Graflex.org

[newspeedgraphicuser]

I got my transparencies back from the lab yesterday and they look pretty good except from some overzealous use of front rise with 90 optar lens which vingnetted the sky and too much tilt with the 135 optar which made the top of the distant building and forground out of focus. I used my Canon Rebel 35mm camera as a light meter and if anything underexposed Fuji Astia which made it a little harder to scan with my Epson 2450. I scanned at 1200dpi and took 1/4th of the file and made an 8x10 from that and printed it on my Epson 870 and it looked sharper (even forgot to apply unsharp mask in photoshop) than regular 16x20 prints from medium format. It would easily go 20x24 and that's not even maxing out the film as the scanner doesn't capture everything. Since it appears that Ilfochrome is obsolete I'll be sending in cd's to a pro lab and have them output to photo paper. Anyone tried the metallic papers?

[Graflex Sid]

It is best to buy a small independent exposure meter rather than using the one through an SLR camera.You will get a false reading going this route.As you have experienced.Color needs that extra bit of attention.Especially doing anything through 'photoshop' which has a mind of it's own.Speaking on B/W,'photoshop' likes a thinner neg to work from,then it can add it's own density:it works slightly different from the 'wet'process in the darkroom.A sort of,going back to school again,I found.

Anyhow,practice makes perfect,as they say.

[R_J]

"It would easily go 20x24 and that's not even maxing out the film as the scanner doesn't capture everything. Since it appears that Ilfochrome is obsolete I'll be sending in cd's to a pro lab and have them output to photo paper. Anyone tried the metallic papers?"

Ilfochrome is far from obsolete in Europe. Perhaps you are having distribution issues?

I regularly print Ilfochrome - if you need an international ilfochrome printer, I can recommend one to you.

The metallic papers have a great finish and surface and look excellent in all respects. Two years ago a printer ran trials with scanned Agfa Scala 5x4" sheets onto metallic papers (you're probably aware that monochrome slides are very difficult to print on Ilfochrome colour papers due to birefringence and different densities in burning and dodging).

The main issue I've found lacking in the metallic papers is the lack of a natural optical sharpness in even 5x4" slides. I'm not sure whether this was artifact, nor was the printer, however it doesn't offer quite the same calibre as the Ilfochrome and costed three times the price of an ilfochrome print then.

Good luck.

[newspeedgraphicuser]

I was just doing a search on google and didn't find many labs doing ilfochrome and some have discontinued it. One place out of California wanted something like $98 for a 16x20. My pro lab (does only portrait type work-probably largest one in the country) that prints digitally will do one for $17.95 although they won't develop E6 transparencies. For the E6 work I have to go to a lab abour 45 miles away. They will also print digitally for a few more bucks. In a town of 300,00 2 out of the 3 labs have closed.