Digital Cibachrome - know any labs offering it?

[dreisenberger]

Anyone come across any labs offering cibachrome output from digital files?

I have found just one - UK-based but twinning with people in Switzerland, I believe. I am told they write the Cibachrome material with an Oce LightJet.

Anyone know any other labs offering this? I'd sure like to pursue this option further

(in fact for printing from 4000dpi scans of Velvia, rather than from digital capture)

[Ray Heath]

Anyone come across any labs offering cibachrome output from digital files?

I have found just one - UK-based but twinning with people in Switzerland, I believe. I am told they write the Cibachrome material with an Oce LightJet.

Anyone know any other labs offering this? I'd sure like to pursue this option further

(in fact for printing from 4000dpi scans of Velvia, rather than from digital capture)

g'day dreisen
what would be the characteristics of such a print type?

why bother?

how would this be better than a more conventional digital work flow/print out?

[dreisenberger]

g'day dreisen
what would be the characteristics of such a print type?

why bother?

how would this be better than a more conventional digital work flow/print out?

cibachrome has an outstanding sense of depth to it, and oustanding colour. there is almost a sense of the colours glowing out of the paper. rather than ink being placed onto a paper, cibachrome contains all the dye for the finished print in the emulsion, before it is exposed to light; this helps that sense of depth. if you haven't seen cibachromes, it is hard to explain beyond that. the process was very popular in the 1970s (i think) and early 80s, but is increasingly rare to find now, as it is in fact quite hard to control the cibachrome medium - it has a very narrow exposure latitude; quite a lot of dodging and burning may be necessary when printing analog from slides to control the latitude.

it's a traditionally analogue print process, but i am very interested in being able to reproduce this from a digital start point.

[gr82bart]

Bob Carnie at Digital Elevator - http://elevatordigital.ca/ - offers it. The prints made on the Digital Cibachrome paper look fantastic. There are only three labs that offer this type of print. He uses a Lambda printer.

Regards, Art.

[L Gebhardt]

Have a look at http://www.elevatordigital.ca/pdf/Lambda07.pdf. Elevator is a sponsor of APUG and this forum and Bob Carnie (an owner) of Elevator occasionally participates here and at APUG.

[David A. Goldfarb]

Check out hybridphoto sponsor, Elevator Labs in Canada, at www.elevatordigital.ca , which can do Lambda Ilfochrome.

Incidentally, I asked the Chromira folks at PMA if a Chromira could print to Ilfochrome, and they said the light output just isn't strong enough, compared to LightJet and Lambda machines, though they can print to B&W silver gelatin paper.

I also saw the DeVere digital enlarger, which is another possibility for printing to Ilfochrome from a digital file, but if you're starting from a slide anyway, it might make more sense just to print conventionally.

[bob carnie]

www.elevatordigital.ca , we do this in fact we have been working this way for 6years now.

regarding Rays question as to why bother?
I have been very fortunate lately to be able to output in house all different materials digitally and traditionally.
On site we have RA4 and use all the normal papers, the flex papers and the metal papers.
As well we have three large Epson printers and print on a lot of different papers and inks over the last few years.

Digital Cibachrome in my estimation completely blows away any of the other services that we offer. The colour gamut, saturation, contrast and depth is way beyond inkjet or RA4.
This paper is not for everyone, it is extremely glossy and very finicky to handle and as well extremely expensive to purchase and sell.
The ability to selective colour /contrast control of PS in conjuncture with the material is a dynamic combination.

We are small niche players in NA with this product and I believe the folks at Ilford Switzerland have let the marketing ball down with this product. All marketing money seems to be going to ink on paper and they have this product that is far away better than anything that I have worked on.*I am not confident in their long term production of Ciba, but I will continue to work with it as long as it is there.

As far as colour , I think the only prints that can surpass are the Colour Carbon Rag prints that are being made by a few artists world wide. And really my reasoning is the purported Archival attributes of the process.

cibachrome has an outstanding sense of depth to it, and oustanding colour. there is almost a sense of the colours glowing out of the paper. rather than ink being placed onto a paper, cibachrome contains all the dye for the finished print in the emulsion, before it is exposed to light; this helps that sense of depth. if you haven't seen cibachromes, it is hard to explain beyond that. the process was very popular in the 1970s (i think) and early 80s, but is increasingly rare to find now, as it is in fact quite hard to control the cibachrome medium - it has a very narrow exposure latitude; quite a lot of dodging and burning may be necessary when printing analog from slides to control the latitude.

it's a traditionally analogue print process, but i am very interested in being able to reproduce this from a digital start point.