RE: solarized gums?
Loris and Katharine, Thanks! It worked-- gum is becoming incredibly fascinating to me. Both of your advice and testing was helpful. Loris, one question when you say 'minimal fog/image'--do you mean to allow the coated paper access to a small amount of light before exposing the negative? [or just that the highlight should receive a very light, subtle, flat first coat?] And also, when you say 'Use a negative density (color) that merely / barely gives you white on the print', you mean make my negative overall darker? Or make a negative--on the computer--with an ink other than black? Or do you mean print my highlight with a light pigment? I think the setup I have wants to have longer exposures. So when I tried less pigment/gum after this advice, I needed longer exposure [Also because I used an increased amount of dichromate] Anyway, the image was slightly overexposed but I use the 'water spray' technique to manipulate it, and I'm sure with subsequent layers my image will be rich [like I want it to] Gum is amazing. Thanks for the help. ilana -----Original Message----- From: Loris Medici [mailto:mail@loris.medici.name] Sent: Tuesday, February 13, 2007 3:22 PM To: alt-photo-process-l@usask.ca Subject: Re: solarized gums? Hi Katharine, This (as Ilana describes) is no doubt the phenomenon you name "tonal inversion". I've read the page that you wrote about this issue again and don't agree with you in: "...The remedy, of course, the way to eliminate the tonal inversion, is simply to reduce the pigment/gum ratio..." Because I've experienced the same effect with a lightly pigmented blue 31-step tablet print before. See: http://www.loris.medici.name/Gum-Test-01.jpg The scan doesn't show it well but, to my bare eyes there's definitely paper white at steps 18, 19 (and maybe 20) + there's definitely tone (where there shouldn't be) at steps 20+. I guess we'll agree that the pigment concentration I used on that print is not excessive since that is easily judged by the scan -> this is Phtalo Blue; as we all know, this is a dark pigment with immense covering power... Regards, Loris. -------- Hi Ilana, My own experience, observations and tests don't support the notion that failure to clear (aka pigment stain) is a function of underexposure, so I wouldn't agree with your tentative conclusion that "parts that should clear are not, because they have not received enough light." If you're interested, some test strips showing the lack of relationship I found between stain and exposure are here: http://www.pacifier.com/~kthayer/html/stainexposure.html It sounds like what is happening to your highlights, if I understand the description accurately, is a phenomenon some people call "tonal inversion." For my take on this phenom, see http://www.pacifier.com/~kthayer/html/tonalinversion.html Hope any of that is useful to you, Katharine
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