truly frustrated, yet ;-) Color printing in the darkroom can be a hair pulling experience. I'm told that the current RA-4 chemistry is much better than the Cibachrome/Ilfochrome system I used when last I tried it. Still, my successes where nearly zero with nearly constant disappointments.

If you want to go this way, I think you should seriously consider a used Jobo with print drums. This gives you perfectly consistent temperature control with perfectly consistent agitation. IOW, half the battle will already be won.

As to the future of color chemistry and paper... Hard to predict the future. That said, many more people printing in home darkrooms are doing B&W over color. The number of professional labs still offering enlarged color continues to shrink as most are shifting to LightJets and Chromiras. Yet, color is still about 95% or more of the photography market, and all those Frontier and Noritsu machines are RA-4 processors. So it's hard to see color print materials becoming unavailable any time soon.

[Jim collum]

you may also want to start looking thru the various used equip. sites for registration punch equipment (search Condit) . color correction and contrast masks will be something necessary (at least if you're going the transparency route) to get the right color/contrast match. a little more time consuming than curves in photoshop, but will still do the job necessary.

[Don Wallace]

Thanks, Jim. I already have a Jobo CPE-2 with print drums. I use it only for black and white negatives now, but I had planned to do colour prints with it. I have heard that printing colour transparency is more of a problem, and if it is, I am happy to print only colour negative. I do shoot colour transparency in 4x5 but that is pretty much low tech wysiwyg. When I want large prints from transparency, I get a lab to do them (they have great scanners and lots of guys who are payed to read manuals and calibrate equipment).

[Michael Gordon]

Don: not to dissuade you from trying the conventional darkroom, but have you received any training in digital darkroom? What have been your disappointments?

[Nick_3536]

Get yourself a good analzyer [Colorstar 3000 or newer] and you'll never look back. At least after you've gotten used to the analyzer-)

I can do a basic print from a good negative one shot.

[Don Wallace]

Gordon, thanks for the question. The problem I have with digital is that I have spent 25 years in information technology and I find the world of consumer software becoming increasingly chaotic. In order to stay on top of things (and thus spend money wisely), one has to spend a really inordinate amount of time with manuals and online help that is highly proprietary (and thus very difficult to use in other contexts). I think one of the problems is that it is not yet a mature technology and this is excacerbated by the highly competive nature of the software industry. As I often say, standards are good things because everyone can have one. I don't have that much spare time and I have found over the past year that even modest results require an investment of time in ways that I do not find rewarding. I realize that colour printing in a darkroom also takes time, that there is a learning curve, but I think I prefer the intellectual approach to accomplishing that much more than software and software manuals.

Sorry for the long-winded egghead answer, but I am a long-winded egghead. I have not yet given up on digital. I am just investigating alternatives.

[keithwms]

Don, if you could be a bit more specific about your disappointments I am sure there will be plenty of people willing to help. Is it colour fidelity? White balance? Dmax? Saturation?

Regarding scanning, my experience is that the results are extremely variable- I am still wrestling with how best to expose for purposes of scanning. And there are some things like velvia 50 that I find almost impossible to scan except by having them drummed at high cost.

Other than what has been mentioned, let me just say that there are now some really wonderful colour polaroid films that might be worth a try. I used to think they all looked like cheap, motel porn, but I have recently seen some stuff that is very nice. Now if I could just persuade Fuji to come out with 8x10 versions of their instant films....

Keith

[roteague]

The number of professional labs still offering enlarged color continues to shrink as most are shifting to LightJets and Chromiras.

Yes, but even those are mostly RA-4 based. Few labs do optical printing, but there are a lot doing digital printing, using RA-4 papers/chemicals. I don't think this will go away anytime in the near future.

[Michael Gordon]

I'm not sure if you're using Photoshop, Don, but I would recommend it. A copy of Photoshop and a basic instruction course should have you easily making color prints that you're happy with. Trying to wade through Photoshop on your own can seem overwhelming.

[roteague]

I'm not sure if you're using Photoshop, Don, but I would recommend it. A copy of Photoshop and a basic instruction course should have you easily making color prints that you're happy with. Trying to wade through Photoshop on your own can seem overwhelming.

Perhaps, he is just tired of dealing with computers .... When you do it all day long for a living, it is nice to get away from using one; one of the big draws for traditional photography for some people.

