A PRIMER ON COLOR PRINTING

FOR THOSE WHO FEAR TO TREAD IN THE REALM OF COLOR PRINTS

NO CHARTS, NO MATH, NO FORMULAS

How to do color printing in your darkroom, from negatives and slides. With assignments to help you figure all of this out.

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Written by:

Terry Staler

Fine-Art Photographer

© 1995 Terry Staler

INTRODUCTION

The new class of chemicals and papers that are available (reffered to as RA-4 for negatives and R-3000 for slides), make the entire process so simple and relatively foolproof that you will be able to spend most of your time concentrating on the actual ART of color printing. That is not to say that the TECHNIQUE of color printing is a snap; in the beginning, when most of your prints are a unique greenish/magenta shade, you might be terribly frustrated. But perserverence will eventually pay off in the mastery and pride in your new capabilities.

The main thrust of this manual will be towards printing from negatives. Doing so is a bit easier then from slides, and the results are a bit easier to control. But if printing from slides is your goal, fear not; you will be able to do so by the time you are done reading this. You will just have to work harder.

As with any endeavor, it is important to make sure that you have, at least, the minimum equipment required. Following is a list of what you will need. It is arranged in a manner to allow you to decide the level of sophistication you want, I.E., how much money you want to spend!. Color printing can be real cheap (you may not have to buy anything new for your darkroom) to shockingly expensive (some of the "toys" out there are magnificently cool and costly). You have the choice.

What you MUST have:

1. An enlarger

You will need an enlarger that can do (or can be convinced to do) color. If you have an enlarger with a dichroic color head, you are set. If your enlarger has no filters for color printing, you can buy a set for about $20.00. If you have a cold light head on your enlarger, you will have to change it to a regular bulb source.

2. Something in which to develop the prints.You can use trays. With room temperature chemicals, doing so is a snap. You may also use tubes, which allow you to work with the lights on, but require more effort.

3. The proper chemicals and paper.You must choose either room temperature or high temperature processing. There are advantages and disadvantages to both. You can always change your process as your skills and needs change. You will find that the paper is very inexpensive and that the chemicals ARE expensive. But there are SECRETS to extending the useful life of the chemicals, especially while you are in "the learning phase".

4. A good negative or slide, preferably one with middle gray tones, I.E., a gray card.

5. Viewing filters, to aid in color correction decisions.

6. If you decide to NOT use room temperature chemicals, a heater for controlling the temperature of the chemicals you decide to use.

7. A ringaround easel. Instructions for making one are located in APPENDIX xx

Now we will discuss what you MIGHT like to add to the above list, I.E., let's spend money!

1. If you would like to buy a new enlarger anyway, even if you probably will only do black and white, get one with a dichroic color head. Just about every manufacturer offers one. You do not need to spend a fortune on one; they range in price from about $400.00 to infinite.

2. Jobo makes several basic color processors, ranging from their new NOVA series of verticle "trays" to their top of the line rotary processors. Depening on your budget and volume, you may be interested in investing in such a processor. For high volume work, you might invest in an in-line processing system, where you put in the exposed sheet of paper in one end, and out comes a finished, dry print 2 minutes later.

3. A color-checker chart. Macbeth makes a very good, expensive, one. Kodak makes a good color test strip that is less expensive.