Ilfochrome Classic has long been known for its brilliant color, sharp image and being a very long lasting color print medium. At Hidden Light LLC, we make our color prints exclusively using Ilfochrome Classic Deluxe. This is the same material that used to be called Cibachrome. We feel that handcrafted prints are more collectable, more valuable, and superior in appearance than digital prints.
Because of the high contrast nature of Ilfochrome Classic, a contrast mask is required to produce a print of the finest quality. A contrast mask is produced by contact printing your original film onto a piece of very special B&W film. After we process the film we put your original film in a glass carrier and place the mask in registration with your image. What the mask does is hold back the highlights and midtones of your image to allow the shadows to print up. This process also allows the highlights to not blow out.