Thinking of colour enlarging

[jgrainger]

Goodoldnorm:
Thank you for the link, it would be a great place to ask questions 🙂

Bob:
I'll give the printing a try, along with examining the negatives on a light table - good and cheap is a winning combination for anyone just trying something out (I usually have a look at 645 or 6x6 black and white negatives just held in the light but am a bit unfamiliar with judging C-41 negative film, especially in 35mm).
Generally speaking, I just got my enlarger back on a cupboard after a month of it sitting on the floor, and am quite excited that it will work just fine using the filter drawer instead of getting a 2nd machine.. probably excited enough to get through a learning curve.

Ronald:
I did momentarily think of using the trays in a heated water bath but it would be pretty impractical. The Nova looks like a step up from my regular cheap trays - I mean, even if I don't take to colour printing, the Nova tank would probably be a nice improvement for black and white too.
I'll see how it goes though, it should be possible to use my Jobo print drum to get started - provided it drains quickly enough to keep up with the short development times.

Jamie:
The idea of rolls of paper seems fine if one can get past the initial difficulty of processing it into sheets. I worked in manufacturing for around a decade, partly as a manual machinist - which has been a hobby before and since then. Adapting some sort of guillotine or wheel cutter to be used in the dark 😉 should be doable. It's feasible that slightly oversize sheets could always be trimmed after printing.. and it's surely no worse than some of the more freehand methods of cutting down film for 127 cameras.

Jonathan

 

[joeswe]

If you have good access to paper and chems in home size quantity and a permanent darkroom, go for it.

A temp controlled bath is required to hold 100 deg F.

Paper is not processed at 100F, the correct process temperature for standard RA4 is 95F or 35C. The exception are some non orthodox Fuji minilab paper processes.

That being said, you don't need to process RA4 paper at 35C, you can go as low as 25C (of course with adjusted processing time) when using Kodak Ektacolor chemistry and Kodak paper. This will simply result in a color shift which can be filtered for easily. But it is important that the temperature is kept as stable as possible, because with drifting temperature you will experience drifting filtration!

 

[joeswe]

A color analyzer is a handy tool for someone who needs to print a lot of negatives in reasonable time. It is not a necessary tool for a darkroom beginner.

A color analyzer might even get in the way of learning proper color filtration and get a good and creative color printer in the same way exposure automation in cameras can get in the way of learning and becoming a good and creative photographer.

Learn to see and judge color shifts and learn to educate and exercise your own judgement regarding colors. This is a process that requires experience, it comes with trial and error. There are no shortcuts.

Again, not to be misunderstood, I do not condemn the use of color analyzers in the hands of experienced printers who know what they are doing and why.