Did Kodak color neg lose sharpness when it was reformulated to improve scanning?

[Drew Wiley]

Sorry, don't want to offend your friends, Pere, but what they state is not only counter to my own experience, but to firm statements by the paper manufacturers themselves.... BUT I am aware of certain digitally optimized RA4 papers distributed in the EU that were specifically tweaked for automated digital printers only. A number of people are allegedly getting decent results with these via optical enlargement. I've never tried them. They are available here too, but tend to be marketed to quickie photofinishers, not to photographers. There is confusion over this subject because Fuji Crystal Archive papers represent a whole range of options. But the papers being sold in both cut sheet and big rolls by the big photographic houses here (B&H, Freestyle, etc) are the kind optimized both ways, and are used in big labs for both kinds of application. So too is the premium quality Fujiflex or Supergloss product. I don't use Kodak papers, so won't comment on those. But I print everything from 6x7 cm up to 8x10 originals, so know quite well the sharpness structure of these modern films per se. I seldom shoot 35mm anymore except in b&w. Besides, the smaller the original, the more secondary sampling issues arise with less than ideal scanners. But if you want to discuss that topic with people, there is an appropriate section elsewhere on the forum. There are a few people on this forum who drum scan professionally, and would no doubt take exception with your own scanner comments, but it doesn't need to involve me. I'm quite content doing it all optically.

[Pere Casals]

BUT I am aware of certain digitally optimized RA4 papers distributed in the EU that were specifically tweaked for automated digital printers only.

Today RA-4 darkroom printing is nearly extinct, so RA4 papers you find are for digital light printers... what darkroom RA-4 paper remains for enlargers, say for portraiture ?

[Drew Wiley]

Pere, I did take the trouble to note a few of your posts on the parallel scanner thread, surmising how RA4 papers have been digitally optimized. Optical printing tends to be faster, though narrow-band additive RGB is slower than conventional YMC due to the significantly denser filtration. Lumen-wise its the same. But to my knowledge, there is no such thing as a true green laser diode yet. Red diodes pass a small amount of green. It's therefore easy to filter out the remaining green from red, but difficult to squeeze enough green out of the red diode itself after narrow-band filtration. Remember, I'm speaking about lasers here, not enlargers which ideally continuous spectrum halogen bulbs. So both Kodak and Fuji tweaked their papers for a bit more green sensitivity. Another obvious problem was the low-contrast blaah look of digital prints and the need to get a steeper curve down into black. So that problem got addressed. But all these papers are made in a range of both sheen and contrast level. Portrait papers tend to be low contrast, commercial C paper, higher contrast, and Fujiflex even higher, giving them better color too due to the steeper dye curves. My personal additive enlargers mimic the effect of RGB laser printers rather well; but a late high-end CMY colorhead like my Durst is just a tiny bit off. Older amateur colorheads are likely to be significantly different. But the cumulative color-balance shift in these current papers is not really a whole lot from what they were a couple decades ago. There are significant improvements in lightfastness and color accuracy; but the cc starting points per batch are only slightly different.

[Drew Wiley]

Sorry I missed your intermediate post, Pere; but you're quite wrong about that. Please re-read both of my posts of today. Most RA4 papers are darkroom superb, better than ever, even though they are dual-purpose, that is, for laser printers too. There is a separate category of mostly NARROW-ROLL RA4 papers intended for automated photofinishing equipment specifically. These products might somehow find their way into the hands of a darkroom worker making small prints, but are not marketed for that purpose. Maybe that's what some of your highly misinformed friends got ahold of. I don't know. But it's a great time to get into personal darkroom RA4 printing. It's fairly easy equipment wise, cost-effective (cheaper than premium b&w papers), and the color reproduction quality of both current CN film and RA4 papers is better than ever. Quite a few people are doing it. Otherwise, cut sheet would not still be available at all. Yet it is, at least up to 20x24 inch. There are also a lot of big commercial enlargers still in use worldwide. Some of the remaining commercial labs have both kinds of equipment, some only one or the other. Big high-end laser printers are very expensive, and require both an attached XY automated roll cutter as well feed directly into a big RA4 roller transport machine. A small operator like me can forego all of those hundreds of thousands of dollars of equipment expense making even fairly large prints in simple light-tight drums, yet achieve even better quality if one knows how to optimize these these procedures. None of this is even remotely extinct until RA4 paper itself is, which is not likely to happen anytime soon. Inkjet is more expensive and not always desirable esthetically. Parallel systems are likely to exist as long as I'm alive.

[Oren Grad]

what darkroom RA-4 paper remains for enlargers, say for portraiture ?

In case it's not clear to you from Drew's posts: Fujicolor Crystal Archive Type II paper, inexpensive and widely available in cut sheet sizes.

https://www.freestylephoto.biz/stati...ical-Specs.pdf

[Drew Wiley]

Yes, that's the typical cut sheet choice these days. Big width rolls are generally Super-C, similar but a somewhat thicker paper to resist creasing better.

[interneg]

Drew - I'd add that a lot of professional printers in Europe are using controlled negative base tint flash/ fog to control some of the higher saturation papers.

