Re: Alternatives to Pictorico
Trevor, Can you get Agfa Copyjet film? I use exclusively this material and it is good, at least as good as Pictorico and probably cheaper. It is cheaper for me here in Spain, at least. There is no Agfa in Egypt, but possibly there are distributors. Looking in the Net I found this: --------------------------------------------------------------------- Hi-Res Color Separation Contact: Ehab William, Marketing Executive 32 Dejla St. from Shihab St., Mohandiseen Phone: +20 (2) 760-1485; +20(10) 141-9202 Fax: +20 (2) 760-1485 Email: eswadv@N0SPAM.hotmail.com Specialized in pre-press printing solution since 1997, Hi-Res color separation and digital printing center provides complete services including high quality drum scanning, color separation, color calibration, agfa color proofs, and digital printing. -------------------------------------------------------------------- These people, and certainly others, seem to use Agfa products, perhaps you can give them a call and ask. BTW Years back, when I got my first large format camera, I discovered that film in that size was pretty expensive in South America, where I lived then. But I worked as a programmer in a hospital so it was easy for me to get x-ray film. Even now I have a 24x30cm box somewhere. It works, but it is an ortho material (or even blue-sensitive only, I don't remember) and usually coated on both sides, so you will always have a secondary, slightly out of focus image in the backside. No antihalation layer, I think. Also, the optical density of the base is high, so your exposure times while making contact positives will also be higher than normal. This is probably not an issue once you realize it and adjust your times. At first, I had routinely underexposed and also inverted gums. Best Tom Sobota Madrid, Spain trevor cunningham wrote: As some of you may or may not know, I live in Egypt. Chemicals are easy to come by here so alt process is a natural choice in a land void of silver gelatin paper. My issue is finding materials to make digital negs with. I use a 5X7 Arca Swiss but desire much larger prints, and film extinction is quickly becoming a depressing reality. More generally, my alt prints evolve from 120 film - print - scan - printed transparency. The low res realities of this are disturbing and frustrating. I was wondering if there are transparency materials that professional printers could use (other than Pictorico, which does not exist here) to make my desired big negs. I might be able to gain access to x-ray film, but the process seems wasteful. Any ideas?
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