Hi folks,

Is it possible to get a cibachrome (or ilfochrome) from a digital file?
Is this technically dificult or impossible? Any labs that offer this service?

thanks

Here's one; Cibachrome on a lightjet. I haven't tried it; it is expensive.

http://www.jwphotolabs.com/pricelist.html

Try: http://www.weldoncolorlab.com/ he is excellent.

So I guess it's possible?

It's strange since noone seems to advertise this interesting possibility, including the sites mentioned...

Cibachromes fade.

Would you care to elaborate?

I don't care if the prints fade, since I'll sell 'm. After that It's not my problem.
I do wonder why and how fast they fade (for my own benefit)

enlighten me :-)

not going to touch that one...

I made Cibachromes for many, many years before I went digital in 2001. While most of these were sold at exhibitions, I also kept several dozen, and they have no discernible fading. Some of them are over 30 years old.

Now, they were matted with archival mats and protected under UV resistant glass, not hung in sunshine. They still "glow" with that deep Ciba colour.

Bill

I totally agree. Most of my Ciba's aren't even under glass (but not in direct sunlight). I have never noticed any fading. I now print digitally and what I miss most is the great mirror like finish and glow of a Cibachrome.

I use to make a lot of Cibachromes too when I was in university. I still have many of them and I haven't noticed any fading. In fact recently I made a 'digital' Cibachrome from a scanned transparency and compared to the same image on a wet darkroom printed Cibachrome I made in my first year of university, it did not fade one bit. I wish I could scan the image in, but it's 16x20 size.

Anyway to respond to the original poster, Bob Carnie from Elevator Digital in Toronto is considered Canada's finest master printer. He prints for several top commercial and art photographers from around the world. He does Ilfochromes on his Lambda printer from digital files.

http://elevatordigital.ca/labhome.html

Regards, Art.

Aha, so Lambda printers can handle Ilfochrome?
I'll see if there are Lambda equiped printers around and see if they can print Ilfo...

Thanks for the info, the Toronto-adress I can't use since I'm on the wrong continent :-)


thanks

Mike

I agree, I have a 35-year-old Cibacrome that gets direct sunlight every afternoon and exhibits no fading. The unique aspect of the process is that the paper contains stable dyes that were destroyed, not formed, during processing. Nevertheless, I use an Epson nowadays.

I ran an extensive wet darkroom for over 20 years before going into digital in 2001, (first with scanning and printing on an original Epson 7500). During my darkroom days I printed a lot of Ciba, with masking.

My large prints were under glass in my professional office under halogen track lighting, and in about four years you could take the matte off and see extensive fading. I reprinted many of these later with Epson 7600/7800 and was vastly more pleased with the results. These Epson prints continue to be under the halogen lighting with no hint of fading. My C-prints had also faded significantly under this same lighting.

The Wilhelm aging tests do indicate about 22 years for Ciba compared to 60-200 years for the ink jets. Further, there was an accelerated aging phenomenon with Ciba's under strong lighting which increased the rate by about four times.

Thus in real world display, Cibas do fade and I will be long dead before my ink jets fade.

My point is why bother with an expensive process to print on an inferior product that has significant flaws in it's color response. Digital printing on Fuji Crystal Archive would look better and last longer and likely be less costly and easier to get. I am surprised that Ciba is even still available.

I did an extensive search on the net for printers and only found 3-4 in the US. I've used Hance in Arizona for mounting my Fuji Supergloss prints (like Cibas), they also print digital Cibachromes (Ilfochromes) and with Fuji Crystal Archive. I think the Fuji gloss is also just like the Ciba/Ilfochromes.
I'm not sure which paper is more stable, my guess is the Fuji Crystal.

Heres the list of printers that do either or both papers.
http://www.hancepartners.com
http://www.jwphotolabs.com
http://www.weldoncolorlab.com/
http://www.chromatics.com

- Doug

There's more than those listed in NYC alone.

Regards, Art.