RA-4/color darkroom printing in 2021

[bob carnie]

Bob, you might be surprised to learn that the pigments used in inkjet may overlap significantly with the kind of pigments that you're using for gum bichromate. Evidently I don't know which pigments you're using specifically, but let me give an example: PB15:3 is a popular choice for Cyan regardless of (pigment) process. Calvin Grier uses it for gum and color carbon; I'm using it for my feeble attempts at color carbon presently myself. And guess what? It's the go-to cyan pigment of the inkjet industry. Same story with quinacridone magenta, PR122. With yellow, there's a bit more choice, but again you end up with the same kind of options, such as the family of benzimidazolone yellows (PY154 for instance).

Keep in mind that pigments don't equate 'crushed rocks'. Only very few people actually work with naturally occurring pigments in printing processes. The vast majority of pigment use, also in fine art printing (painting may be different) consists of synthetic pigments. The degree of milling, i.e. particle size, of course does play a role in dispersal stability and as a result as a cause of nozzle clogging etc. in printers - or sedimentation in carbon glop as it outgasses over a period of an hour or more.

Long story short - there's not necessarily a reason to be more concerned about inkjet pigment stability than about gum bichromate pigment stability. Of course, it all depends on the specific pigments used and environmental conditions. In your position, I'd be in touch (if you aren't already) with the ink supplier and try to obtain good information about the actual pigments used in the inks you consume. You're not the average home or office users and you have valid reasons to know a couple of things that they shield off from other parties. Probably not much luck at Epson, but I bet businesses like InkjetMall would be willing to have a chat and share their views on pigment selection and its myriad ins and outs.

PS: I have no hopes for an improved, more archival RA4 dye set. I don't think anyone is putting in the R&D to make this happen. While current volumes in RA4 consumables may still be significant, my argument remains that other processes will take over from RA4 for very much the same reasons you abandoned it. Firms like Fuji are perfectly aware of this and I'd be highly surprised if they put in any more effort than that needed to milk out the business as it is.

Sadly I think you are right about the Fuji situation , I have hope though for the silver gelatin BW business, there seems to be a huge resurgence and I know that I can get Ortho 25 film in 30inch by 100 ft rolls from two sources to make silver negatives off my Lambda, the paper seems to be set on Galerie grade 4, but I do know that Agfa Classic works on a Lambda from personal printing in 2002 , apparently Adox is the current holder of this patent and one of their papers is this emulsion.

regarding the pigment issue, I kind of think of the chocolate chip cookie . for my gum prints the chip is saturated with chocolate whereas the inkjets have some chocolate but its hard to find.. Remember the scene in Casino when DeNiro goes into the kitchen complaining about the dispersion of berries in the cupcakes.

Regarding Manufacturers , I do not trust them to give me any real info, I had one of the last production model Cibachrome machines that were ever made, a thing of beauty I must say, at that time Ilford was giving us stickers with a 200year
promise on not fading.. I was dubious as dye prints of any kind were fading at an alarming rate and Wilhelm just released his book.

[koraks]

Can't and won't argue with you on the pigment loading issue, Bob. Firstly, you're the master here, especially when it comes to gum, secondly, even though my experience so far with color carbon is limited, it does suggest you're simply right. There's no way inkjet can handle with the pigment loads that gum or carbon will manage with relative ease. The range of compatible pigments is way larger than with inkjet. With gum it's perfectly feasible to load up an emulsion with a pigment with a poor tinting strength and/or coarse grind and still get a good saturation and feasible printing mechanics. Inkjet wouldn't stand a fighting chance. That alone has an appeal to it.

Ah, inkjet. I never enjoyed it much and currently in my color carbon experiments, it's the single one thing that annoys me the most. I'm spending too much time to my liking ironing out issues that stem directly or indirectly from the peculiarities of (ab)using an inkjet printer for something it wasn't meant to do in the first place. Pizza wheels, clogged nozzles, media incompatibility with carbon tissue - you name it. Yes, there are alternatives, but realistically, I'm stuck with inkjet so I'll have to deal with it or give up. Not yet ready to do the latter, hah!

[bob carnie]

Can't and won't argue with you on the pigment loading issue, Bob. Firstly, you're the master here, especially when it comes to gum, secondly, even though my experience so far with color carbon is limited, it does suggest you're simply right. There's no way inkjet can handle with the pigment loads that gum or carbon will manage with relative ease. The range of compatible pigments is way larger than with inkjet. With gum it's perfectly feasible to load up an emulsion with a pigment with a poor tinting strength and/or coarse grind and still get a good saturation and feasible printing mechanics. Inkjet wouldn't stand a fighting chance. That alone has an appeal to it.

