Of course they are. Anything based on carbon is organic. The dyes were all made from coal tar and petroleum derived products.These are not organic dyes.
Of course they are. Anything based on carbon is organic. The dyes were all made from coal tar and petroleum derived products.These are not organic dyes.
I don't doubt your experience with old prints, I'm not talking about fade, I'm talking about color shift and the yellowing of aged materials. It may be an interaction between the dyes and the gelatin that causes the emulsion to yellow, or wetting agents added to the dye to increase the saturating of the gelatin matrices. But something is happening on these old prints that leads to an unnatural color shift to yellow. I'm old enough to have seen Technicolor prints in the theater in the early 1950's and I don't remember everything having a golden shift. I don't remember a yellow-faced Rhonda Fleming and her red hair against a green sky - I remember intensely blue skies and blushed skin tones.Having handled thousands of dye transfer prints, I’ve never seen fade.
Damage? Certainly, but not fade.
That noted, every dye transfer print is not perfectly produced, especially re-issues.
Those early productions probably had fewer than 300 prints struck.
The nitrate base may be fine, but the portions of the gelatin that contain the dyes are yellowing from something, some chemical interaction, some substance that's transferring from the matrices along with the dye. Have you ever seen a 3 strip Technicolor print from the 1953 or earlier without the golden shading? Don't you think there would have been someone, some people with power like a producer, major director or even a studio head that said "No. I want bright natural color in this film. I don't want it golden tinted. It's not right for this film." If every old Technicolor print that you've seen has a golden tint, then I think the golden shade is not there by design....but an artifact from the Technicolor process that shows up with time.It’s not a y shift. It’s the color design, even more so via Tech London, for warmer prints.
The base is not shifting, it’s crystal clear.
And then, of course, there’s that tiny shift added by the carbon arc.
I have.The nitrate base may be fine, but the portions of the gelatin that contain the dyes are yellowing from something, some chemical interaction, some substance that's transferring from the matrices along with the dye. Have you ever seen a 3 strip Technicolor print from the 1953 or earlier without the golden shading? Don't you think there would have been someone, some people with power like a producer, major director or even a studio head that said "No. I want bright natural color in this film. I don't want it golden tinted. It's not right for this film." If every old Technicolor print that you've seen has a golden tint, then I think the golden shade is not there by design....but an artifact from the Technicolor process that shows up with time.
If every old Technicolor print that you've seen has a golden tint, then I think the golden shade is not there by design....but an artifact from the Technicolor process that shows up with time.
It was a mordant, and yes, it was applied over the entire surface.What was the substance that was applied to the blank receiver film that absorbed the dyes from the matrices? If it was applied to the blank receiver edge-to edge, the fact that the blank areas of surviving Technicolor prints are still clear would rule out it explaining the yellowish hue of the images.
We have the base material as our reference, so in these examples, the color temperature of the projection source is irrelevant in this case. It is obvious that, relative to the base color, there is a decided yellow shift.Given that we don't know what color temperature the light source illuminating those examples from Filmcolors.org was, or what color temperature the camera used to photograph them was white balanced to, I don't think you can derive any conclusions about IB Tech turning yellow ...
One can add to that, the condition of the reflector in the lamp house, as well s the color of the screen surface. No hard and fast rules here.iirc, but I'm not sure I'm remembering this correctly, Carbon arc shifts about +600K , but the carbon arc reflector shifts back about -200K, so at most a +400K difference in projection.
Coatings on the projection lens probably are negligible +/- 50K iirc
Xenon projection, and I may be badly misremembering this, is significantly cooler, and projecting the vintage warm print with a xenon bulb would reduce the warmer color temperature significantly.
A much bigger shift probably occurs with the color temperature of the bulb used for the film scanner for those prints, and the digital white balance settings can obviously also shift it again, separate from the scanner bulb color temperature.
I think your film scan looks much more color accurate, but I think you've gone a little too far with the greenish cyan filtering. The whites of her dress look a little too blue/green when compared to the sprocket holes. Perhaps filtering should be a little more bluish and not so intense? I eliminated the cyan tint on the edges of the film (except for a square) so your eye doesn't compensate for all the cyan.I Thought I'd try a little experiment. Below are 2 scans of an IB frame from the 1940s in my possession. The first was scanned so that the base appears white (clear). In the second scan, I tried to emulate (approximately) projection by a carbon arc (5600K) which would appear blue (compared to an incandescent lamp). It's interesting that the "golden" hue that has been discussed here has virtually disappeared. There is an interesting discussion on the subject here:
Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Carbon arc color temperature?
www.film-tech.com
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Same here. Holy grail title for me. It must be tied up with rights issues as I don't believe it's ever had a legitimate Region 1 home video release in any format.'billy rose's diamond horseshoe' 1945! would LOVE to see this on blu ray!!
The New York Times Review ---- about the film and the stunning Technicolor work with stunning Technicolor camera work, has created several memorable and beautiful sequences. It is a good film, one well worth seeing; how much better it might have been with an Essex worthy of Miss Davis's Elizabeth we can only surmiseHaving handled thousands of dye transfer prints, I’ve never seen fade.
Damage? Certainly, but not fade.
That noted, every dye transfer print is not perfectly produced, especially re-issues.
Those early productions probably had fewer than 300 prints struck.