RE: Color Carbon

Sandy,

Thanks for rooting for us.

My take on it is fog is dependent on pigment percentage. I suspect your
thicker tissue has less pigment per gm of gelatin in your mix. My guess is
that a thin skin of the tissue hardens evenly across the image in the
printing process. This forms the bottom layer of the print. If the pigment
level is low you don't see it, it is only when you up the load does it show.
You probably know all of this already but some of the newbies here may find
it enlightening. I've sensitized foggy tissue and made a print with no
exposure and got an even fog on the paper proving this point. Howard was
running some fog tests on our new formulation periodically and after about
six months got some fog. *&(*&%$#! Later he needed some tissue and cut
another piece off the roll and this time no fog. The fog was only on the
exposed tail of the roll, not on the inner part where the air had not gotten
to! Freezing is good but just keeping the air away seems to provide some
protection too.

I think the problem with Ever, Ata, and Ultra, was they were in the business
of making prints. Ultrastable wanted to sell the materials and we were a
dealer for number of years but did not sell one piece of it -- not one! If
you have a B+S catalog from the late 90's check it out. The problem was
there were no instructions or sensitizer available and when people called
about it asking how to make a print we just had to tell them they had to
figure it out. We were drop shipping out of Ultrastable so we didn't have
any inventory to be concerned about. It was also terribly expensive. I also
was interested in obtaining some mono tissue and they told me the black was
mono. I asked about brown etc and thy said just put a layer of yellow over
the black. Ah, we get to sell two pieces!

Once we get the problems knocked down I'd like to see some of the atelier
printers learn to print color carbon. I think once the art world knows about
this there will be more work than can be handled. Ataraxia went under for a
number of reasons, mostly not having to do with the market for color carbon
but for other things. B+S was offered the opportunity to buy the company so
we know a little bit about their problems. For one, they did not make their
own tissue and had quality control problems.

Auction prices of contemporary prints have skyrocketed in the last two
years. I believe a Richard Prince C41 recently sold for a quarter of a
million dollars! Paying $1,500.00 to have a print that would ordinarily sell
for a $1000.00 dollars is a bit different from paying $1,500.00 to have a
print made that would sell for $50,000.00. Maybe having the prints made
won't cost that much but the principle stays the same: the price scale just
slides down. If the market for color prints continues to explode price wise
then the opportunity for making color carbons also widens.

If we succeed, then maybe there is an opportunity for some on the List to
venture forth as color carbon printers.

Cheers.

--Dick

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-carbon@spitbite.org [mailto:owner-carbon@spitbite.org] On Behalf
Of Sandy King
Sent: Wednesday, December 27, 2006 6:08 PM
To: carbon@spitbite.org
Subject: RE: [carbon] Color Carbon

Dick,

I have noticed that with the very thick tissue I make to get maximum
relief fog is not a problem at all. Lots of my prints come out now
with B+F levels same as paper white. I used to have a lot of problem
with B+F but as soon as I switched to the thicker tissues the fog
problem just disappeared.

Calibrating a three or four color tissue set should not be a problem
with the multiple talent you have involved in the project. And, as
you say, the beauty of working with this process today is that you
can adjust the negatives to the color, density and contrast of the
tissue. Not at all like working with film.

As for the commercial prospect of this, hard to say. Lots of failed
adventures on this road (Ultrastable, Ataraxia, Evercolor, etc.) so
don't stick too much money in there. But I am sure pulling for you to
make it happen.

