Colour print at home - is it worth a try?

[valdas]

I’d like to try this. The idea is to buy Tetenal Colortec Ra4 kit, some color paper and do it myself using my enlarger. Taking into consideration I’m comfortable with BW printing and E6 process at home, how difficult is color printing? As to results – is there any benefit vs printing at lab or just fun and nothing else?

 

[Juan Valdenebro]

Here in Barcelona there is no place to get direct prints (wet) from color negatives...

I bought (some years ago) the color head for my enlarger and did it for myself. I used it for less than a month...

Results were perfect. Not expensive (not as much as pro labs were back then for several test strips and prints for every scene...) but it takes a lot of time. Really a lot more time than B&W for a perfect print, even with the previous experience of years I had in color wet printing... Recommended if you have your whole day free, seven days a week...

 

[Pickett Wilson]

Color printing can get expensive real quick. Color balance is an interesting exercise. 🙂

 

[Lilserenity]

Yes it's worth it IMHO.

I have been using a room temp RA4 kit and despite warnings I still haven't had any trouble with it.

I found the Kodak Supra Endura box's suggestion for a starting point of 55Y and 65M (IIRC) was about right and I got some excellent RA4s done very quickly.

A week or two ago I picked up a colour head, timer and Paterson colour analyser for a pittance (plus a whole bundle of other stuff for £15) and it's made it very easy. The hardest bit is working in the dark but you get better with practice.

It's not as cheap as going down the minilab when it comes to 6x4s/7x5s but 8x10s and larger -- it's worth a go.

Kodak now supplies Supra Endura in boxes of 50 so it works out quite well.

Maybe I've got lucky but I've found it just fine.

 

[Dave Wilkinson]

After fifty years black and white printing, ( although not much - of late ) I got reasonably competent!, but I found home colour too expensive, too time consuming, too wasteful of materials - for the few decent prints I could manage to produce!. Others - of course, may be be far more adept with the process, but personally, I have a much greater success rate with inkjets these days.
Cheers, Dave.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Put it this way: we have all the gear, and Frances's article on how to use the Colorstar analyzer was adopted by Colorstar as the best how-to-do-it piece there could be. But we don't do it any more because it's expensive and time consuming. And we prefer black and white.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Leigh Youdale]

I think I'm with Roger. I tried it years ago but it was finicky, temperature control was critical, the chemicals expensive and they didn't keep so you had to run a batch of films through at the same time to make it passably affordable.
I'm seriously thinking of going digital (Pany GF-1) for colour only, which would let me tote the two RF's with 100 ISO (FP4+) in one and 400 ISO (HP5+) in the other.

 

[sevo]

Colour printing is messy and expensive, and the processes you can do at home will deliver average small prints or poor large prints. Good inkjets make a far better job of it (even film based, with a scan in between), unless you are prepared to invest into a pro grade darkroom, and two or three years of learning it.

Pro lab hardware is not that expensive any more (indeed you can sometimes get it for little more than scrap value). But a room the size of two average bathrooms with proper blinds and a dust-free air condition system is not cheap - even less so in the long run. And don't forget that you'll have to run a couple of test sheets through each processor (and you'll need one for the internegatives and one for the prints) even on days when you don't print, just to keep the chemistry stable and properly replenished...

Sevo

 

[MartinP]

I think the OP was referring to colour-printing on a 'shoestring', rather than purchasing massive and precise machinery. As lilserenity has done it seems very brave - and rather succesful - but a Jobo CPE type of print-drum machine seems relatively affordable. In fact I got one which was being thrown out, although I haven't tried it yet, and within the last week I have found a colour Meopta Opemus-6 on a Magnifax chassis. 🙂

In 'Post Exposure', Ctein is enthusiastic about Cibachrome (now called Ilfochrome) and I was thinking of printing from transparencies because of that. Possibly I will look towards RA4 instead . . .

My Winter project.

 

[JohnTF]

I have the Jobo slot processor, and single wavelength safelights, plus a couple of Beseler Minolta color heads for the 45M.

Jorge in Uruapan broke me in, though with what I consider more difficult negative filtering. The Beseler Minolta heads are additive, so if I need more cyan, I add more cyan. Settings are adjustable to around .01cc.

