Chromira Print Color Degradation

[martiansea]

And as far as the amount of work involved, it often takes far more time to optimize a color print than to make an oil painting.

A skillful printer can't dial in a good color print in an afternoon and then churn out a stack of identical copies? That's news to me. And here I am thinking gum printing is labor intensive...

[Drew Wiley]

Depends on your definition of quality. A photofinisher can do it all by machine in seconds; but that's like breakfast at IHOP - nothing memorable unless you're barfing for the next three days.

Once in awhile I do get a hole-in-one print. But then there's the one that took thirteen sheets of 8x10 film of different types, for all the relevant masks up till the master printing internegative. And unlike gum printing, every single step has to be in precise register and completely clean. 13 steps is way more than most instances in my case, but the result was well worth it. Dye transfer printers would turn their nose up at me, however; some of them routinely used sixteen sheets of film per image, not counting the printing matrices. Sometimes what they got at the end was stunning, sometimes it was rather funky. A lot of work, either way.

At least I'm working with my hands. The best inkjet printers I know spend up to a week per image sitting on their butt to get the look they want; but the extra effort shows. They don't eat at IHOP either. Technique-wise, pick your poison. Sometimes it literally is poisonous, like some of the pigments Michelangelo's assistants had to grind by hand. I know my own share of painters with tremors and kidney failure due to smearing cadmium and lead oil colors with bare fingers, not to mention what mercury based cinnabar reds do to their disposition. I suspect inkjet printing would prematurely kill me with outright boredom. Tonite's TV programming will be bad enough.

[Michael R]

Now you’re trashing IHOP?? What next? Denny’s? Waffle House? Is no institution sacred?

Depends on your definition of quality. A photofinisher can do it all by machine in seconds; but that's like breakfast at IHOP - nothing memorable unless you're barfing for the next three days.

Once in awhile I do get a hole-in-one print. But then there's the one that took thirteen sheets of 8x10 film of different types, for all the relevant masks up till the master printing internegative. And unlike gum printing, every single step has to be in precise register and completely clean. 13 steps is way more than most instances in my case, but the result was well worth it. Dye transfer printers would turn their nose up at me, however; some of them routinely used sixteen sheets of film per image, not counting the printing matrices. Sometimes what they got at the end was stunning, sometimes it was rather funky. A lot of work, either way.

At least I'm working with my hands. The best inkjet printers I know spend up to a week per image sitting on their butt to get the look they want; but the extra effort shows. They don't eat at IHOP either. Technique-wise, pick your poison. Sometimes it literally is poisonous, like some of the pigments Michelangelo's assistants had to grind by hand. I know my own share of painters with tremors and kidney failure due to smearing cadmium and lead oil colors with bare fingers, not to mention what mercury based cinnabar reds do to their disposition. I suspect inkjet printing would prematurely kill me with outright boredom. Tonite's TV programming will be bad enough.

[pdmoylan]

Scratch buckwheat blueberry with high grade Canadian maple syrup for me. Nothing terribly digestible from those menus.

I don’t buy the multiple copy argument in valuing prints. Limited print runs, i.e. exclusive buyer rights should be a mitigator.

Great quality prints optimally expressing the taker’s vision are desirable and laudable but it’s not clear that it increases value per se.

Historians and market makers instruct what has value and Burtynsky and Gursky have risen above. The question remains if prints could last say 500 years would values improve (after taking core cpi into account)? Is it worth pursuing that objective?

Would the market change?

So if an original Gursky “C” print goes for $1MM with an expected 50 year life span, but new tech allows his prints to last 500 years, would there be a multiple increase in market value?

[Drew Wiley]

By the time a 500 year print process arrives, probably nobody will even remember who Gursky was. Besides, if the company claiming a 500 process arrives (and several already have), divide by ten for something realistically approximating the truth. The basic problem with those really huge prints is that they were made to be on conspicuous display, and that seems to come with abusive levels of UV in the lighting. So cut that 50 years down to about 15. Smart "investment"... yeah, real smart. But people with that kind of money don't seem to care. And speaking of "conspicuous", I suspect that "conspicuous consumption" is a pretty big factor too, just flaunting their wealth. I've certainly seen more than my fair share of that.

[Drew Wiley]

Michael - yeah, I had about 3 yrs of Microbiology back in school, but that was 50 years ago, and I forgot most of it.
But all I needed to know is when some co-worker couldn't show up to work for three days after eating at one of those fine dining franchises. It's always interesting to walk into a Denney's or IHOP and see those employee pictures on the wall behind the cashier, like Edward the chef, whose name is appropriately abbreviated on the plaque as E. Coli, along with the picture of the manager, E. Bola.

[bob carnie]

I think the lower general value of traditional photo prints is because of their relatively easy reproducibility, whereas a painting is considered unique. There are paintings that are valued in millions of dollars that were made with non-archival materials and fugitive pigments. As much as I like to talk up the multi-millennium lifespan of a gum print made with natural earth ochres, I know ultimately the only ones who really put high value on such things are museum conservators.

Well about 9 years ago I would have agreed with the statement. (I know ultimately the only ones who really put high value on such things are museum conservators.)

But today after 9 years of working on tri colour over palladium and cyanotype I can honestly say that 40-50 % of my companies sales are in these types of prints and the work that is required to do so.

