Digital BW, The Print

Hi all, I had a strange experience today and I need some 
advice. I discovered a public art opportunity in my area with 
short notice last week. They require 5 slides of my 
prints for judging. These are B&W prints made on a 2200 with
the standard UltraChrome inks, standard Epson driver.

I'd never shot slides of prints before, but I decided to set 
up my 35mm Nikon and shoot a roll of Ektachrome 64T tungsten
balanced film. How hard could that be? I closed the vertical
blinds, taped the prints to a black matt board & hung them on 
a wall, set up a couple of tungsten photo lights (3200K) 
(not strobes) and exposed 36 slides for 1/4 second, based on 
my spotmeter reading (with some aperture-based bracketing to 
cover my bets.) No filter on the camera or in front of the 
lights.

As far as I understand, this is all standard operating procedure 
for photographing flat artwork. Though as I say, I've never done
this before.

I just picked up the slides. They were exposed correctly, but 
every one has a deep magenta cast. The prints looked nicely 
neutral to my eye when shooting. 

I could shoot another roll of slides, but I don't understand
what I ought to change. Is it possible this is a function 
of metamerism in the UC inks that only appears on color film?
(That sound ridiculous to me--I'm embarrassed to even state the
question. But there it is.) Has anyone shot slides of UC prints 
as described above and got neutral results? Or can someone guess 
from the above description what sort of dopey mistake I made?
Could the lab that processed the film have screwed them up
somehow?

Thanks for all advice,
David

ps. I know I could find a service bureau to print the slides
from a digital file, or use Scala, but I thought this would be 
both cheaper and faster. In the future, when I have more time to 
prepare, I imagined I would use Scala.

One addendum to my previous message. I was just looking over the
film specs for EKTACHROME 64T on the Kodak web site and noticed 
this statement:

"For best color rendition, use tungsten photolamps (3200 K) at 
their rated voltage. If voltage varies significantly, the color 
of the lamp will change."

I had my lights rigged up to cheap hardware store dimmer
switches, set at about 1/2 brightness. Thinking I was clever.
I wonder if that was all it took to turn the slides magenta.

Again, all advice welcome.

-david

* -----Original Message-----
* From: David Wroblewski [mailto:dawroblewski@...] 
* Sent: Wednesday, November 05, 2003 9:48 PM
* To: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com
* Subject: [Digital BW] Re: Color slides of Ultrachrome 
* prints... magenta?
* 
* 
* One addendum to my previous message. I was just looking over 
* the film specs for EKTACHROME 64T on the Kodak web site and noticed 
* this statement:
* 
* "For best color rendition, use tungsten photolamps (3200 K) at 
* their rated voltage. If voltage varies significantly, the color 
* of the lamp will change."
* 
* I had my lights rigged up to cheap hardware store dimmer 
* switches, set at about 1/2 brightness. Thinking I was clever. 
* I wonder if that was all it took to turn the slides magenta.
* 
David,

The dimmer would lower the voltage and that would result in a warmer  color
temperature from the lights. Your best bet would seem to be the Scala or
having the files output to slides.

