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"Organic dyes" have nothing to do with Technicolor print stability. All films and most colorants (in ink jet, dye transfer, etc.) use organic dyes or organic pi

"Organic dyes" have nothing to do with Technicolor print stability. All films and most colorants (in ink jet, dye transfer, etc.) use organic dyes or organic pigments. What made old Technicolor so stable was that it could produce silver separations of the three primary color records, and it was the silver negatives, which are extremely stable, that can be used to strike new color prints (with their organic dyes). Trouble is, this is a very expensive process. Disney used it for its animated features which it intended to release again and again over many decades. Most studios went for the much less expensive dye originals which are less stable, especially if poorly processed or stored. (New viewing prints can be struck from properly stored master prints.) Modern color movie films are quite stable (science marches on), which is largely why the costly Technicolor separation process gradually disappeared. Digital systems pose their own problems, of course. There's media obsolescene (8-inch floppies, anyone?), digital integrity (bit drift, etc.), and media integrity (oops, that tape broke again). Much of what keeps archivists busy is deciding protocols for the continuous migration of images from one generation of media to another. For really good up to date information on image permanence, I recommend the independent, non-profit (unlike Wilhelm) Image Permanence Institute at the Rochester Institute of Technology. They've got some excellent, free downloads on both the basics and the advanced stuff. Wilhelm's book may be free, but it's very old and out of date. http://www.imagepermanenceinstitute.org/ http://www.imagepermanenceinstitute.org/

Be_Silly 16y ago
You really are trying to twist this. Oganic dye transfer has superb color stability over time. As one example, whilst Lucas was ruining the original Star Wars with a effective re-write, he relied on a private Technicolor print for the color timing. All the original negatives were faded. You try to imply the stability is inherent in the mono master separations, but that was done for a lot of movies, with or without Technicolor printing. The key masters in a Technicolor print are the "matrix" prints, which apply a screened dot pattern of the dyes to a recepticle emulsion which becomes the projection print. By confusing all of this, you're missing the whole idea. You start talking about modern emulsion "technology marches on" and utterly ignore how bad was the emulsion of the time frame i referenced. Also, you make an utter mess by saying this: "New viewing prints can be struck from properly stored master prints" which is just nonsense. The original master is out of the camera a negative. Then you rush print that with a transfer stock, against which you mark edits, and then you mark those edits back to the original reels, if you dare or more practically if you have someone sufficiently skilled at splicing the edits. There's a mere handful of people skilled enough to do that - one lady i recall, but not her name, waster her eyesight at the job, but worked on more majr flicks than i could list here if i found the reference. So, you are wrong about this taking new prints from a master print. A print is a positive. There aren't even any positive - positive transfer stocks available currently in the Kodak catalogue that i'm aware of. The emulsion type was called "interpositive". I've looked at your website you liked to, but have failed after several attempts to find any published papers, or any names which link back to any journal or conference proceedings. Care to elucidate your points? You are of course correct that Technicolor suffered due to cost issues, to the sheer mechanical alinment precision of transferring high resolution mechanical dot screens on small windows half the size of your 135 SLR / Leica "double frame" still camera. I imagine though we could engineer as good or better tolerances with much lower costs today. Just to be absolutely pedantic, when you say "What made old Technicolor so stable was that it could produce silver separations of the three primary color records" you're really messing with the facts. Technicolor WAS a separation process, in the transfer stage, nothing like "it could produce", rather, it's design included that stage. There's a diference between dye imbibation and dye chemical crystal formation. In short hand, most experienced technicians and cinematorgraphers i've met or read, use the word "dye process" to mean dye imbibation, not ineterlayer dye formation. Hunt's books are a wonderful intro to all aspects of color, get the earlier versions for review in case later revisions have remoed the chapters on color formation processes. I note your organization IPI has been about a while, but where can i find your papers archive? Your later comment, as to Wilhelm, which came across as snarky, rather ignores the fact that the man's main body of work is an excellent start to undertsnading. I don't read papers or books in isolation. If you can point out where their research is wrong, i'd certainly read with interest. But you just came across as if he was a self promoter johnny-come-lately, and even if he actually is, in the whole scheme of things, he's put out more work you can read directly than the site you've linked to or are associated with.

Be_Silly 16y ago

You really are trying to twist this. Oganic dye transfer has superb color stability over time. As one example, whilst Lucas was ruining the original Star Wars with a effective re-write, he relied on a private Technicolor print for the color timing. All the original negatives were faded. You try to imply the stability is inherent in the mono master separations, but that was done for a lot of movies, with or without Technicolor printing. The key masters in a Technicolor print are the "matrix" prints, which apply a screened dot pattern of the dyes to a recepticle emulsion which becomes the projection print. By confusing all of this, you're missing the whole idea. You start talking about modern emulsion "technology marches on" and utterly ignore how bad was the emulsion of the time frame i referenced. Also, you make an utter mess by saying this: "New viewing prints can be struck from properly stored master prints" which is just nonsense. The original master is out of the camera a negative. Then you rush print that with a transfer stock, against which you mark edits, and then you mark those edits back to the original reels, if you dare or more practically if you have someone sufficiently skilled at splicing the edits. There's a mere handful of people skilled enough to do that - one lady i recall, but not her name, waster her eyesight at the job, but worked on more majr flicks than i could list here if i found the reference. So, you are wrong about this taking new prints from a master print. A print is a positive. There aren't even any positive - positive transfer stocks available currently in the Kodak catalogue that i'm aware of. The emulsion type was called "interpositive". I've looked at your website you liked to, but have failed after several attempts to find any published papers, or any names which link back to any journal or conference proceedings. Care to elucidate your points? You are of course correct that Technicolor suffered due to cost issues, to the sheer mechanical alinment precision of transferring high resolution mechanical dot screens on small windows half the size of your 135 SLR / Leica "double frame" still camera. I imagine though we could engineer as good or better tolerances with much lower costs today. Just to be absolutely pedantic, when you say "What made old Technicolor so stable was that it could produce silver separations of the three primary color records" you're really messing with the facts. Technicolor WAS a separation process, in the transfer stage, nothing like "it could produce", rather, it's design included that stage. There's a diference between dye imbibation and dye chemical crystal formation. In short hand, most experienced technicians and cinematorgraphers i've met or read, use the word "dye process" to mean dye imbibation, not ineterlayer dye formation. Hunt's books are a wonderful intro to all aspects of color, get the earlier versions for review in case later revisions have remoed the chapters on color formation processes. I note your organization IPI has been about a while, but where can i find your papers archive? Your later comment, as to Wilhelm, which came across as snarky, rather ignores the fact that the man's main body of work is an excellent start to undertsnading. I don't read papers or books in isolation. If you can point out where their research is wrong, i'd certainly read with interest. But you just came across as if he was a self promoter johnny-come-lately, and even if he actually is, in the whole scheme of things, he's put out more work you can read directly than the site you've linked to or are associated with.