AshigrainColour print · Print film
Technicolor Dye Transfer (1997 revival)
Technicolor's late-1990s dye-transfer revival.
A labelled surrogate of Technicolor's late-1990s dye-transfer revival: the Process IV model with no key image and an assumed steeper tone for deeper blacks. Original vs Ashigrain.
At a glance
- Introduced
- 1997
- Discontinued
- Process
- three separation records printed onto matrix film, developed to hardened gelatin reliefs, imbibed with cyan, magenta and yellow dyes and transferred in register onto a blank
- Maximum density
- ≈ 2.8
- Base
- Polyester
About the film
Technicolor had stopped dye-transfer printing in the United States in the mid-1970s, studied a revival from the early 1990s, and brought it back in 1997 at its North Hollywood laboratory on the Universal lot.
To do so it bought back the dye-transfer equipment that its West Drayton plant had sold to China in the late 1970s. Film Atlas names Batman & Robin (1997) as the first film released with the new prints, as show prints only, and in December 1997 the Los Angeles Times reported that the process had so far been used on a few prints of Giant and Batman & Robin. Ricotta, one of the revival's principals, said it gave sharper, less grainy images and an extended tone scale with blacker blacks and whiter whites. The prints were made on Estar polyester blanks supplied by Kodak, with soundtracks printed in black and white. It was used for show prints of new features such as Bulworth, The Thin Red Line and Godzilla (all 1998), Pearl Harbor and Apocalypse Now Redux (both 2001), and for reissues of Rear Window, Gone with the Wind and The Wizard of Oz. The 1999 Rear Window reissue had about 40 dye-transfer prints. The revival was meant to scale up to large release runs but stayed with small ones because of quality-control problems, technical failures and the coming of digital projection, and it had ended by the early 2000s.
Sources for this history
- Technicolor dye-transfer revival (Robert Hoffman), Film Atlas (FIAF / George Eastman Museum)
- Technicolor prints from color negatives (Richard W. Haines), Film Atlas (FIAF / George Eastman Museum)
- Film restoration more than 'Rear Window'-dressing (Bill Desowitz, 11 December 1997), CNN Interactive (Los Angeles Times)
The look
In 1997 Technicolor revived dye-transfer printing for show prints of new features and reissued classics, on polyester base; it had stopped again by the early 2000s. Ashigrain's version is a labelled surrogate, a model inspired by the print rather than a reproduction: Process IV's model with no key image and a steeper tone.
Best for
- Late-1990s show-print looks
- Restored reissues of studio classics
- Deep blacks with saturated dye colour
Compare print films
The same Vision3 500T night frame on each print film: how deep the blacks go, how the highlights roll off and how the colour separates.
The same Vision3 500T night frame on each print film: how deep the blacks go, how the highlights roll off and how the colour separates.
The same Vision3 500T night frame on each print film: how deep the blacks go, how the highlights roll off and how the colour separates.
The same Vision3 500T night frame on each print film: how deep the blacks go, how the highlights roll off and how the colour separates.
The same Vision3 500T night frame on each print film: how deep the blacks go, how the highlights roll off and how the colour separates.
The same Vision3 500T night frame on each print film: how deep the blacks go, how the highlights roll off and how the colour separates.
The same Vision3 500T night frame on each print film: how deep the blacks go, how the highlights roll off and how the colour separates.
The same Vision3 500T night frame on each print film: how deep the blacks go, how the highlights roll off and how the colour separates.
The same Vision3 500T night frame on each print film: how deep the blacks go, how the highlights roll off and how the colour separates.
The same Vision3 500T night frame on each print film: how deep the blacks go, how the highlights roll off and how the colour separates.
The same Vision3 500T night frame on each print film: how deep the blacks go, how the highlights roll off and how the colour separates.
The same Vision3 500T night frame on each print film: how deep the blacks go, how the highlights roll off and how the colour separates.
The same Vision3 500T night frame on each print film: how deep the blacks go, how the highlights roll off and how the colour separates.
The same Vision3 500T night frame on each print film. On this two-colour print (a labelled surrogate) every colour falls between blue-green and red-orange: how deep the blacks go, how the highlights roll off and which lights keep their hue.
The same Vision3 500T night frame on each print film: how deep the blacks go, how the highlights roll off and how the colour separates.
The same Vision3 500T night frame on each print film: how deep the blacks go, how the highlights roll off and how the colour separates.
The same Vision3 500T night frame on each print film: how deep the blacks go, how the highlights roll off and how the colour separates.
The same Vision3 500T night frame on each print film: how deep the blacks go, how the highlights roll off and how the colour separates.
The same Vision3 500T night frame on each print film: how deep the blacks go, how the highlights roll off and how the colour separates.
The same Vision3 500T night frame on each print film: how deep the blacks go, how the highlights roll off and how the colour separates.
The same Vision3 500T night frame on each print film: how deep the blacks go, how the highlights roll off and how the colour separates.
The same Vision3 500T night frame on each print film: how deep the blacks go, how the highlights roll off and how the colour separates.
The same Vision3 500T night frame on each print film: how deep the blacks go, how the highlights roll off and how the colour separates.
The same Vision3 500T night frame on each print film: how deep the blacks go, how the highlights roll off and how the colour separates.
The same Vision3 500T night frame on each print film. On this blue-sensitive black-and-white print the colour negative turns grey: how deep the blacks go, how the highlights roll off and how dark the reds and greens print.
