Printing Color Slides

Tobywan · Sep 8, 2014

I'm showing my age here but when I abandoned photography years ago one of the newest products was Cibachrome for printing color slides at home. Is there any current process to do this?

mopar_guy · Sep 8, 2014

Your best bet would be to make an internegative and print on an RA4 type paper. All of the reversal papers are out of production.

Poisson Du Jour · Sep 8, 2014

If you abandoned photography years ago and Ilfochrome was the newest thing, that must have been in the 80s! The original Cibachrome product made its debut in 1963 and past its heyday around the mid-1990s. Printing has become something of a specialisation for people working with transparency now. As Ilfochrome Classic media was discontinued about 4 years ago, options are few, but it's not a bleak landscape. Current best practice is hybridised analogue-to-digital RA4 print processing from transparencies, which is a bit out of the scope of APUG for discussion; it makes use of the current crop of very high quality Kodak Endura Professional and Ilford art media that is very similar to the Ilfochrome Classic polyester base product.

Dr Croubie · Sep 8, 2014

There are the methods that we're not allowed to mention around here (the ones that start with S, D, and I), which are probably the most popular (I know I do them a lot).

Someone also recently revived (there was a url link here which no longer exists) and (there was a url link here which no longer exists) thread about Ilfoflex.

There are also RA-4 reversal possibilities, but no idea how well (if) they work.

Besides them, it's interneg or projection only. But it's still far from dead...

snapguy · Sep 8, 2014

all too true

Sob....these are real tears....

Photo Engineer · Sep 8, 2014

Reversal processing of Endura or Crystal Archive is quite possible and can give very good results, but it depends on the scene. It does not do well at all with portraits.

So: Slide > RA4 paper and cross process = Print.

PE

darkroom_rookie · Sep 9, 2014

Ilfoflex is no more, as is Ilford as a manufacturer in Switzerland. That leaves only Fujiflex which can be reversal/cross processed, as it's RA-4 emulsion on a polyester base. Shame that Stephen Frizza from Australia probably won't chime in. He apparently did a lot of testing of both Ilfoflex and Fujiflex and got some great results. I do intend to buy a 50" roll of Fujiflex from the UK, but the price is such that I would very much like to share the cost with two or three people, by cutting the roll into sheets of any desired size. I have a cutter made for just the task, a heavy-duty Rotatrim Technical T1250 (despite the name, which suggests 125 cm, it fits 50" length exactly).

Wayne · Sep 12, 2014

You do what I do. Quit taking slides and learn to print RA-4. If nothing else, your wallet will be happier than it was with Ciba/Ilfochrome.

Of course that doesn't help you print old slides, which I'd also like to do. I'd love to try making internegatives with Portra but that eats up a lot of the cost savings of RA-4, especially with large format. Plus it seems easier just to let that go and concentrate on learning a process that is still available.

I think PE was going to post some examples of prints from Portra internegatives a while back but I'm not sure if he ever did (hint hint).

Photo Engineer · Sep 12, 2014

Wayne said:
You do what I do. Quit taking slides and learn to print RA-4. If nothing else, your wallet will be happier than it was with Ciba/Ilfochrome.

Of course that doesn't help you print old slides, which I'd also like to do. I'd love to try making internegatives with Portra but that eats up a lot of the cost savings of RA-4, especially with large format. Plus it seems easier just to let that go and concentrate on learning a process that is still available.

I think PE was going to post some examples of prints from Portra internegatives a while back but I'm not sure if he ever did (hint hint).

Hint hint? Some of these are already in my gallery guys.

Little doll #1 is a cross process and little doll #2 is a direct scan from the negative. The popup names are self explanatory though! These are slides printed onto Endura, or cross processed Ektachrome printed onto Endura.

PE

Hatchetman · Sep 12, 2014

Those are outstanding Ron. I've never done any color processing, but that makes it something worth thinking about.

Printing Color Slides

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