Martin

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "David 
Wroblewski" <dawroblewski@y...> wrote:
> Hi all, I had a strange experience today and I need some 
> advice. I discovered a public art opportunity in my area with 
> short notice last week. They require 5 slides of my 
> prints for judging. These are B&W prints made on a 2200 with
> the standard UltraChrome inks, standard Epson driver.
> 
> I'd never shot slides of prints before, but I decided to set 
> up my 35mm Nikon and shoot a roll of Ektachrome 64T tungsten
> balanced film. How hard could that be? I closed the vertical
> blinds, taped the prints to a black matt board & hung them on 
> a wall, set up a couple of tungsten photo lights (3200K) 
> (not strobes) and exposed 36 slides for 1/4 second, based on 
> my spotmeter reading (with some aperture-based bracketing to 
> cover my bets.) No filter on the camera or in front of the 
> lights.
> 
> As far as I understand, this is all standard operating procedure 
> for photographing flat artwork. Though as I say, I've never done
> this before.
> 
> I just picked up the slides. They were exposed correctly, but 
> every one has a deep magenta cast. The prints looked nicely 
> neutral to my eye when shooting. 
> 
> I could shoot another roll of slides, but I don't understand
> what I ought to change. Is it possible this is a function 
> of metamerism in the UC inks that only appears on color film?
> (That sound ridiculous to me--I'm embarrassed to even state the
> question. But there it is.) Has anyone shot slides of UC prints 
> as described above and got neutral results? Or can someone guess 
> from the above description what sort of dopey mistake I made?
> Could the lab that processed the film have screwed them up
> somehow?
> 
> Thanks for all advice,
> David
> 
> ps. I know I could find a service bureau to print the slides
> from a digital file, or use Scala, but I thought this would be 
> both cheaper and faster. In the future, when I have more time to 
> prepare, I imagined I would use Scala.

Are you sure you're not using 3400K lights?

> 
> Are you sure you're not using 3400K lights?

Just double-checked them. Sylvania Photo-ECA 3200K is
what's printed on the bulb.

-d

Why dim? Use them at full power.
Mark
On Nov 6, 2003, at 12:57 AM, Martin Wesley wrote:

> * -----Original Message-----
> * From: David Wroblewski [mailto:dawroblewski@...]
> * Sent: Wednesday, November 05, 2003 9:48 PM
> * To: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com
> * Subject: [Digital BW] Re: Color slides of Ultrachrome
> * prints... magenta?
> *
> *
> * One addendum to my previous message. I was just looking over
> * the film specs for EKTACHROME 64T on the Kodak web site and noticed
> * this statement:
> *
> * "For best color rendition, use tungsten photolamps (3200 K) at
> * their rated voltage. If voltage varies significantly, the color
> * of the lamp will change."
> *
> * I had my lights rigged up to cheap hardware store dimmer
> * switches, set at about 1/2 brightness. Thinking I was clever.
> * I wonder if that was all it took to turn the slides magenta.
> *
> David,
>
> The dimmer would lower the voltage and that would result in a warmer  
> color
> temperature from the lights. Your best bet would seem to be the Scala 
> or
> having the files output to slides.
>
> Martin
>
>
>
>
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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

David - I make slides of my Ultrachrome prints all the time.  I typically
use a copy stand with 3200K quartz lamps, polarizing filters on the lights
and camera lens, and the Fuji ISO 64 tungsten-balanced film (RTP).  I used
to use the Kodak, but found for some critical purposes that the Fuji was a
bit more accurate in its color.  The Fuji can tend to run a tiny bit magenta
or red from my lab, which has very good E6 processing, but should never be
as off as you describe.  I agree that you shouldn't be dimming the lamps;
this will indeed make their color temperature much warmer.  But that would
cause a yellowish cast to the images.

I think that you most likely are a victim of bad processing.  Is the film
within its expiration date?  Has it been kept refrigerated, etc.??


Stephen Petegorsky
petegorsky@...
www.spphoto.com

Hi David,

I make slides of flat work a fair bit (my wife is a painter). Slides are
unforgiving compared to negative film so the color temperature of your light
source is a significant issue as is exposure, You need to drive the lamps at
their rated voltage. If you want dead on accurate color you may find that a
color temperature meter and a set of cc filters will be a good investment.
You can pick up the Minolta II series on ebay from time to time for a
reasonable amount and they work just fine. An incident light meter will tend
to give you better exposure data than a TTL in camera (in my opinion).
Processing is another variable and not everyone has tight quality control
but I would bet that if the exposure and color temp are right on that
processing would not be a major issue.

Roger

 -----Original Message-----
From: David Wroblewski [mailto:dawroblewski@...]
Sent: Wednesday, November 05, 2003 10:14 PM
To: DigitalBWThePrint
Subject: [Digital BW] Color slides of Ultrachrome prints... magenta?


