Under the useless information heading comes this secret from the past. Ektapan film could be used as the (almost) only film needed to make dye transfer (imbibition) prints. It could be used to make masks, separations, and even the matrix itself; that last is the big secret.

Full disclosure: it couldn’t do all those things better than the specialized films used for masks, seps, and mats; it could serve well, well enough to be a simple solution for workshops and weekend workers to acquire the foundations of making dye transfer prints. In school, I would take students through in several circuits of the process, each pass around we would add more control, increasing the understanding of choices to make — how the image was made.

Ektapan could also be used as a collotype film. It was a nice emulsion; not just for studio photographers shooting color and B&W negatives of the same thing.

Exposing and developing (tanning) Ektapan as a mat wasn’t the same as Kodak Matrix film. Two reasons, Ektapan is panchromatic, so required total darkness for working. Kodak Tanning Developer didn’t work well enough; contrast was too low, or else way to high. So we relied upon tanning bleach method.

Details won’t help you now. I offer this to you as a point of reference; as something you can consider as an alternative way of recovering a process. Try what is at hand. Don’t wait for the perfect something from someone else.

More, another time, about origin stories. Getting beyond the now state.