On Wed, 2 Dec 1998 05:12:39 EST, KenK1ZYW@xxxxxxx jammed all night, and by
sunrise was overheard remarking:
> Does anyone know what is needed to process 'cibrochrome' I think it is now
> called Ilfochrome. Is it hard to do at home?
I used to do it back in the, er, late 70s. It's pretty easy.
First, you need a good enlarger, of course, and a color head or a box of
filters, but the color adjustment is easier than traditional negative
printing. You make your exposure and pop the "paper" (it's actually
plastic, or at least it was back then) into a drum, and switch on the
room lights. Then you roll though the developer, bleach, and fixer. Wash
well, and you're done. Pretty easy -- a far cry from traditional color
processing (I used to do E4 as well, kind a natural match back then if
you used Cibachrome, even if you did need a zillion steps and 1/2 degree
temperature regulation for that).
The trick Cibachrome uses to be this simple is that it's a direct
positive to positive process. In traditional color printing, you expose
the media, develop an image, bleach away the exposed emulsion (which
is a negative), chemically or optically re-expose the remaining emulsion,
and develop that, including forming dyes for color. Cibachrome paper,
which is black if you ever do take a look at it, comes with all dyes
intact. When you develop it, you're developing a negative; when you
run the bleach step, that negative is washed away, leaving the positive
you wanted in the original, pre-formed dye layers. This is also why
Cibachrome is longer lived than traditional processes. It's kind of like
the old woodcarver's tale "Q: How do you make such a beautiful horse
carving" -- "A: I take this block of wood, and cut away everything that
doesn't look like a horse".
As I stated, it's been a long, long time since I did any Cibachrome, but
I can't imagine they've made the process more complicated -- the ease of
use is what got folks like me using their system in the first place.
--
Dave Haynie | V.P. Technology, Met@box Infonet, AG | http://www.metabox.de
Be Dev #2024 | NB851 Powered! | Amiga 2000, 3000, 4000, PIOS One
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