Category: the Lab

CVI. Notes

Posted on Posted in dye transfer, labnotes, the Lab

It was called Dye Transfer, because the dye transfers (from Mat to Blank). Often, the name is the answer. Rollup is the step with results you see. The assembly is a mechanical stage, the hand stage of the process. While making a masks, separtions cannot be sloppy, they can be made a by-the-numbers procedure. Each stage multiple changes can be made. This was intimidating and exciting. Most found it too much to venture into. Lacking confidence is worse than lacking knowledge.

The show, as I review it, consists of three sections. These are: immersion and mounting the original, exposure steps, briefly covered, the camera moves over a couple important pieces of exposing equipment from the past; without prior knowledge, they are probably not noticed.

Note: they have a KM tri-level and a filtermatic. FM introduced 1961ish. K&M was across the bay from CCA, Tampa.


Irene Malli born 1964, and Guy Stricherz (b. 1948 – d. March 29, 2025 ) 

The mask is used during exposure of the separation, or the mask is used while exposing the separation to the mat. A mask+sep sandwich. This was occasioned when an original was small, restricting the binding of the mask and original before separating. Masks are, essentially, automatic dodging — most labs, and all published instruction I have found on the internet, rely upon “silver” masks, that is, colorless, neutral masks. They are most often made to filtered light, so they select the image color range you choose to control.

[Only those people of Blue Pizza, have been instructed about making non-silver masks.]

The portion of the video I would emphasize watching is the rollup segments. This comes at the 13min point. This is a key to master skill of dye printer. The prior stages are following instructions, rollup is experience based. Irene shows process mastery.

— laydown, position, clearing the blank … watch roller clearing, use. Notice gloves on, off sections. Watch it again… Wiping is an essential skill… how she lifts (corners).. we aren’t shown the pickup (probably with a scrap of mat, what I use.) She cleans the SLAB without gloves, preventing stained surface.

If there is a secret, it is their transfer times: (these aren’t secrets, times are within range of anyone else’s.)

  • Magenta transfer time is 8 mins
  • Cyan transfer time is 6 mins
  • Yellow transfer time is 3 mins


Pre-maskers baked the scale into the sep, so the mat stage was more automatic.This prebake allowed easier making of multiple mats. Most labs never needed many sets of mats, since a well managed rollup method allowed making many (50) prints. There were few labs that had to make more than 50 prints in an order cycle. (only three that I knew)

worlds ago… there was Phoho … Soho.. and the Dye Road. most of the dye labs were near Germain. I was.

[this is a current screen off goog maps. the end point addresses are FTL and CVI

Frank Tartaro taught at Germain, the basecamp, jump off point for many of the better dye transfer printers.

The New York days: (CVI, 23 Prince St. NYC NY 10012 // 212-226-3399). Some of the other labs: Frank Tartaro, Frenchy’s. Someone who made extremely complex dye-rollups was Nino Mondhe  (Buttenhoff 2 Wakendorfii Germany 011-49-4535-6867); Chicago dye was Edward Van Baerle.

Reminder: These ref values are for Kodak Products. Not Efke. Not OIC.

Darkroom Death

Posted on Posted in art biz, minimum daily requirement, paradox lost, the Lab, The Other

Without hybrid, there is no breed..

The analog rebound is more in the mind than in the hand. A rebound that never recovers to a prior high is termed a “dead cat bounce” — as in, “even a dead cat can bounce.” The Analog Revival is a low point in revivalism. This is a dream of those with more past than future. More memory than plan.

The companies, groups that lasted —

Freestyle and Lomography kept supplies flowing, now, CineStill has become strong enough that Eastman Kodak sees revenue. The new companies, those providing film scanner solutions, those automating the wet steps, these are the small cadre looked to by the incoming users. The green, energized under 40s. They may come to a darkroom, but by the time they do, products will be so expensive, only the richest, or most dedicated will buy. That is apt to be the shortest lived bounce.
Without digital, film would never have been revived.

The resuscitator was Instagram photos of camera carrying celebrities. *Lauren Lauren’s Leica, with very long leather strap. Brad Pitt’s Hasselblad 500.

November 24… Another camera/ film store closing

Mechanical Analog Chemical Photography was built assuming a darkroom in which the unseen, slow, contemplative work was undertaken, or realized. The camera was the first part, not the key distinctive part. Even today, that public, camera centric portion of photography continues. It has been rephrased as “lens based” photography, thereby including the digital camera, the spine of 21st century imaging.

items of the fad aren’t always well made.. fads fade… more times than they succeed.

People want to believe. A gathering of the loud, too easily believe they are heard by everyone. They aren’t heard, even among themselves. Instead, believing their arguments of importance. In the land of money, there are no other motives by those who make the machines used. Fads are opportunities for advance which the foolish think are permanent, an annual. Wiser money understands the difference between crops; between land, soil types. When it is better to reap, or sow. Money is only money when it is mobile.

Will a new coater arise? Yes. But they won’t have a stronger future than the existing coaters. They will have to remain small scale, surviving only if their best first product exceeds anticipation. And/Or, they have physical barrier… a close, local market. Perhaps one offering camera rentals, tea, tours of a surrounding area — a destination site for the young, perhaps the retired.

Without paper and associated chemistry, the darkroom will die. Already, the range of coaters capable of absorbing the possible losses involved in coating and distributing photo-sensitive paper declines. Fujifilm is the only company financially durable enough to risk making papers Their remaining paper interest is in supplying European ready printers — amateurs. Fujifilm is paying attention to Instax coating in their homeland, where enthusiasm, free time, disposable cash, continues growing among the young city people. The visual Karaoke, seems durable. If not, a small write-off to a company Fuji sized.

The Forum Effect–

Forums provided no benefit on any dye transfer revival. It was actually a diffuser of intensity, by allowing people to believe that someone else was doing it — that there was a grand benefactor in the sky. They didn’t have to invest anything more than they ever had. Wait long enough, someone will realize how fabulous a market there is, just awaiting new product.

Even now, forums focus on cameras, old lenses, attempts at digitizing –just as bad salesmen never improve, neither will they. Dispersed, disorganized information leaves the field open to more brag than awareness.

Forums are a remarkably fertile field if you are interested in becoming an old, white male, having strong opinions about photography prior to 1980; before its growth, before the silver explosion, when it makes it way into commercial galleries. Opinions formed using knowledge gained in piecemeal fashion.

People buy tickets to ride steam trains. They get there flying in a jet, or driving in a car. Steam trains are not making their way onto the tracks of life.

REFS: