Jump to content

Ektachrome/ECO to CRI green fade


Joe Rubin

Recommended Posts

Hi everyone. I'm new here so I apologize if this topic has already been sufficiently covered. I couldn't find an appropriate thread.

 

Anyway, I'm a film archivist and I've been dealing quite a bit lately with 35mm blow-up CRIs made from 16mm Ektachrome and ECO original which have started to (or completely) gone green in the blacks.

 

I'm assuming that this is simply the result of the weakest dyes fading but it seems as though only my CRIs that include 35mm opticals such as fades or titles have started going green and the ones that were printed directly from the Ekta or ECO and had their effects (dissolves, etc) present in the AB original edits are perfectly fine, color wise.

 

Does anyone have any info on this? And, more importantly, is there any hope for timing it out as I begin making new protection IPs?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Premium Member

I'm surprised that the same CRI stock that went through an optical printer is going green but the one that was contact printed isn't -- that brings up the question of whether the emulsion is on the wrong side for the contact-printed CRI shots, unless you are saying that those non-green shots also went through an optical printer for duplication... but just weren't tied to another shot with a dissolve, or had a fade built into them. Anyway, doesn't make much sense other than CRI's are notorious for being unstable, dye-wise.

 

It could be that the green shots were push-processed shots by coincidence and always had the green cast in the blacks.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I could be that the formaldehyde was left out in the final stabilizer bath. Formaldehyde is not required in the ECN stabilizer but is required in ECO/ME4/VNF1/CRI processes. Some labs have been known to use common ECN stabilizer for all. Of course, you don't see the effect until many years later.

 

Are you sure they are CRI (Color Reversal Intermediate) and not reversal dupes. CRI was used to make a new negative from a negative in one single step using special masked Ektachrome stock.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Dirk is quite right, of course. You can't make a CRI from an Ektachrome original. You have to make an 'normal' internegative. However if you are looking at a negative it will be masked and you wouldn't be able to see that the blacks are green without using a video analyser, the black areas would be white in the negative. Again it wasn't normal to make 35mm Ektachrome dupes. Would it be possible to post a frame scan so we can see what you are looking at?

 

Brian

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...