  Hi all, I had a strange experience today and I need some
  advice. I discovered a public art opportunity in my area with
  short notice last week. They require 5 slides of my
  prints for judging. These are B&W prints made on a 2200 with
  the standard UltraChrome inks, standard Epson driver.

  I'd never shot slides of prints before, but I decided to set
  up my 35mm Nikon and shoot a roll of Ektachrome 64T tungsten
  balanced film. How hard could that be? I closed the vertical
  blinds, taped the prints to a black matt board & hung them on
  a wall, set up a couple of tungsten photo lights (3200K)
  (not strobes) and exposed 36 slides for 1/4 second, based on
  my spotmeter reading (with some aperture-based bracketing to
  cover my bets.) No filter on the camera or in front of the
  lights.

  As far as I understand, this is all standard operating procedure
  for photographing flat artwork. Though as I say, I've never done
  this before.

  I just picked up the slides. They were exposed correctly, but
  every one has a deep magenta cast. The prints looked nicely
  neutral to my eye when shooting.

  I could shoot another roll of slides, but I don't understand
  what I ought to change. Is it possible this is a function
  of metamerism in the UC inks that only appears on color film?
  (That sound ridiculous to me--I'm embarrassed to even state the
  question. But there it is.) Has anyone shot slides of UC prints
  as described above and got neutral results? Or can someone guess
  from the above description what sort of dopey mistake I made?
  Could the lab that processed the film have screwed them up
  somehow?

  Thanks for all advice,
  David

  ps. I know I could find a service bureau to print the slides
  from a digital file, or use Scala, but I thought this would be
  both cheaper and faster. In the future, when I have more time to
  prepare, I imagined I would use Scala.





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  Please visit the Group Homepage to check the Files, Bookmarks, Polls and
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  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint

  If you wish to receive no emails or just a daily digest, or you wish to
unsubscribe, please edit your Membership preferences by visiting this same
page.

  Please follow these basic guidelines:
  - Include your full name with your message.
  - Include the address of your website, if you have one.
  - As threads develop, trim off excess portions of earlier messages to keep
them short.
  - As the topic of a thread changes remember to change the subject header.
  - Good manners are required at all time. No personal attacks or flames
  - Complete your Yahoo profile.
  - Before posting a question, search the message archives and the various
resources on the homepage.




  Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Thanks for the advice, everyone.

It sounds to me like the most likely error was that I was 
driving the 3200K floodlamps with a dimmer, not at the rated 
voltage. Everyone agrees that was a mistake.

I'm confused why why they shifted to magenta and not yellow 
as Stephen Petegorsky suggested they would when the lights
were dimmed.

I'm going to shoot another set tonight with full strength
floods and use a Q-lab to process them. But in the meantime,
I'm still interested in a discussion of the magenta/yellow
question in case that might help nail down the problem even
further.

Thanks again,
david

David;

I run a studio here in Boston called "Artslides". Every day I shoot 
35mm slides, 4"x5" transparencies and digital files of 2D and 3D 
artwork for individual artists, galleries and publishers. I photograph 
oil paintings, watercolors, drawings, B&W silver prints, c-prints, 
inkjet prints... just about every medium you can imagine.

There are several reasons why your slides came out with a color cast 
and did not match your Ultrachrome prints. The biggest reason by far is 
the fact that you used a dimmer on your 3200k Tungsten lights. As you 
dimmed the lights the color output of the lights warmed up a lot 
resulting in the slides with a warm color cast. If you re-shoot the 
slides with the lights on full power and adjust your exposure 
accordingly you will get much better results. However, there are still 
some other factors you would need to take in account to get a perfect 
color match from prints to slides.

B&W prints made with the Epson 2200 and standard Epson driver do 
exhibit metamersim. The metamerism is not as severe as prints from the 
2000P but the metamerism is still there. So when you illuminate the 
prints under tungsten lights they tend to warm up magenta or red. 
Typically when I photograph 2200 prints I need to add 5cc to 7.5cc of 
green using Kodak gelatin color compensating (cc) filters in front of 
the lens.. B&W prints are the hardest to match on slides. Any slight 
color shift will be obvious. Color images tend to hide small color 
shifts.