I am a small printing shop in Toronto , I have been printing professionally for others since 1976 and now I see a complete movement to the types of prints that I specialize in. Enough new work in this direction to be training two young women to take over the business and run it.

I am working on estates, private collections and young photographers work that may not as PERFECT as what I could have done on my Lambda using C print or even my inkjet machine. But it seems a large portion of my clients
are buying into this type of work. We are working daily on Silver Gelatin portfolios, now when was the last time you walked into a lab that is doing that, if not silver we are making enlarged negatives for contact printing on other alt process.
We inkjet as well and since I work in both inkjet and alt prints I have taken a neutral position on which is better , worse , sharper bla bla bla.

I let the client decide what they want to do with their images and I make the print. I get asked to do enlarger prints in silver all the time, I will do so only if the budget will allow me too. Back in the day I had 8 enlargers set up for large silver jobs and we could
get through a show. The last show I did like this was about 4 years ago and it was a Vivian Maier show . for that project I used two enlargers and it took me 15 - 20 days to do so. It was a labour of love to be working on her negatives and I was really lucky
to have had the chance to do so.
Today I only have 1- 11 x14 Devere which is used each week for silver contacts and 1- 5 x7 Devere in case another wonderful commission comes in the lab that requires silver prints from original negs.

Back to Chromira and Lambda Cprints, I have spent my whole career making colour C prints up until 2013 when the stink of the machine downstairs and the inability to find old school technicians to fix the damm machine when it inevitably broke down- I finally dropped the service and went completely to inkjet.
But I haveto admit I kept my Lambda in the faint hope that as Drew points out some breakthrough in RA4 tech happened where I could go back to C print, I absolutely love the look of a well crafted Chromira or Lambda print no doubt about it, the problem these prints fade either in
Dark Storage as the OP points out or in UV light conditions. It would make me a happy man to make these prints again, but not until some kind of staggering improvement Fuji comes up with.

[bob carnie]

Scratch buckwheat blueberry with high grade Canadian maple syrup for me. Nothing terribly digestible from those menus.

I don’t buy the multiple copy argument in valuing prints. Limited print runs, i.e. exclusive buyer rights should be a mitigator.

Great quality prints optimally expressing the taker’s vision are desirable and laudable but it’s not clear that it increases value per se.

Historians and market makers instruct what has value and Burtynsky and Gursky have risen above. The question remains if prints could last say 500 years would values improve (after taking core cpi into account)? Is it worth pursuing that objective?

Would the market change?

So if an original Gursky “C” print goes for $1MM with an expected 50 year life span, but new tech allows his prints to last 500 years, would there be a multiple increase in market value?

Go to the secondary market to find the true value of the artist you mention, I think you will be surprised.

[bob carnie]

A lot of people get confused with the photographic art market, myself included .

But here is my small take on this topic , I could write pages and pages about this topic buy why bore you fine folks.

A- I call one side the Contemporary Crowd- this includes most of the large C print , Inkjet, Ciba crowd. The artists spend hundreds of thousands of dollars over a 15 - 20 year period
promoting themselves to the point that their work sells for minimum 15 k per print, when they reach this point, the Banks, Insurance Companies, Govt Agency's buy into their story
and purchase their work .. it hangs in prominent places and the goal is to show their audience that they the buyer are , Sophisticated , Successful Worthy of working with. These large works
hang for years and at the end of their life expectancy are put in storage and it the is after 30 years the print is probably completely faded... But it has done its job and I get this type of market.

B - I call the second side the Classic Crowd - this includes museums, collectors , investors who purchase this work to eventually flip. This work is usually silver, Pt Pd or now some type of Alternative Print
process. The Artists spend much less time promoting themselves and usually let a gallery do this for them, I would say these are the Larry Towells, Jerry Uellsman , Sara Moon, Irving Penn, Lillian Bassman of this world.
Their work if good and desirable only goes up in price and is considered precious. Moonrise over Lilly Pond by Steichen fetched over 3 million dollars.

Both crowds IMO are valid and worthy.

As a print maker I work in both A and B Crowd and am under no circumstances will I trick a client to believe one is better than the other, Its all a matter of perspective on how you feel about photography
and where you currently fall into place.


I hope I have not offended anyone with this very simple breakdown of how I see the photo art market.

[Michael R]

I really think the longevity thing is a red herring. I think a lot of photographers try hard to convince themselves photographic prints would be worth a lot more to people if they lasted 500 years, but in my opinion it has little to do with that. With perhaps a few exceptions, as works of art great photography will never have anywhere near the value of great paintings or drawings.

Scratch buckwheat blueberry with high grade Canadian maple syrup for me. Nothing terribly digestible from those menus.

I don’t buy the multiple copy argument in valuing prints. Limited print runs, i.e. exclusive buyer rights should be a mitigator.

Great quality prints optimally expressing the taker’s vision are desirable and laudable but it’s not clear that it increases value per se.

Historians and market makers instruct what has value and Burtynsky and Gursky have risen above. The question remains if prints could last say 500 years would values improve (after taking core cpi into account)? Is it worth pursuing that objective?

Would the market change?

So if an original Gursky “C” print goes for $1MM with an expected 50 year life span, but new tech allows his prints to last 500 years, would there be a multiple increase in market value?