Does a Color Analyzer help with Printing?

[Stephen Willard]

I am considering purchasing a color analyzer to help me with my RA-4 printing. I shoot Kodak Portra 160 VC color negative sheet film in sizes 4x5, 5x7, and 4x10. I print with the Fujimoto CP-51 roller transport processor using RA-4 chemistry. Many times it can take a lot of test prints to find the correct color balance and correct exposure. I am hoping that the JOBO Colorline 7000 will save me time and money.

Has anybody had any experiences with color analyzers? Has anybody every used the JOBO Colorline 7000?

Any feed back would be appreciated.

[Nick_3536]

I use the older Colorstar 3000. Allegedly the 7000 is improved in some ways over my 3000. The analyzer can find exposure and colour balance on the first go for the vast majority of prints. You can then tweak it a little if you feel like. Most of the time I don't even do that.

It's possible to fool the analyzer but you quickly learn to know the situations. If you have a negative that's is mostly yellow you try and find non yellow spots to analzye. I hope that makes sense.

[Juergen Sattler]

Nick, how hard was it to calibrate the Colorstar - I assume there needs to be calibration for the film and paper combinations you use. I am wondering if I should get on eof those, but want to make sure it is practical and not just another toy that takes up space.

[Nick_3536]

You place a grey negative in the enlarger. Set the enlarger up to whatever the intial filter pack is for the paper. Make an intial test print. Process it with your chemicals. You then cut that print into a strip about 1" wide. Place it on the probe and hit a few buttons on the analyzer. The analyzer checks the result and recalibrates itself. You then go back and make a new test print. The process continues until you get the thing calibrated. It's harder to explain then to do.

[Nick_3536]

BTW you just calibrate the paper and chemical set. Doesn't seem to matter with film changes.

[Juergen Sattler]

Thanks Nick, very helpful information!

[Stephen Willard]

Thanks for your comments gentleman. My motive is not so much to save money, but more importantly, to save time. It looks like a good analyzer is the ticket.