The type of film you use, your lights, your lens and your lab's E-6 
line are all have slight to significant color biases. The only way to 
get a perfect dead on color match from prints to slides is to shoot a 
test of your subject with a standardized setup. Process the film, 
evaluate the results and then use color compesating (cc) filters over 
the lens on your next shoot to counteract any color cast / bias.

I hope that helps!

-Jeff

On Thursday, November 6, 2003, at 12:13 AM, David Wroblewski wrote:

> Hi all, I had a strange experience today and I need some
> advice. I discovered a public art opportunity in my area with
> short notice last week. They require 5 slides of my
> prints for judging. These are B&W prints made on a 2200 with
> the standard UltraChrome inks, standard Epson driver.
>
> I'd never shot slides of prints before, but I decided to set
> up my 35mm Nikon and shoot a roll of Ektachrome 64T tungsten
> balanced film. How hard could that be? I closed the vertical
> blinds, taped the prints to a black matt board & hung them on
> a wall, set up a couple of tungsten photo lights (3200K)
> (not strobes) and exposed 36 slides for 1/4 second, based on
> my spotmeter reading (with some aperture-based bracketing to
> cover my bets.) No filter on the camera or in front of the
> lights.
>
> As far as I understand, this is all standard operating procedure
> for photographing flat artwork. Though as I say, I've never done
> this before.
>
> I just picked up the slides. They were exposed correctly, but
> every one has a deep magenta cast. The prints looked nicely
> neutral to my eye when shooting.
>
> I could shoot another roll of slides, but I don't understand
> what I ought to change. Is it possible this is a function
> of metamerism in the UC inks that only appears on color film?
> (That sound ridiculous to me--I'm embarrassed to even state the
> question. But there it is.) Has anyone shot slides of UC prints
> as described above and got neutral results? Or can someone guess
> from the above description what sort of dopey mistake I made?
> Could the lab that processed the film have screwed them up
> somehow?
>
> Thanks for all advice,
> David
>
> ps. I know I could find a service bureau to print the slides
> from a digital file, or use Scala, but I thought this would be
> both cheaper and faster. In the future, when I have more time to
> prepare, I imagined I would use Scala.

> David;
>
> I run a studio here in Boston called "Artslides". Every day I shoot
> 35mm slides, 4"x5" transparencies and digital files of 2D and 3D
> artwork for individual artists, galleries and publishers. I photograph
> oil paintings, watercolors, drawings, B&W silver prints, c-prints,
> inkjet prints... just about every medium you can imagine.

Hi Jeff - every now and then I do some copy work (used to do lots when I
worked at a museum and archives). Anyway, recently I was interested discover
that in such a situation in the US, photographs that you take of flat
artwork - paintings drawings - aren't copyright protected -(that is, your
copyright in the image, not the artists in the work) whereas copy
photographs of 3D artwork, sculptures, installation pieces etc, is copyright
protected.

tim

The color temp of the lights is important but is only one of the 
issues that affect the color cast when shooting tungsten balanced 
slide film.

If you read all of the tiny print on the spec sheet that comes with 
the film you will see that, for shutter speeds under 1 second a CC 
filter is suggested,often it is a green filter.

I do color critical work in my studio to reproduce art work and this 
is my procedure.

I buy a large quantity of 6118 Tungsten balanced film of the same 
emulsion number, I shoot a test frame of a Kodak gray card and get 
densitomitry readings from my lab. All exposures are always done at a 
one second exposure.

the numbers from the lab indicate two important bits of info, one is a CC
filterpac that will be required for all subsequent exposures, and the 
density indicated what the true studio ISO speed of the film is.

T64 is a great film but takes a little extra care to get it right.

J.Z.

