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First experience with Ilfochrome printing
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Hi,
I went out to thefizz’s darkroom for a workshop on colour negative printing and if time allowed, trying to do some Ilfochrome prints.
Well after a morning doing colour neg printing, we had some time to try Ilfochrome printing which was an experiment for both of us.
There was question marks on whether it would work at all as the paper was 6 years out of date and I had no idea how old the chemistry was, so we mixed up the chemistry, setup the enlarger and have the drum rinsed and ready for the print.
We did a test enlargement at 1 second increments and put it in the drum and did the processing and ended up with a black sheet.
Something had gone wrong, we though the exposure time was wrong, so we did another test print in 30 second increments. Still the sheet was black. So we sat back and tried to reason whether the paper or chemistry was at fault.
We reasoned if the paper was out of date, it would still produce an image, so it must be the chemistry, probably the developer, so we substitute in Ilford Warmtone at 1:9 for the developer as the developer usually goes off pretty quickly.
We did another test print at 30 second increments, put it through the process, we could barely wait for the wash to see if it work, we had a look in the drum after the fixer and to our joy we had a print with an image on it. We were delighted.
So we decide to make a full print using what we thought was the exposure time was right (4m 30sec) from the test exposure, we did the enlarging and the processing and thought the print was too blown. So I decided to do another print with a longer exposure time (6 mins) but half way through exposing, Peter realised we were using the wrong exposure times, I was counting exposure time for negative printing not for positive printing, we only need 60 seconds of exposure.
We had only 1 shot of the chemistry left, so we had to get it right, we put 60 seconds on the timer, exposed the paper, put it through the process and behold we had an ilfochrome print.
I will be printing more Ilfochromes as they look stunning and not as hard to print as a few people had indicated and am looking forward to getting into the darkroom to do it again.Darragh
Hmmm looks and sounds really interesting. Sound like you guys had alot of fun
with this. I must go and search for more on Ilfochrome.Thanks for posting up some detail !
An exciting day indeed. All I can add are two words, stunning and addictive :D
Congrats lads well done.
You have been looking for all the bits and bobs for Ilfochrome printing for a while now Darragh, all the searching has now paid off well done
M
well dont know much about printing but that result looks really great!
well done
Hi Darragh,
If you have the paper you have the most expensive bit. I used first call for chemistry. Good value for E6 also.
http://firstcall-photographic.co.uk/shop/categories/colour-print-chemicals/0/ilford/ilford-ilfochrome-classic-p30-kit-2-liltres/” onclick=”window.open(this.href);return false;
Frank
Here is an example from a couple of years ago. The shot on the right was printed by BPD Phototech and the one on the left a home print. Slight magenta cast which I later figured out how to eliminate. Shot is in a cream mount in case you are wondering about colour cast. Once I got the colour filtration sorted and stuck ridgidly to development temperature and time, the result were predictable.
Frank,
I see the magneta cast on the left one. Is the temperature critical for all the washes and all baths? Ilford’s instructions are minimal.
There seems to be a lot less contrast in the one by BDP, did they use a contrast mask?Thanks
DarraghDarragh,
The answer to the temperature question in my opinion is yes, it is critical. I found this tutorial very helpful in getting consistent results
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/ilfochro.shtml” onclick=”window.open(this.href);return false;Note the piece about temperature of pre-wash to ensure developer does not cool too much during the development cycle.
I also found that you need to leave in the final wash for a considerable length of time. (5 to 10 minutes in the sink did it for me)
Important if you store your paper in the fridge to allow it to warm before use.
I am guessing that BPD use contrast masks but I do not know for certain.
Frank
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