FWIW, like Don, I too am an IT professional - a senior programmer.

[Don Wallace]

Keith:

>Is it colour fidelity?

Yep. I have been through the mill on this too many times.

>Other than what has been mentioned, let me just say that there are now some really >wonderful colour polaroid films that might be worth a try. I used to think they all >ooked like cheap, motel porn, but I have recently seen some stuff that is very nice. >Now if I could just persuade Fuji to come out with 8x10 versions of their instant >films....

Hey, what's wrong with cheap motel porn (have I perhaps said too much?). What films do you suggest?

[roteague]

Hey, what's wrong with cheap motel porn (have I perhaps said too much?). What films do you suggest?

I too have found Velvia 50 difficult to scan, but the new Velvia 100 seems much easier to scan - I scan 4x5, 6x12 and 35mm sizes, mainly for my website. When I scan for prints I will have them drum scanned, on a Tango, and pay a professional to do the color correction/print preparation for me.

[Don Wallace]

I'm not sure if you're using Photoshop, Don, but I would recommend it. A copy of Photoshop and a basic instruction course should have you easily making color prints that you're happy with. Trying to wade through Photoshop on your own can seem overwhelming.

Michael, I don't want to wade through anything. That is the whole point. I have trouble explaining it, but it boils down to the WAY one must learn in this environment. I make what I think are high quality monochrome prints. I never took a course and I never owned a 500 page manual (I have Elements and that is enough). There is a flow to learning analogue methods that is not part of digital tools, which suffer from "option-itis." As I said somewhere else recently, modern consumer software is an example of what some engineers call "thick slicing," with Photoshop being a classic case: way too much for the job at hand. I don't need 95% of what it does, and I think the way that it does it is for people who love computers. It is not an intuitive tool. Also, I am a photographer. PS is for graphic artists. It is a Swiss Army knife and I need a screwdriver.

Just an aside, a professional recording engineer who is a good friend of mine just bought - wait for it - a TAPE recorder (two inch 24 track Studer). Like me, he has come to loathe digital tools and the way they force a certain kind of thinking and a certain flow. When photographic software becomes as easy to use as the software that runs this newsgroup, I will likely reconsider.

That's just my two cents. I don't want to start ranting or sounding like some anti-digital nut. I just think that the digital photographic world is not for me. The colour darkroom is just an option I am currently investigating. The other is to shoot entirely in monochrome.

[keithwms]

Keith:

>Is it colour fidelity?

Yep. I have been through the mill on this too many times.

>Other than what has been mentioned, let me just say that there are now some really >wonderful colour polaroid films that might be worth a try. I used to think they all >ooked like cheap, motel porn, but I have recently seen some stuff that is very nice. >Now if I could just persuade Fuji to come out with 8x10 versions of their instant >films....

Hey, what's wrong with cheap motel porn (have I perhaps said too much?). What films do you suggest?

So, my feeling is that velvia 50 is the world's most unscannable film! It is very hard. That's not surprising, the Dmax is enormous. Wonderful stuff but I think it has to be drummed. I have much better results scanning provia (100 F or 400F). I find fuji 64T a bit tough but usually not nearly as bad as velvia 50. And I agree that the more recent velvias are somewhat easier but still hard, so more recently I have been playing with provia and just building in saturation if and when I want it.

On the print film side, I haven't had too many difficulties and actually have found that some of the not-so-premium films like reala actually scan very nicely. I like just about all of the fujis for scanning- NPS, NPH, etc.

The colour polaroid that I like is fuji fp100C, which comes in 4x5. So far I have used it very little- I like the b&w version and use that much more, but so far only in medium format sizes. I will begin working with several of the fujis in 4x5 and report on that. If they are as good at 4x5 as they are in the smaller pack size, I think they are really remarkable.

Overall, for scanning, what I have done in the past is take shots with a standard colour chart in one shot, and then as soon as I scan it I know what I am up against. Then I can work on white balance and such, right off the bat. Once you have a correction formula for the whole chart, then subsequent scans can be handled quite efficiently.

[Bruce Watson]

The computer software that is available I simply find too frustrating.
You might want to have a look at LightZone. (http://www.lightcrafts.com/products/lightzone/) It's getting some good buzz. Might let you work more like you want to work. And as we all know, if you aren't comfortable with your tools your work suffers.

