Any film restoration experts here that can confirm if E6 is more archival than C-41?

[Drew Wiley]

Michael, if someone ordered something in advance, rather than during a gallery sale, and they were in the general area, I would in fact visit their display premises with a lux and color temp meter and print for that specific display setting. And there would be an advance discussion about what kind of lighting and climate control was best for the life of the print. Otherwise, I had brochures made up, intended to be handed out with any sale of my prints by another contracted party, i.e., gallery agent.
But all that was a long time ago.

I was near Bakersfield just a few days ago. Very specific timing. A big storm was finally headed in. I was way back in the wildlife refuge up on a ridge, with the wind howling all night and my truck shaking. That cleared the air out over at least the entire San Joaquin Valley and coastal ranges, plus the Sierra, and I followed the beautiful light and clouds back home, stopping for my hoped-for shots of blossoming almond groves on quieter farm roads headed north. Some of the tiny side roads toward Bakersfield, Coalinga, etc had spectacular early wildflower patterns - rich tapestries of color on various exposed earthtone cliffs and hills - exactly what I was also looking for. But due to the ongoing extreme drought overall, it's unlikely there will be a "superbloom" later in the season in that area.

The amount of officially protected land south and west of the "Armpit of the West" (Bakersfield) has dramatically increased recently by hundreds of thousands of acres, some accessible to the public, some off limits due to endangered condors etc. The Carrizo Plain refuge itself is over forty miles long, and totally uninhabited except for a wildlife officer residence. Wonderful areas in winter and spring, but not under hot or smoggy conditions. East of the "armpit" are the great canyons of the Kaweah and Kern Rivers, Sequoia National Park, and the highest mountains in the contiguous US. But the smog rises so high from the Central Valley below that it's been a serious factor stressing the giant sequoias and other trees, and no doubt contributed to the catastrophic loss of many of them in last autumn's fires.

I got a few nice 4x5 shot ahead of the storm, but once it arrived, had to resort to MF gear due to either the wind or need of an especially long tele. Coldest days of the year so far a couple days ago, ironically just a few days after three days in a row of record Feb heat.

[Drew Wiley]

Anyway, continuing, Michael, now that you made the jest ... Yes, I did in fact calibrate color print settings with long-term performance, especially in commercial settings. It was second nature to me. I did that with architectural color consultation all along. Color schemes would be drawn up with specific matched ratios of fading, so that everything would continue to look relatively good until scheduled cyclic repainting for the whole. It took a very specific understanding of pigments, and I don't know anyone else who did it that manner. That's why most of my jobs came from architects and other clients who were disappointed with previous "color experts". I factored in all kinds of variables they didn't - color temp of lighting per time of day, coordination of color with seasonal variations in surrounding fields if rural, fade rate of each component relative to all the others. Fun and challenging, excellent side pay. But too much driving, even though I was reimbursed for my mileage and time too. Lots of this involved big fancy Victorians and otherwise important historical buildings.

[826257]

[may be of interest... though not a story of my lost aunt's lost cat]
https://ccp.arizona.edu/events/3643-...ervation-trees

[oh gee, seems you missed that. maybe I'll talk about my time at the doorstore]

[Tin Can]

Thank you!

Now we've got all the inkjet myth nonsense and its alleged pigments. Well, every painter with an ounce of training knows that even if these were in fact totally pigment based (which they're not), not all pigments are created equal, no by a long shot. If you want truly permanent colorants, fly to the surface of Mars and collect the ones already UV-proven. Of course, you'll be limited to a rather limited palette of oxides, and probably none of those will fit through tiny inkjet nozzles. Those kind of oxides barely fit through house paint colorant machine nozzles. But if we can't rely on any photographic colorants lasting forever, we can take solace in the fact that at least one thing will remain - the mythology itself, and probably associated deceptive marketing too.

Drew

I have moved my complete personal printing colour and black and white to Pt Pd with gum bichromate tones on top - to full colour gum bichromate over palladium using The Wet Print pigments that are considered quite LF with a Blue Wool Scale of 8. I also do inkjet prints for contemporary art projects.

Attachment 225057 - this is the brand new Cone Editions LED unit, we retrofitted it above our 33x 44 inch vacuum press. It has brought our exposures on large gums which are shown below from 25 min to 1.2 min.

Attachment 225058- This is Michelle Huisiman from Vancouver Canada, working in my dim room last month and that is a tri colour gum over Palladium, and as you can see she is getting pretty damm good results


For my personal work I also do tri colours over pd and also a lot of multiple negative tonal shifts over palladium. Attachment 225059


We are very interested in any and all research in pigment structure and its Light Fastness, Colour Fidelity, light transmission capabilities ( I have been going down this wormhole for over 10 years and have been lucky enough to meet some very good mentors along the way like Sandy King, Ron Reeder . I can tell you that our working solutions (coating solution) would never make it through any printing heads that I am aware of but I do believe some very interesting methods of spray heads tied into flat bed tables will be incorporated in the coming future, as well a lot of research into various pigments, like earth colours, and even Drew space colours.

We are now looking at UV printers that allow us to print on any surface, I am quite interested in a few of the possibilities .. for example
-copper plates where we can print our images in register and take these plates off the printer and etch them for single and multiple colour
-Currently we use Epson printer to make single separation negatives that we then have to take to a stripping table and join together for multiple colour work. (PIA)
These units can be adapted with registration bars and using their sophisticated xy positioning one can make a set of 4 films already pre punched. ( YA )
- Ink jet prints on any type of material that allow the UV radiation to harden the surface , so that its scratch resistant with protective UV coatings. This will be of interest
to some of my clients that do extremely large prints to avoid glazing and mounting a substrate to diabond for example. In a museum or large gallery presentation this amounts to
over 700 $ per image which when added up in a 30 print showing is quite astounding amount of savings.
These units can be adapted with bright minds over the next few years to be able to do multiple coat , registered coatings for almost any application, and I hope to see the day where I am using
the best ground stone with simple process.