In a message dated 11/6/2003 2:21:46 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
jef.jef@... writes:
As you 
dimmed the lights the color output of the lights warmed up a lot 
resulting in the slides with a warm color cast. If you re-shoot the 
slides with the lights on full power and adjust your exposure 
accordingly you will get much better results. However, there are still 
some other factors you would need to take in account to get a perfect 
color match from prints to slides.
here is how i create my own slides, without any of the strange color shifts 
mentioned.

i use a copy stand, with a flood light positioned an equal distance, on each 
side of the stand, and a BLUE BCN #1 light bulb in each one (you can purchase 
these at just about any Photo Specialty Store, or online.), and i do NOT use 
any other lighting in the room. i take a light reading with a light meter, and 
gray card, and have never had a problem.

k a y


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

> Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 22:13:37 -0700
> From: "David Wroblewski" <dawroblewski@...>
> 
> I could shoot another roll of slides, but I don't understand
> what I ought to change. Is it possible this is a function
> of metamerism in the UC inks that only appears on color film?
> (That sound ridiculous to me--I'm embarrassed to even state the
> question. But there it is.) Has anyone shot slides of UC prints
> as described above and got neutral results? Or can someone guess
> from the above description what sort of dopey mistake I made?
> Could the lab that processed the film have screwed them up
> somehow?


David,
I can't address the photographibility of Ultrachrome inks but the magenta
cast of the slides could definitely be attributed to your lab. You should
shoot a color chart to go along with your work or attatch to the edge of the
artwork in a strip (and mask later) if color balance is critical.

Shooting snow a lot I have so many magenta slides it is silly. They can be
corrected but shouldn't have to. I personally don't care for tungsten film
as it does not seem to balance consisitenly with my 'tungsten' lights. I use
my umbrellas and studio flash heads with Provia or Velvia and get very
consistent color and results of oil artworks for various clients interesting
to find out on my own how the Ultra photographs.
Good luck.
Jerry

Hi Jon, thanks for the advice.

I looked on Kodak's web site at the specs for EktaChrome 64T
and did not find any mention of the need to color compensate 
for exposures < 1 second.

It says: "No filter correction or exposure compensation is 
normally required for EKTACHROME 64T Professional Film at 
exposure times of 1/10,000 second to 10 seconds."

So I'm confused by your advice. But the rest of your procedure
makes perfect sense. I'm reshooting in a few hours (after the
sun goes down) and will know the results tomorrow afternoon...

-david

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, Jon Zax 
<lotus@i...> wrote:
> 
> If you read all of the tiny print on the spec sheet that comes 
with 

> the film you will see that, for shutter speeds under 1 second a CC 
> filter is suggested,often it is a green filter.
>

What film do you use with your setup?
-david

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, 
DigitalLipothymy@a... wrote:
> In a message dated 11/6/2003 2:21:46 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
> jef.jef@v... writes:
> As you 
> dimmed the lights the color output of the lights warmed up a lot 
> resulting in the slides with a warm color cast. If you re-shoot 
the 
> slides with the lights on full power and adjust your exposure 
> accordingly you will get much better results. However, there are 
still 
> some other factors you would need to take in account to get a 
perfect 
> color match from prints to slides.
> here is how i create my own slides, without any of the strange 
color shifts 
> mentioned.
> 
> i use a copy stand, with a flood light positioned an equal 
distance, on each 
> side of the stand, and a BLUE BCN #1 light bulb in each one (you 
can purchase 
> these at just about any Photo Specialty Store, or online.), and i 
do NOT use 
> any other lighting in the room. i take a light reading with a 
light meter, and 

> gray card, and have never had a problem.
> 
> k a y

For anyone following this thread: using only the 3200K tungsten 
lamps at the rated wattage solved my problem with a magenta cast 
on EktaChrome 64T (i.e. no dimmer.) 

When shot this way, all the slides came out accurately 
representing the B&W prints. It looks like the prints 
created with the Epson driver/full UC inkset warmed 
slightly (not unreasonably for my purposes) on the slides. 
The prints created with QuadToneRip/UC inks reproduced perfectly.

Thanks to everyone who helped me figure this out. 
I'm quite pleased with the results. 

david