Radiance: First Time Use in Color Printing
Sheheryar Hasnain
Yesterday I did my first batch of color printing from
slides (or for that matter from anything,it was my
first time in color, period). I used Kodak Radiance
semi matte with Kodak R-3000 chemicals. It was
really a lot easier than I had thought. The again
it was as time consuming as all of the color printing
gurus has said. And with all that 100 degree water
the bathroom....I mean darkroom gets pretty hot
and humid (i.e. a sweat pit). But I was pretty happy
with the results. I made some simple portrait
prints so I would have only a few colors to compare with
the original. In the darkroom handbook, they had
mentioned exposures of 20-30 seconds! So I did my first
at 20 seconds with 20C and 20M at f11. It was totally
overexposed and washed out. So I gradually brought
it down to 5 seconds at 40C and 10M also at f11.
Even though this is a pretty decent print, it could
still use a little less exposure and a little less
Magenta (the blonde hair tends to look a little red).
Now once I fix the exposure issues, does that mean
I can pretty much print any similarly exposed slide
for the same filteration and exposure? I would also
like to encourage those who want to make their own
prints from slides to go for radiance. It is pretty
expensive (In all the testing and being new to this
process I already used 5 papers and chemicals which
add up to about $10). But the results are better then I
expected. The colors are pretty saturated, and the
contrast is not really too much of a problem, given
that the shot was not very contrasty. In any case
I do feel good that I took the plunge into color
printing. Thanks for all the advice.
Sheheryar
Robert Claeson
>Yesterday I did my first batch of color printing from slides (or
>for that matter from anything,it was my first time in color,
>period). I used Kodak Radiance semi matte with Kodak R-3000
>chemicals. It was really a lot easier than I had thought. The
>again it was as time consuming as all of the color printing gurus
>has said. And with all that 100 degree water the bathroom....I
>mean darkroom gets pretty hot and humid (i.e. a sweat pit).
Try using room-temperature chemistry instead. I do my R-3 work at 20C (68F)
with excellent results. Chemistry intended for room-temperature processing
yields close to equal processing times as the high-temperature chemistry kits
and sometimes even shorter.
>Now once I fix the exposure issues, does that mean I can pretty
>much print any similarly exposed slide for the same filteration
>and exposure?
Often, yes, but not always. You'll soon find that the differences between
different slides looks greater on the prints than on the light table.
>I would also like to encourage those who want to make their own
>prints from slides to go for radiance. It is pretty expensive (In
>all the testing and being new to this process I already used 5
>papers and chemicals which add up to about $10). But the results
>are better then I expected. The colors are pretty saturated, and
>the contrast is not really too much of a problem, given that the
>shot was not very contrasty. In any case I do feel good that I
>took the plunge into color printing.
I've used both Kodak Radiance, Fujichrome R35 and a bunch of European papers.
My experience is that while Radiance looks pretty good by itself, the R35 paper
is better (better highlight contrast, a more even color balance and not as cold
blacks) and the European papers are well comparable to Radiance but with
neutral blacks.
--
Robert Claeson, Data General AB, Sweden
E-mail: Robert....@sweden.dg.com
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