[826257]

[from the obvious AI: not all vegetables are the same]

[ from the dormouse: "I see we have the Mayor here" ]
& yes, I was sitting in the booth opposite. I could hear the entire exchange: august 22, 5:20 - 5:40. St. Regis. Not one word about Colorama, since Mr. *` never worked on them}

[Duolab123]

Now we've got all the inkjet myth nonsense and its alleged pigments. Well, every painter with an ounce of training knows that even if these were in fact totally pigment based (which they're not), not all pigments are created equal, no by a long shot. If you want truly permanent colorants, fly to the surface of Mars and collect the ones already UV-proven. Of course, you'll be limited to a rather limited palette of oxides, and probably none of those will fit through tiny inkjet nozzles. Those kind of oxides barely fit through house paint colorant machine nozzles. But if we can't rely on any photographic colorants lasting forever, we can take solace in the fact that at least one thing will remain - the mythology itself, and probably associated deceptive marketing too.

Drew

I have moved my complete personal printing colour and black and white to Pt Pd with gum bichromate tones on top - to full colour gum bichromate over palladium using The Wet Print pigments that are considered quite LF with a Blue Wool Scale of 8. I also do inkjet prints for contemporary art projects.

Attachment 225057 - this is the brand new Cone Editions LED unit, we retrofitted it above our 33x 44 inch vacuum press. It has brought our exposures on large gums which are shown below from 25 min to 1.2 min.

Attachment 225058- This is Michelle Huisiman from Vancouver Canada, working in my dim room last month and that is a tri colour gum over Palladium, and as you can see she is getting pretty damm good results


For my personal work I also do tri colours over pd and also a lot of multiple negative tonal shifts over palladium. Attachment 225059


We are very interested in any and all research in pigment structure and its Light Fastness, Colour Fidelity, light transmission capabilities ( I have been going down this wormhole for over 10 years and have been lucky enough to meet some very good mentors along the way like Sandy King, Ron Reeder . I can tell you that our working solutions (coating solution) would never make it through any printing heads that I am aware of but I do believe some very interesting methods of spray heads tied into flat bed tables will be incorporated in the coming future, as well a lot of research into various pigments, like earth colours, and even Drew space colours.

We are now looking at UV printers that allow us to print on any surface, I am quite interested in a few of the possibilities .. for example
-copper plates where we can print our images in register and take these plates off the printer and etch them for single and multiple colour
-Currently we use Epson printer to make single separation negatives that we then have to take to a stripping table and join together for multiple colour work. (PIA)
These units can be adapted with registration bars and using their sophisticated xy positioning one can make a set of 4 films already pre punched. ( YA )
- Ink jet prints on any type of material that allow the UV radiation to harden the surface , so that its scratch resistant with protective UV coatings. This will be of interest
to some of my clients that do extremely large prints to avoid glazing and mounting a substrate to diabond for example. In a museum or large gallery presentation this amounts to
over 700 $ per image which when added up in a 30 print showing is quite astounding amount of savings.
These units can be adapted with bright minds over the next few years to be able to do multiple coat , registered coatings for almost any application, and I hope to see the day where I am using
the best ground stone with simple process.

Wow, amazing work

[Certain Exposures]

I haven't abandoned this thread. I'm just reading it slowly. Here's a video I found that's somewhat related to the subject. This photographer talks about his experience with Kodachrome and shows scans of old slides. It is interesting to see how well the colors held up. I wish he showed some on a light table:

[BrianShaw]

Based on the Ektachrome slides I inherited, Kodak made a marked improvement in color stability between 1961 and mid-1962. These images were taken with the same camera and stored under the same conditions.

Attachment 225033 Attachment 225034

Is that Mentryville/Pico Canyon? I was there about 10 years ago and only the frame is still existing. Nice family photo!

[EarlJam]

Is that Mentryville/Pico Canyon? I was there about 10 years ago and only the frame is still existing. Nice family photo!

Farther north. It's a tailing wheel near Jackson, off Hwy 49. We were on a tour of the Gold Rush country. I don't remember where the faded image was taken and my dad was not one to write notes on the slide frames.

[Drew Wiley]

I lived at the southern end of the gold belt. Lots of old mines and equipment around, plus a working mine down the road. The man who mined it lived in a tiny wooden shack with big holes in the walls, rats in there, sleeping on a decomposing mattress with a single old blanket. He worked his mine just enough to pay property taxes and keep himself drunken the rest of the time; then when he died, his alienated son discovered he had just inherited over 20,000 acres. I've been over Hwy 49 countless times, but preferred to branch off it onto quieter side roads. It amazes me how people zoom past all of that on the way to Yosemite, yet don't even see what to me is the real scenery, especially in Spring. Sadly, quite a few of the towns have become suburbanized.

Shot em all in that region - Kodachrome early on, plus pre-E6 Agfachrome slides, then, in sheet film, all the way from Ekta 64 into all the Fujichromes, then finally back to Ekta when E100G started being made on superior polyester base. Cibachrome went extinct, and I switched to color neg film instead, which dramatically improved in the interim.