[chris jordan]

Don, there are some great Photoshop books written for photographers, which avoid all of the options that you don't need. Photoshop is loaded with features that are useless for "straight" photographers, so if you try to work through the Photohop manual you will get mired in all that junk.

Once you get some way up the learning curve (which would take about a week of hard work, with the help of someone who already knows Photoshop), you will have the basic tools to make beautiful prints.

You also could have someone come over and do all of the setting up stuff-- getting the programs installed, calibrating your monitor and scanner, etc., so you don't have to deal with tech support on any of that stuff.

When all is said and done, I think you will end up far happier going with digital than trying to set up and run a color darkroom, especially considering that darkroom materials are going obsolete fast, and digital is getting better all the time. The new digital printers are fast, reliable, accurate, and cheap, and getting more so with every new release.

[Bill_1856]

Don, I spent nearly 40 years of my life making color prints, starting with Ansco Printon and Dye Transfer while still in highschool, and progressing through every known commercial color process through Polaroid, Cibachrome (Ilfochrome) and Ektaflex, not to mention the crappy C-Prints and R-Prints and their current successors. Which is just my long-winded way of saying that I've done it all.
IMO the current crop of digital printing far exceeds any previous technique in quality and versatility.
The problem, of course, is the cost. Both in money, but also in the steep learning curve.
May I suggest that you tackle one problem at a time. Going from your color film to a digital file is a completely independent process from making that file into a print.
Start by having your film scanned by someone else who specializes in it.
Then learn to print that file with Photoshop and your printer of choice.
Only after you get that down pat, learn about scanning (which right now is some years behind the state-of-the-art from the digital printing status).
You're trying to do too much at once. Slow down, and don't try to learn everything at once.

[Neal Wydra]

Dear Don,

Assuming you will use color negatives and have an appropriate enlarger, just give it a try. It will cost you very little and will improve youre eye for color. The worst thing that can happen is that you abandon it before the paper runs out. For now, develop in trays at room temperature. A box of paper and a Tetenal kit (the mono-PK is marketed as room temperature friendly) is all you need. Oh yeah, and a bucketload of patience. ;>)

Neal Wydra

[roteague]

You guys really take the cake. The guy wants to learn to print color in a darkroom, why don't your support his decision instead of trying to evangelize your digital wares?

[Bruce Watson]

Yes, but even those are mostly RA-4 based. Few labs do optical printing, but there are a lot doing digital printing, using RA-4 papers/chemicals. I don't think this will go away anytime in the near future.
I, um, think I said just that. Didn't I?

[Ted Harris]

OTOH, it is not a question of evangalizing digital wares completely. For Don, there is no question t hat Photoshop is both daunting and counterintuitive but it is not the only package available. Before you give up completely take a look at LightZone which is a photo editing package designed by our own Lars Vinberg and designed basically around the Zone System. It is both graphical and intuitive and I suspect you will find it simple and that you can learn its basics well enough to make an excellent print in less than two hours.

One additional consideration, cost. I spent 25 years doing a lot of traditional color printing. In 2000 I was setting up a new darkroom and decided that, before I made any major improvements to my color equipment, I would do a cost comparison between producing an exhibition print in the wet darkroo and digitally. The digital process won hands down and over the past five years it just keeps getting better and the costs remainmuch lower than traditional printing, at least for those of us that often do three or 4 or more prints before we get it right in the darkroom. If you can absolutely nail the print on the first exposure it may be a different story but that was never the case for me and, yes, I used all the expensive electronic gadgets in the darkroom.

Don, as we have discussed, sometime hop in the car and drive over here for a few days and see what you think after playing in a well equipped digital darkroom ... you can play in the traditional one too, alas without the horizontal 10x10 however as I finally decided against it.

[Ron Marshall]

Don, I slowly and painfully learned PS, then discoved Adobe PS CS2 Studio Techniques by Ben Willmore.

This is the book I wish I had started with. It is oriented specifically towards photographers.

I also find I get better scans from Fuji 160S than from chromes.

[Stephen Willard]

I have my own color lab. I find processing color materials is faster and easier than doing b&w. Of course you have to have the right equipment. I shoot exclusively color negative film and print on RA4 Fuji Crystal Archive paper. I can make a color archival print in about 4 minutes verses hours for a archival b&w.