Pere - it is well known that in smaller enlargements, a grainier film may appear seemingly very slightly sharper than a significantly more fine grained one. Furthermore, if a film is meant for point and shoot cameras with fairly low MTF behaviour, maximum sharpness matters over granularity or outright resolution. For higher quality imaging, granularity and resolution are both much bigger concerns. High signal and low noise matter in ensuring optimal quality of image content - and noise is a destroyer of the useful resolution of fine detail, no matter how much you delude yourself with high contrast charts as a sole measure of resolution. Gold 100 has been strongly hinted at as being Gold 200 with a neutral dye added that improved MTF and colour, but the granularity remained the same as the faster film. Pro Image 100 may well be a professional variant of the same material. It certainly has very similar granularity and is recommended to use the same printing channel setup as Gold. It's got about the same granularity as Portra 800.

Observing a film with an optical microscope will tell you nothing of the sharpness or image content characteristics of a film. As you have been told before, microdensitometry of sets of 11 different exposures of slit targets (which de-facto gives a wide array of contrasts) via visible light and x-ray is how MTF is arrived at. Unless you can provide raw microdensitometric data to support your claims of Kodak's MTF data being misleading, you are the one making misleading statements. The big leap with the Portra evolutions seems to have been learning how to form dye clouds with high photographic density (thus microcontrast) and superb edge sharpness that don't form as tightly to the silver as previous generations, thus a lower granularity and higher sharpness. Overall, this leads to a higher perceived resolution at the contrasts that matter in real-world image making. What you are seeing through your microscope is largely irrelevant to the actual performance of the film in actual use.

[Pere Casals]

one of this is even remotely extinct until RA4 paper itself is, which is not likely to happen anytime soon. Inkjet is more expensive and not always desirable esthetically.

But we also have lightjets... this allows RA-4 gloss and cost, it allows digital edition of the image, and it allows proofing in the monitor: you waste no time or paper if the operator is good enough.

To me a sound RA-4 optic print has an impressive value, but hybrid color workflow is too easy and too powerful. A darkroom we are assembling will be optic RA-4 capable, but I'm skeptic about how much optic RA-4 we'll do.

Silver BW is different, output can be collectible LE-500 art, and it has an stronger artistic subculture.

In case it's not clear to you from Drew's posts: Fujicolor Crystal Archive Type II paper, inexpensive and widely available in cut sheet sizes.

https://www.freestylephoto.biz/stati...ical-Specs.pdf

Oren, yes, Crystal II is suitable for enlargers, but it's not a portraiture paper, it is a "More Vivid Color Reproduction" paper.

My guess is that current RA-4 paper usage with enlargers cannot allow production of papers that are not suitable for digital exposure, and digital printers want vivid color papers, those papers can do all in a lightjet, landscape and portraits, with the right adjustments in the digital images.

What you are seeing through your microscope is largely irrelevant to the actual performance of the film in actual use.

Film performance is irrelevant for the crafting of great images, but I wanted to know how color emulsions changed in their adaptation to the hybrid processing that is absolutely dominating color film post-processing since 20 years ago. And microscope inspection tells it.

I've little doubts about what happened in the 90s because I've inspected color films of all kinds at x800 yet, just let me post those images, that won't hurt... I need some two weeks...

Drew - I'd add that a lot of professional printers in Europe are using controlled negative base tint flash/ fog to control some of the higher saturation papers.

This is what it can be done, but a flash has not the same effect than a lower saturation paper, the lack of dedicated papers is reason to print with the lightjets.

[Drew Wiley]

Thanks for telling me that, Interneg. Flashing has side effects I don't particularly care for. I prefer unsharp masking when necessary. It's more work, but can be precisely targeted for either contrast increase or decrease, plus selective hue control. Most of the time that's only necessary with certain small originals like 6x7 or 6x9 going to significant enlargement. Most LF negs print just fine as is. Doing internegs from chromes is a much more complicated subject; but I'm doing some of that too, with exceptionally good results in most cases, though an inevitable bellyflop or two lies somewhere within the learning curve. My favorite paper isn't a paper at all, but the deluxe Fujiflex medium. It's expensive and available only in big rolls now. Resembles Cibachrome in look, but without the color reproduction idiosyncrasies.

[interneg]

Thanks for telling me that, Interneg. Flashing has side effects I don't particularly care for. I prefer unsharp masking when necessary. It's more work, but can be precisely targeted for either contrast increase or decrease, plus selective hue control. Most of the time that's only necessary with certain small originals like 6x7 or 6x9 going to significant enlargement. Most LF negs print just fine as is.

I'd agree that masks are far superior, though it's often a question of whether a client will pay for them. This is where printing for yourself has distinct advantages as you have the freedom to choose between the absolute ultimate best, & excellent enough for most reasonably fussy people!

. My favorite paper isn't a paper at all, but the deluxe Fujiflex medium. It's expensive and available only in big rolls now. Resembles Cibachrome in look, but without the color reproduction idiosyncrasies.

The one I'm interested in trying is the Fuji deep matte paper - never been a huge fan of the Ciba surface finish I must admit.