Color printing?

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Overconfidence

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So my university was planning on throwing away all of its darkroom stuff, and it turns out they have a decent color enlarger that I could take. I also have a friend who has a whole bunch of RA-4 paper lying around. Apparently the chemicals are only about $50 for a set (and it gets cheaper if you want to replenish it?), so it wouldn't be that huge of an investment.

Does anyone have any particular experience with printing in color? Is it worth it? Maybe just for fun? Anything in particular I should know?

Thanks!
 
Having printed MUCH color professionally, my opinion is that for a hobbyist it often isn't worth the trouble or expense. The issue is that controls for color consistency are much more stringent - temperature, chemical balance, etc. Using your chemicals as one-shot will help with this a fair bit. If you can reliably control your water bath to temper the chemicals you should give it a try to see if it is for you.

My advice is to tightly control chemical temps, get your print density correct before you color correct, and finally, do not "creep" on color corrections too much. Be bold and make a large swing. The difference between green and cyan can be hard to see when you're only 10 units away but simple when its 30.

If you find it is something you want to do, get a color analyzer if one is not included in your darkroom set up. If it is, then choose a representative negative and calibrate your analyzer to that. Then get your density right by using the same exposure time and using the red channel to set your lens aperture. Use the yellow and blue channels to balance the color.

By representative negative, I mean choose one that has flesh tones if you are printing pictures of people. Concrete if you are shooting architecturals, or grass/rock faces if you are doing landscapes. By using a control image you stand a much better chance of getting good prints earlier in your darkroom session.
 
Ah okay. I'll have to see what I've got and then go from there, but I'll keep all that in mind.

As a completely unrelated side note, would you know anything about printing/enlarging slides? The same guy's got a bunch of old powdered chemicals for it, but he didn't really know much else about it.

We also found some really old Ektachrome 200 and (I think?) FP4+ in bulkloaders. Would it be work rolling it up and seeing if any pictures come out of it? There's also an unlabeled bulkloader that I believe has some film in it (it's heavy?) but there's no label. Any suggestions on ID'ing that?
 
I used to print a lot of colour in past years, but finally got tired of working in almost total darkness. Used the Agfa system and a stainless tray (canoe) floating in a temperature controlled water bath. Made use of an analyzer to zero in on settings then final adjustments by viewing the test print through a special set of Kodak filters made for this purpose. I liked the Agfa paper because you could determine colour balance while it was still wet, Kodak stuff needed to dry as it was blueish while wet. Too bad Agfa paper has gone the way of the Dodo, it was good stuff.
Another good idea with colour is a voltage regulator for the enlarger, any slight change in voltage changes the lamp temperature and light colour.

Now a days I send colour stuff to a lab that does reasonable work and just process B&W.

Glenn
 
I print color. I use the new type of RA-4 chemistry (by Fotospeed- http://www.freestylephoto.biz/sc_prod.php?cat_id=1004&pid=1000000799) which doesn't need such careful temperature controls, and find it quite easy.

I have a colorhead, and use the old viewing filters. I hadn't printed color in over 20 years when I thought I'd give this a go- I was very surprised at how easy it was. Much cheaper than getting 810 prints made anywhere, and these look better than what I get from my local minilab by a long shot.

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I use my Saunders 67 LPL enlarger to print BW fibre prints and leave the color & slides to my desktop scanner/printer. I got my enlarger from a local community college and it was mostly new -- added a Nikkor 50/2.8 lens to it. I never learned to color print -- always wanted to tho -- but with all the desktop tools available today I went digital in color work.
 
RA-4 is fun and not too hard at all. I do my own at our universitys darkroom. The results are great and you get to do it yourself, which is exciting. We also do Ilfochrome but that is a bit slower and so far not that easy and enjoyable. Also a bit more expensive. RA-4 is actually quite cheap.

I recommend trying. Getting analog prints from colour films means usually you have to do it yourself. I'd say the digital (scan-)prints dont have the same look in them.
 
RA-4 at home is totally worth it, but it is slower than printing B&W. I have a Vivitar VI with a dichro head that cost me nothing, and a set of Unicolor drums. I can get Kodak chems and papers at my local photo store without too much hassle. And color paper is cheaper than B&W paper!

Older colour processes needed very tight tolerances on temperatures. ALL the solutions had to be within half a degree of the optimal temperature. With RA-4, you need consistency with your developer only. And that is easily achieved with hot/cold water baths.

What takes time is to nail properly exposure THEN colour balance. So the first time you print a photo, it will take you at least 3 sheets. Could take half an hour the first time, less with experience. Proper proof sheets will prove invaluable, because you will know whether you need to re-do test prints or not.

Generally, I notice that for the same film/paper pair, once you have the proper colour balance, you need not worry about it, except for fine-tuning photos taken in difficult light conditions. For example, Kodak 160NC on Endura paper for me is always 60M + 65Y.

In comparison, with B&W, I can nail exposure and contrast in 5 mins for any negative.
 
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I dont think it is much slower, except you have to work in complete darkness or with a very dim safelight with suiting colour.. And of course you need to find the color filtrations and exposure time, but you need a couple test strips with B&W too (exposure, contrast).

1 min for developer, maybe 30 sec for stop and 1 min for bleach, then wash.

AFAIK the temperature of the developer is not too critical either, if it is constant between the strips and prints you make.
 
Actually, if you are good with trays, it's not longer than B&W, but with tubes it takes some more time to load, process, unload, rinse, dry, etc.

Tubes are useful because they are economical on the solutions and easy on temp control; trays are useful if you know what you are doing, have a good volume, and can control temp with a heater.
 
I have never used a heater with the trays and it works very nicely. Indeed the process for a single print is just like B&W, except in darkness or a very dim yellowish safelight.

Never tried with a tube... Feels more complicated. We do Ilfochrome in tanks though, because it saves chemicals or helps us too kep them good.

I dont think the tanks have to be dried. Water shouldnt harm the print.
 
get a jobo or nova processor. then it's a piece of cake and hugely rewarding.

you'll love the dichroic head. i'm using cp filters and it's the pits!
 
I prefer trays and would encourage people to use them with RA-4. With Ilfochrome you almost "need" a processor.

A couple of yellow leds blinking once every two seconds makes a safelight for our darkroom, but before that I used a dim cell-phone light to be able to find the trays and not having to use gloves and fingers to move them (but the things I use with B&W, dont remember the english word 🙂 ).
 
Didn't mention that the color paper is cheaper than B&W, but the chemistry ends up costing more for me. Total darkness isn't that hard to get used to I think- but then I shot 810 and 1114 for years and developed in trays...
 
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