Ah, inkjet. I never enjoyed it much and currently in my color carbon experiments, it's the single one thing that annoys me the most. I'm spending too much time to my liking ironing out issues that stem directly or indirectly from the peculiarities of (ab)using an inkjet printer for something it wasn't meant to do in the first place. Pizza wheels, clogged nozzles, media incompatibility with carbon tissue - you name it. Yes, there are alternatives, but realistically, I'm stuck with inkjet so I'll have to deal with it or give up. Not yet ready to do the latter, hah!

hi Koraks

I moved to Gum after about 9 years of research, I did go down the carbon route, one of my friends is John Bentley who does amazing work, and I am on quite friendly terms with Calvin, I helped him during his writing of the gum
book by giving my 2 cents on each chapter. I found carbon to be too Technical , to make a good print with too many steps to create a fantastic print. With gum the application is directly on the paper which I like and I have learned tricks to make the pigment hold within 8 minutes of exposure in warm water and frankly I love the process. The pigments are the same as carbon just different methodology.

Regarding gum I think the simple fact that UV light hardens gum which then if the pigments are transparent are held in mass in place to then mix with subsequent layers of cmyk pigments. Most people think that Gum Bichromate printing
is a photographic change like lets say silver or pt pd, but in fact it goes back to the Shroud of Turin thinking of the tannin hardening effect harden and hold things in place, I love Gordon Hutchings for pointing this out in his groundbreaking book on Pyro and I believe Gum printing is the closest thing to PMK process in our bag of tricks.
Sometimes the most simplest of reactions is overlooked and I can say all my thoughts of PMK superiority is based on the hardening of the gelatin, as well the wash on (gum and pigment) and wash off (unwanted gum pigment) with warm water is really , really overlooked by the printing world at large.


I will say this , there is nothing wrong with inkjet, its incredible and I use it every day for my clients, I have nothing but amazement with this technology and have an Epson and Canon printer.
but the hands on approach to gum (after all the PS separations, film output , paper prep and film stripping ) is done well its simply magical and I love the fact that I can change the look of a print very simply, or correct a colour very simply, and then the added bonus of being able to retouch the print with the same pigments.

My photography is all based on the final print, taking of the image for me is basically inventory capture, then the magic starts with film solarization via chemicals, then scanning, then PS hue , curve flipping , and exclusion techniques to create various outcomes. The possibilities are quite endless and that is where I place myself, a printmaker, not a photographer.

Today we are finishing up my new website, the one listed here has been dead for about 12 years, I finally have enough images in different categories to put out in a webplatform. I will post in on this forum within the month and change my address below.

[Drew Wiley]

Koraks - there is actually quite a disparity between the colorants used in inkjet (which are only partially actual pigments) and the much wider range potentially available for true assembly style pigment printing. For one thing, those colorants have to pass through really tiny nozzles; for another, they have to be consistently programmable. That fact inherently disqualifies most pigments.
When you're talking about quinacridone reds, nearly all cadmium-free true yellows, etc, those are actually lakes - inert pigment particles dyed with organic dyes. How well will they hold up over time and UV? Complex topic; and I certainly don't trust marketing claims dependent at best on brief accelerated-aging torture tests. I have way too much background with pigments myself to be swayed by that kind of talk. It all depends on the many many variables of display and storage, climate, etc. Then you've got potential substrate issues, with so many options, yet so little comparative study.

Yet the biggest issue in this respect with inkjet is that there are just so many different inks involved that they cannot be created equal, and will most certainly age at differential rates from one another, and therefore the prints colors will shift relative to one another. With the basic CMYK options of true carbon or carbro, that issue can be hypothetically balanced better; but there still remains the issue of best color balance to begin with, compatability to given techniquel, etc. What Bob is doing with gum is a somewhat different story because he can select pigments for certain creative applications rather than strict "realistic" color usage. NOBODY can afford to work with the very highest quality natural pigments like Michelangelo did. The highest grades of mineral azure blue and chrysolite green are more expensive per ounce than gold. Some of those things are toxic too, especially cinnabar reds. Cadmium yellow can be coated with clear titanium via vacuum deposition, making it physiologically inert; but there are now huge legal hurdles to acquiring and handling it in the necessary volume to make that commercially realistic.

In the meantime, C-prints have dramatically improved with respect to both repro characteristics and display permanence, especially from Fuji. And I'm simply not going to be around long enough to either see mine fade or give any authoritative answer to the permanence question based on my own experience. I have seen true pigment prints fail, not only due to fading, but inter-layer bonding failure. I've seen the very best of artist pigments fade in paintings over time due to sunlight exposure. Very few colorants survive UV well, although there's an abundant source for them on the surface of Mars. One more reason to send spacecraft there, if you especially like the color pallet of yellow ochre and red oxide. Anything else, with a few exceptions - don't claim it is truly permanent; nothing is.

[koraks]

Thanks once more Bob, your words are inspiring, they really are. I think I spotted your name in Calvin's Gum book. I read it and enjoyed it, and I apply many of the concepts in there to my color carbon journey.