I found most films printed with a very similar setting, and wrote them down for starting points. The printer will retain the settings for quite a while even turned off. The chemistry I mixed myself at first from the Kodak kits, the paper was cheaper than B&W in recent years, the actual processing took a couple of minutes with a quick wash and hang up dry.

I have a friend at a photo shop with a mini lab, and as he mixed in bulk, I began to get my chemistry pre mixed from him, the stuff keeps very long in the processor, with continual replenishment by adding stock solution as the levels drop.

RA4 is just about bullet proof, and I quickly got results much better than what I was getting from commercial labs, printing formats they turned down (6x9cm), and able to dodge and burn.

The processor was not cheap, but really not too expensive, and takes a very small footprint, printing up to about 12x15 inches, Jobo supplies a clip for the paper, with 45 seconds in developer, 5 seconds in stop, 45 seconds in Blix, a rinse (processor has an extra slot in case you want to use Ilfochrome) then in to the sink for the normal RC wash.

Finally, someone basically gave me a roller processor at a camera show, which will handle up to 8x10-- Luck may play a role. ;-)

Last price I saw for the 45M color head for the Beseler was about $150, including spare tubes.

John

 

[Lilserenity]

Colour reversal, yep apart from if I get enough money to do Cibachromes, I won't be doing those at home -- too much hassle (and that's me saying that!.) For slides if it's up to 10x8 I'll use my Coolscan scans and get them done digitally. For larger sizes I have been brave on a number of occassions to send the slide to Peak Imaging to have printed on Kodak Endura Metallic -- digitally but still RA4 -- looks fab.

I'm not a darkroom snob for the record, I just enjoy experimenting and then when I found I got the hang of it without any undue trouble I've carried on. Agreeably I've been doing this for about 6 weeks but damn has it been fun. (If loping around in the dark, trying to get the gloves on etc. is what you also call fun!)

A Jobo CPE/CPE2 is a good idea, I may even get one myself but for the time being as I am content to send my C41 out for processing (or get it done locally) I can do the Ra4 here.

I guess this thing comes down to how good your eye for colour and subtleties is. I'm a designer by profession so I can see minor shifts *like that*.

For the record I use a Meopta Axomat 5 with Colour 3 head now. Good solid enlargers and hanging out for an Opemus 6 so I can get started on the medium format front.

The only way you'll know whether it works for you is to try.

My advice with it is don't rush, be patient and work carefully.

Vicky

 

[JohnTF]

It really helped me get off the fence when I made my first RA4 prints in a friend's darkroom, and though my friend with a mini lab spent hours (and still does) getting everything set right, with different channels programmed and inspecting each print to see if they needed further correction, I was convinced there would be much gnashing of teeth, and lots of time in the dark, it turned out to be not at all true.

The LED safelights, and reality of changes in the characteristics of film, really helped. I was pleasantly surprised to find it a lot easier and results much better than I imagined.

The Jobo rep used to be on Compuserve Photo Forum and they had special offers plus he was very helpful.

Am sorry, I have not kept current on what is up with the Company, I did have a problem with the thermostat, and they gave me a choice of sending it in for replacement or shipping out the relatively easy installation. First class outfit. Am pretty sure you could do it in trays in a water bath, but it would require some dexterity to get the paper in the tray evenly and out in the short developing time. I bought a refurbished unit.

Regards, John

 

[Erik L]

whats the cheapest way to get started in RA-4
not interested in developing my own c41 negatives, i can farm that out.
i need basically paper and chemicals.
have the color head and processor already. and an obsolete beseler pm color analyzer.

 

[MartinP]

Hmmm, as part of my 'having a look' at colour printing I found this over on APUG.
http://www.apug.org/forums/forum172/67486-where-supra-endura.html

Apparently Kodak are stopping Supra Endura in sheets and replacing the current paper with one optimised for digital machines, instead of optical enlargers, and giving rather odd results with the longer exposure times we would be using. Buy now while stocks last, sort of thing 🙁

Fuji has also done something similar this year. Is optical RA4 printing going to become impossible at the quality known previously ? It seems a massive change, but . . . ?

 

[sepiareverb]

I find C-printing in my darkroom pretty easy, if I stick with one film for the days prints and don't try to rush myself.