This article was fascinating, but immediately raised a slew of questions:
What is the process for obtaining a digital file for making the LVT transparency?
Why make a LVT transparency and then do color separations on that?
What is the process for making the separations (guessing optical filters to create separation negatives)?
Why not make the separations earlier in the process and produce them as 3 LVT monochromes, saving the steps of color LVT transparency and subsequent separation? It seems like these extra steps are not needed to preserve the historical qualities of the dye transfer process.
I understand that the subsequent highlight and shadow manipulation by photographic masks are required to obtain the historic qualities of dye transfer prints, but it seems the intermediate color transparency and separation introduces a place for things to go wrong with no benefit. I would appreciate some enlightment on this!
Hi @old_tv_nut
Thanks for the thoughtful questions. Jean has provided answers, so I’m sharing them here:
What is the process for obtaining a digital file for making the LVT transparency?For these two projects The Vertigo Project and GodardBardot the digital files were obtained from scans of the Technicolor reels.
Why make a LVT transparency and then do color separations on that?Because the transparency is the source material for making the separations to make the print.
What is the process for making the separations (guessing optical filters to create separation negatives)?Yes, Kodak Wratten filters - Red 29, Green 61 and Blue 47B
Why not make the separations earlier in the process and produce them as 3 LVT monochromes, saving the steps of color LVT transparency and separation? It seems like these extra steps are not needed to preserve the historical qualities of the dye transfer process.The short answer is, that while generating three monochrome LVT separations directly from the digital file may appear to eliminate a step, it introduces a much more difficult calibration problem.
With a transparency the separations are made from a known photographic object rather than three independently generated monochrome records.
You must take into account that the separations are film which are then being exposed onto the matrix, which is also film. The matrix is affected not only by the density of the separations but also by the spectral characteristics of the separation filters, the spectral characteristics of the film used to make the separations, how both the separations and the matrix have been developed - everything must line up so that the matrices can be dyed and layered onto one another to reproduce a colour balanced print with clean, crisp, bright tones.
If you eliminate the transparency and create three separations from an LVT, these separations will not be calibrated to dye transfer and when the matrices are dyed and layered, they will not produce a linear image with the correct densities.
