Ilfochrome, a.k.a. Cibachrome, Enlargements

Ilfochrome, a.k.a. Cibachrome, Enlargements

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three days ago I asked one of the best master printers in Poland about Cibachrome and he told me a story: "couple years ago in Czech Republic there was a huge exhibition of their color photography, made on Cibachrome. 30 years old prints... faded. after that Cibachrome was withdrawn. but I heard rumors that it was improved and it could come back."
 
Pablito said:
Longevity aside, the prints have a unique look to them. Sort of iridescent. Either you like it or you don't. I don't.
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I guess that is true of many things in photography.

I happened to like it. I have 3 or 4 prints I made over thirty years ago that are as good as they were when made. No color loss, no fading.
 
The few Cibachromes I made aged well. I never tried masking, which for the first Cibachrome material was often advisable. Kodachrome printed onto Ciba was often spectacular, but I can see it not being to everyone's taste. I always used the glossy materials, the matte for Kodachrome originals would have been more appropriate for some types of originals.

I found the processing to be really picky. Times were so short that coverage and agitation were critical unless you had precise machine processing. Maybe the newer Ilfochrome was better.
 
Making a contrast mask could really help the print but it wasn't easy and not worth it to spend the time calibrating everything unless you were going to do volume. Also it required perfect registration. I did not find the processing tricky or the times short (that I remember) but the chemicals were really nasty. This was a long time ago... In the end I worked with C-prints because I much preferred the look of the prints. But they do fade very fast.
;-)
 
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