Printing your own color prints is dirt cheap. It cost me about $1.35 to make a 16x20 including paper and chemistry.

I practice the Zone system as defined by Adams in the negative. I develop my own film, and I can under or over develop the color negative film to N+1, N, N-1, and N-2. I can even do N-3 under certain conditions to manage contrast. The only short coming is the papers. There is no such thing as graded papers for color prints. To overcome this I have adopted Howard Bond's masking methods to manage paper contrast. I am finding masking is a very powerful tool in surprising ways.

Color Negative film has the greatest dynamic range of any other photographic medium at 10 stops as opposed to slide film which is 3.5 - 4.0 and digital which is about 4.0 - 4.5. The characteristic curves of color negative film are as perfect as you can get with only a small heal and very straight lines which translates into rich creamy tones. 10 stop photography is very powerful stuff which is why the movie industry still films on sight with color negative film, and why I use it. I can shoot rings around any one using digital or slide film. If I can see it I can shoot it.

Darkroom equipment is dirt cheap on ebay. For starters I would recommend you purchase a JOB ATL 2 Plus or better processor on ebay. I just bought a used one in mint condition as a backup. I paid $700 dollars for it. Processing color film and prints with an JOBO ATL is ridiculously easy and cheap. I bought an 10x10 enlarger for $1000 and spent another $1000 to refurbish it which is less than what I paid for my 4x5 enlarger new. I have been printing color for years now with out using a color analyzer. After a while you can look at test print and know exactly what color corrections to make.

My experience with a color darkroom has been wonderful, productive, and the quality of prints that I can produce are amazing. None of my digital friends have been able to produce anything close to what I can do in my darkroom. However, I am not sure if they are using the latest and greatest generation of equipment. But who the hell can afford to stay current. I mean can you imagine having to buy a new enlarger ever other year to stay current or competitive. No one who does traditional processing would ever do such foolish things. Yet that is the norm in digital land.

As far a the viability of traditional color photography, I am absolutely confident about its future. Color negative film and processing will be with us for a long time despite many who think or wish otherwise.

www.stephenwillard.com

[Jorge Gasteazoro]

Don, to get away from all this PS talk and asnwer your question you have a few alternatives. First and foremost, if you really dont mind a labor intensive process, prone to many screw ups and overall somewhat difficult you can try dye transfer. JandC carries the matrix film, Jensen optical carries the registration equipment and the dyes are made by someone whom I dont recall at the moment but are available. While difficult this process will yield the most beautiful color prints I have ever seen bar none.

Like you I have a friend who does not like ink jet prints, he still uses the Ilfochrome process for which he can still get chemicals and paper. While less difficult than dye transfer, it will require that you become knowledgeable in making contrast masks to be able to control the paper contrast, and of course you will print from slides instead of negatives. IMO nothing compares to a well made Ilfochrome print made with their glossy paper, but it is not easy.

Last, as was mentioned before you still can get RA-4 chemicals and paper to print from negatives.

I think all of these options will still be available within the next 5 to 10 years, you should not worry about their future and do what you like, not what everybody else is doing because is "easier".

[Don Wallace]

Thanks for all of the replies, both "fer and agin." This is really a dilemma for me. There is a lot to be said for both approaches. My main goal was simply to get decent prints of MF family and vacation photos, and decent "proof" prints of my LF work (with an eye toward getting exhibition prints done at the lab). Ted Harris, as usual, is a great resource for all of us here and I am pursuing his offer of assistance, again. At the same time, anyone who has seen any of Stephen Willard's prints will be listening VERY closely to what he has to say (the proof of his advice being in his truly beautiful and remarkable work).

[Brian Ellis]

I don't think it has a future. If it wasn't for disposable cameras and a world population much of which can't afford digital I don't think it would have a present. What software is frustrating you, the scanning or the printing (i.e. Photoshop or something similar) or both? I've done very little color scanning but what I did was very easy to do and seemed to produce excellent results with either slide or negative film. I was using an Epson 4990 and Silverfast Ai software. But I'm not by nature very technically inclined so everything involving digital has required a lot of work for me - reading books, attending workshops, reading things on line. If you're trying to take short-cuts I don't think that will work.

