preflashing ilfochrome

[wayne3]

Has anyone ever tried preflashing Ilfochrome prints to reduce contrast? did it do much good?

[jan_eerala1]

In the days when only the old contrasty CPS material was made, many

big labs making cibachrome in Europa preflashed the material

regurarly before use. I tryed myself once, not so very serious, and

couldn't see any significant improvement, in every case nothing that

was worth the effort. The use of the low contrast CF1k has made even

masking mostly inessential, at least in commercial work.

[wayne3]

I've been using the low contrast paper for a couple months now, and

I've been pretty pleased with it. the saturation is more than adequate

for my tastes, and its contrast is more bearable.

Since nobody answered my question for a few days I did try flashing it

a few nights ago. It took a while to get the amount of flashing right

without fog, but I finally did. It didnt make much difference in

contrast though, maybe very slight, which I suppose might be expected

with the low contrast paper. I've only tried it on one slide so far

though.

 

<p>

 

My only complaint with the low contrast paper is that along with the

overall lower contrast comes lower contrast in the highlights, and

theres seemingly nothing I can do about that (other than perhaps

masking, which doesnt appeal to me).