The same Vision3 500T night frame on each print film: how deep the blacks go, how the highlights roll off and how the colour separates.
The same Vision3 500T night frame on each print film. On this blue-sensitive black-and-white print the colour negative turns grey: how deep the blacks go, how the highlights roll off and how dark the red neon and skin print.
The same Vision3 500T night frame on each print film: how deep the blacks go, how the highlights roll off and how the colour separates.
The same Vision3 500T night frame on each print film. On this black-and-white print the colour negative turns grey: how deep the blacks go, how the highlights roll off and how the coloured lights and skin translate to grey.
The same Vision3 500T night frame on each print film. On this blue-sensitive black-and-white print the colour negative turns grey: how deep the blacks go, how the highlights roll off and how the coloured lights and skin translate to grey.
The same Vision3 500T night frame on each print film: how deep the blacks go, how the highlights roll off and how the colour separates.
The same Vision3 500T night frame on each print film: how deep the blacks go, how the highlights roll off and how the colour separates.
The same Vision3 500T night frame on each print film: how deep the blacks go, how the highlights roll off and how the colour separates.
The same Vision3 500T night frame on each print film: how deep the blacks go, how the highlights roll off and how the colour separates.
The same Vision3 500T night frame on each print film: how deep the blacks go, how the highlights roll off and how the colour separates.
The same Vision3 500T night frame on each print film. On this two-colour print (a labelled surrogate) every colour falls between a blue and a red dye: how deep the blacks go, how the highlights roll off and which lights keep their hue.
The same Vision3 500T night frame on each print film: how deep the blacks go, how the highlights roll off and how the colour separates.
The same Kodak Vision3 500T night frame, printed on each film.
- Kodak Vision Premier Color Print Film 2393
- Eastman Color SP Print Film 5383
- Eastman Color Print Film 5384
- Fujifilm Eterna-CP 3521XD
- Du Pont Color Release Positive Type 275
- Fujifilm Eterna-CP 3523XD
- Kodak Vision Color Print Film 2383
- Fujifilm Eterna-CP 3513DI
- Eastman EXR Color Print Film 5386
- Eastman Color Print Film 5381 (1972)
- Eastman Color Print Film 5385
- Agfa CP30 Colour Print Film
- SuperCinecolor
- Cinecolor (two-colour)
- Gevacolor Positive 953
- Gevacolor Print 9.85
- Gevacolor Print 986
- Gevacolor Print 982
- Ferraniacolor Positive
- 3M Color Positive 650
- Fujicolor Positive F-CP 3510
- Fujicolor Positive F-CP 3519
- Fujifilm Eterna-CP 3512
- Eastman Color Print 5381 (1950)
- Eastman Fine Grain Release Positive 5302
- Ansco Color Print 848
- Kodak B&W Print Film 2302
- Svema TsP-11
- Svema MZ-3
- ORWO PF 2 Positive Print Film
- Technicolor Dye Transfer (1997 revival)
- Svema TsP-8R
- Shostka Colour Positive (1950s)
- Technicolor Dye Transfer (Process IV)
- Gasparcolor Print
- Trucolor Print (two-colour)
- Kodak Vision Color Teleprint Film 2395
Science & sources
A three-colour model inspired by the revival print, not a reproduction of it, shown after Kodak Vision3 500T. It shares the Technicolor Process IV model's assumed curves, record sensitivities and dyes, with no key image and an assumed steeper matrix gamma of 2.7 for the extended tone scale the revival claimed.
Response curves and the evidence behind the model
Compare manufacturer data with Ashigrain’s response on the same axes. These curves show how the model is calibrated to its sources; they do not establish a match to photographed film.
Characteristic response
Model limits
These images show the film model in use. Spectral response, lighting and viewing conditions include approximations. Halation, bloom, grain size, weave and flicker are not fully measured for each film. The look of real film also depends on development and print timing.
- This is a three-colour model inspired by the 1997–2002 Technicolor dye-transfer revival, rather than a reproduction of its prints.
- No characteristic curve, separation filter, matrix gamma or dye spectrum of a revival print exists in the sources. The curves, record sensitivities and transfer dyes are those of Ashigrain's Technicolor Process IV surrogate, themselves named assumptions.
- It differs only where a source says so: there is no key image, and the matrix gamma of 2.7, steeper than Process IV's 2.6, is an assumption standing for the extended tone scale the revival claimed.
- The polyester base is recorded but not modelled.
- The source gives no printer lamp or filter spectra. Their spectral response is approximated.
- The available sources do not measure veiling flare during projection. The model approximates its contribution to lifted blacks on screen, so the result is not a measured projection contrast.
Reciprocity: not modelled. Exposure time has no effect on this film.
Film guide: assumptions and practical choices
This preview combines the print film with the named camera negative. In this comparison, the print has no separate exposure index or measured grain response.
Sources
- Process: J. A. Ball, The Technicolor Process of Three-Color Cinematography (American WideScreen Museum transcription), widescreenmuseum.com/oldcolor/ball.htm as served 2026-10-28 (transcription; figures ballpic1a.gif, ballpic2.gif not registered), p. 1
- Reconstructed: J. A. Ball, The Technicolor Process of Three-Color Cinematography (American WideScreen Museum transcription), widescreenmuseum.com/oldcolor/ball.htm as served 2026-10-28 (transcription; figures ballpic1a.gif, ballpic2.gif not registered), p. 1