Sandy

At 5:35 PM -0700 12/27/06, Richard Sullivan wrote:
>Sandy,
>
>My own take on this exercise is to be able to stabilize the tissue in terms
>of thickness and pigment density. I am reasonably sure from experience that
>both can be achieved on the newest version our machine. If the pigment load
>is just outside the fog level, tissue thickness well may not be of much of
>an issue. Even so, I can control thickness to +- one tenth of a mil for a
90
>sq ft run.
>
>
>Kevin is back in Los Angeles right now meeting with the Epson folks and
>working on the known problem on the 9800 of faint banding (one of the
>blacks) when high ink loads are experienced. When doing CMYK this should
not
>be a problem as not nearly as much ink density is needed in the negs with
>multiple colors. Kevin is also working on a system of calibrating the seps
>to the tissue. The problem was probably a lot more ticklish in the olden
>days when one had to make film seps. Calibrating digital negs is a lot less
>scary than working with film. Experts I've talked to in the pigment
industry
>tell me that a fairly wide range of colors can be used in the CMYK world,
>one need only adjust the plates (negatives) to the colors. Of course there
>are standard colors used in the printing industry so this is not much of an
>issue in their world.
>
>Obviously this is not an easy haul, but one already proven to be doable by
>folks like Tod Gangler and others.
>
>I am hoping that the atelier printers will pick up on this eventually. I
>discussed this issue with a friend who I a photographer, museum trustee,
and
>one who has sat on acquisition committees. We're now seeing Struth and
>others getting hammered down in the $100,000+ range at auction for C41
>prints!!!!! I asked my friend if his committee would be more willing to pay
>$101,500.00 for a print in 4 color carbon than $100,000.00 for a C41.
>"Absolutely" he said this would be especially so if he conservators get a
>say in the matter. Much work is bought and donated by unknowing patrons and
>that is a problem. Some of the Starn Twins work was put together with
Scotch
>tap and is a conservationist nightmare now.
>
>The point is at there prices for a percent or two extra in cost one can
have
>a 4 color carbon made. I am sure there are plenty of people around who
would
>make an edition of 24 x 30 prints at $1500 per.
>
>Comments?
>
>--Dick
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: owner-carbon@spitbite.org [mailto:owner-carbon@spitbite.org] On
Behalf
>Of Sandy King
>Sent: Wednesday, December 27, 2006 3:26 PM
>To: carbon@spitbite.org
>Subject: [carbon] Color Carbon
>
>Learning to make a balanced tissue set for carbon printing is quite a
>challenge. When I first started to work with carbon I was only
>interested in color and spent three or four years working almost
>exclusively in color. And I have four or five very nice prints to
>show for my efforts!! I did have a big jump start on the tissue
>because Richard Kauffman, who later collaborated in the creation of
>Ultrastable materials, provided me with his own formula for
>three-color tissue. However, the process of balancing separations
>with wet processing was a very formidable task.
>
>If I were to balance another color set it would probably be easier to
>first balance it for carbro, then adjust sensitizer and exposure for
>carbon. But I am so much into monochrome photography now that I
>probably will not do color again. But I do have a nice Devin 5X7
>tri-color camera that only needs a new pellicle and calibration to be
>on line and I am very tempted to resurrect the beast to do some
>historical type color printing.
>
>Sandy King
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>At 2:03 PM -0800 12/27/06, Eric Scott wrote:
>>Dick,
>>
>>I tried to make a 3-color carbon this time last year using the triple
>>transfer process and a step wedge. I spent 3 months trying to
>>balance my tissues so that the step wedge printed neutral. I failed
>>and burned myself out completely. I put all my carbon stuff away.
>>Now I'm back at monochrome after having recovered. One day I will go
>>at it again. This time I will forget about step wedges. I'll make
>>contone balanced separation negatives and manufacture my tissues in
>>such a way that I get a print that isn't too horrible to look at.
>>When I make just one print this way, I will then make the seps
>>digitally in photoshop and buy your 3-color tissue on a regular basis.
>>
>>Eric.
>>
>>On Dec 27, 2006, at 12:12 PM, Richard Sullivan wrote:
>>
>>> Much of the pressure at the moment is for color tissue and that is
>>> our
>>> next hurdle to cross. We have a Color Carbon Study Group which will
>>> meet
>>> until June and we will be working with Russell Lees 4x5 Pietown, NM
>>> Kodachromes from 1940. We decided it would be a bit unwieldy to
>>> each do our
>>> own images, so working on one set or one image is a bit more
>>> practical.
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Received on Thu Dec 28 08:20:12 2006