Yes, carbon is technical, especially color carbon. There's little room for error, you can't just overlay another layer to fix a color or contrast issue - you get one go at one print, it takes a lot of time and if it's not as intended, you get to do it all over again. And again. It's also decidedly less hands on than gum, agreed. Back when I tried my hand at gum, I knew even less than I do today and I guess I wast too impatient for it. Maybe I'll give it another go, but first I want to see how far I can get on the color carbon front. Despite its being so technical, or perhaps thanks to it, it also has a somewhat clinical look while remaining firmly in the hand-made/analog corner, if you know what I mean.

Your comment on being a printer more than a photographer resonates strongly with me. I like to press the button alright, and I sure enjoy the process of imagemaking from start to end. But printing is quite another thing; we get to play with paper and colorants! This is also what drives me to processes like color carbon; color is essential to me and I do quite a bit of RA4 printing, but the one thing that I don't quite like with RA4 is the paper base. Having access to such a wide range of interesting textures, weights, surface finishes in the etching, watercolor and general printmaking corners has always been tantalizing for me. To be able to combine that with color, somehow, is just magic. Carbon and gum are candidates; I briefly tried my hand at photopolymer intaglio, but ended up abandoning it and selling off the etching press. I never did any color with it (apart from toned B&W); I decided a like a photochemical process more than a photomechanical one.

Very much looking forward to the website! I noticed the recent YT videos already, good job!

[Drew Wiley]

Koraks - probably not the direction you personally want to go, but there is an RA4 option to paper-based; and that's Fujiflex Supergloss, probably their very highest quality product per both hue gamut and current permanence. Great for those who wish for the ole Cibachrome look, but even better in certain respects. "Texture" it ain't.

And Bob - I've got many Ciba prints going back to its formal inception, and not any have noticeably faded at all except those which were displayed in direct sunlight (or hypothetically displayed in other high-UV lighting, which I've never personally used). They look like they were made yesterday. Even the works of many famous painters has faded miserably due to improper lighting. Of course, anyone talking 200 years is spinning unproven BS. Ask them to reply back after another 200 years to get the truth.

[koraks]

Drew, thanks for your posts and sorry I overlooked your prior one. I agree with what you've said and indeed it's what I also realized from my own research and connecting the dots. I'm also aware of Fujiflex, and while I'd love to print on it, I'm afraid it's just too impractical given the roll sizes. I print small, having to deal with 50cm and bigger rolls would create serious logistical problems in my small workspace.
Besides, I really like paper. As in real, fibrous paper. It's not a technical or even an objective preference. I think that for mechanical reasons, RA4 from my hands would probably be more archival than anything I can cobble together with another process, even if their pigments may (or may not!) be more stable. Hence the carbon adventure, and who knows a gum adventure sometime soon as well.

Anyway, keep your thoughts coming. There's just too much knowledge out there that will fade unless we talk about it.

PS: concerning the quinacridone etc - yes, I'm aware they're really dyes clumped to a carrier, and that this raises concerns. It seems that in the world of pigments, you can have high chroma, or good stability, but it's rare to have both. Drew, if you were pressed to come up with a practical, affordable CMY set, what would it be? Out of curiosity - for now, I'll stick with pb15:3, pr122 and py150 or py154 and see if I can get a halfway decent print with those.

[Drew Wiley]

I have a specific answer, but not the product numbers off the top of my head. They are ideal in the sense of being the finest ground available, making them reasonably transparent in use, and already dispersed in industrial volumes rather than art store pricing; probably way better batch control too, since the batch volumes are comparatively huge. True water based dispersal. Gennex is the R&D brand. Distributed in quart containers. I don't know about EU availability. There is a decently lightfast quinacridone magenta lake. Two yellows to choose from, the brighter being less suitable in terms of permanence, but brighter, and at least far better than Hansa yellow; nontoxic (no cadmium). Process cyan requires a blend of their Thalo Green and Thalo Blue at an approximate ratio of 3:1 as I recall, and is a little less transparent than the others, so might best serve as the base layer to the final.

If you need a K printer, their product is a mineral black with a slightly green bias, so should only be used in high strength for the deepest shadows, and not toned down to gray. Not a perfect set in terms of ideal CMY purity, but what is? - and it's way way better in terms of both permanence and chromaticity than the classic old Chromium oxide, Cadmium Yellow, Alizaron Crimson combination, where only the yellow was reasonably on point. Note that these are architectural paint pigments, so well tested for outdoor sunlight. A five or ten year lifespan in an architectural yellow before showing signs of significant fading are like a century for an indoor art piece protected from UV. Just a relative comparison; so no, I'm not making any marketing predictions myself. I do have mountains of personal experience with these, however, including the hypothetical process set I just mentioned, having tested it for transparency and color wheel compatibility, and easy dispersal, but not with actual carbon printing.

Both me and my prime EU contact retired not long after I checked up on the advances in truly permanent nano-pigment R&D. No process set on the horizon there yet, however, but maybe a decent process cyan, but only if you can afford a minimum order of it in metric tons. Otherwise, one waits for leftovers from some giant automotive or ship paint application. Don't hold your breath. What might show up is some breakthrough exception to the EU rules, allowing Cad yellow to be titanium coated in bulk, making it commercially viable. I haven't followed through on that question.