OTOH, maybe you just find all the digital stuff horrendously boring and can't bring yourself to do the necessary work to get up to speed. If so that's o.k., we aren't all cut out to do the same thing, try a color darkroom and see how you like it. I used to do it and got good results but I found it very boring compared to doing black and white in a darkroom. Unless you get into masking you can't do much in a color darkroom except make a straight print, i.e. get the exposure right, get the color balance right, bang make the print, move on to the next one.

[Brian Ellis]

I meant to add one thing to my previous message. If you do decide to try color darkroom work, get the best equipment you can possibly afford (which shouldn't be difficult given the state of the market for used color darkroom equipment). A roller transport processor is IMHO almost a necessity. With a roller transport you can process a print in a minute or less, you don't have to worry about keeping temperatures constant, etc. And I used a Beleser 45A color head which has a feature that makes it very easy to create a color ring-around which is a big help in getting the color balance right. If you use drums that have to be washed and dried after every print (not just every final print, every print you make along the way to the final print), and if you try to use charts that are supposed to assist in getting the color balance right but don't, you're in for some long nights.

[Brian Ellis]

Okay, this is I promise my last message in this thread.

My apologies for asking a question you had already answered (what is it about digital you don't like) and also for repeating a lot of what others have already said. I usually read all the previous messages in a thread before posting one of my own in order to avoid just that kind of thing, for some reason I didn't do that here.

[Nick_3536]

Colour-ring arounds are so last century. No reason in todays market to stick to that stuff. You can buy a $1000 analyzer for less then $100 today. Other thing with todays market it's easy enough to buy a collection of drums. I don't dry drums completely but I've got enough that by the time I need to reuse one it's basically dry. A quick wipe with a paper towel is the most that's needed.

A roller transport would be great but unless I'm making LOTS of prints in one session drums don't hold me pack.

[Larry Gebhardt]

I say go for the analog aproach. I was scared of it for a while and went down the digital route for way to many years. I am very proficient at Photoshop. I own a second hand drum scanner. I still like analog better.

I started out with Ilfochrome a few years ago and quickly gave up on the process.

I have recently started printing color from negative films. I purchased a Durst Printo and a Jobo Color Star 3000. These combined make the color work very easy and as mentioned above, cheap. I can get a nice 11x14 in a few minutes and at a cost of less than $1. If I want larger than 11x14 I can print upto 20x24 easily in the Jobo. Compared to the digital route it is much quicker and cheaper if you have a lot of prints to make.

The hard part is contrast control. Even negatives sometimes need masking as the lower contrast "portrait" papers are not low enough.

I am now going back to Ilfochrome as well, but so far my results aren't nearly as promising. The need to mask almost every slide is a pain. I don't like the blues, though the yellows sure are nice in the Ilfochrome. This makes many shots with sky look "flat" out compared to the slide. This could be something in my process as I make no claims at proficiency. I do feel that by learning RA4 printing it has made my Ilfochrome journey much easier. Plus it is much cheaper to get good at color balancing on paper and chems that cost about 1/4 the cost.

So give it a try.

[Stephen Willard]

Brian,

You are absolutely correct. Roller transports do make it a lot easier. I have the fujimoto CP51 and my printing its fast and easy making it easy to quickly hone in on the proper rendering I am looking for. The CP51 has made me a better printer for sure.

However, there are problems with them, so it is not as black and white as it may appear. Maintaining the chemistry requires, control strips, a color densitometer, and a fair bit of learning. And then there is the utilization issue. You cannot just turn these creatures on and make one print and then shut them off. You have to batch your work up and then print a bunch otherwise the developer will go bad pretty quickly. I usually fire mine up in late October and print all winter long for around $135 in chemistry.

[Brian Ellis]

Hi Stephen - You clearly have a much more sophisticated roller transport processor than I did. What you're describing sounds like the one I used in school. The one I owned was bought from Adorama for about $800 and was made by a Florida company called "Lektra Do-Mac." It didn't require densitometers, color strips, or any learning beyond reading the little owners manual. You just filled it with chemicals (a quart or so of each), brought the temperature up, and started running prints through it. It did require cleaning the rubber rollers about every 10 prints or else they would leave black marks on the print. But otherwise it was a great tool. I emptied the chemicals after each darkroom session and filled it up with fresh the next time. At a quart or so of each chemical (developer and a bleach/fix as I recall) the cost wasn't bad. I doubt that it's still being made or sold by Adorama but if it is I'd highly recommend it to anyone who wants to do color darkroom work at home.