U of S | Mailing List Archive | alt-photo-process-l | Re: new subject line about ...... aaaggghhh!!!! ...."consensus'!

Re: new subject line about ...... aaaggghhh!!!! ...."consensus'!



Sometimes you just have to be patient when you throw your line into the water.


Sandy




At 8:35 AM -0500 5/7/08, Keith Gerling wrote:
hook
line
sinker

On Wed, May 7, 2008 at 1:41 AM, Judy Seigel <jseigel@panix.com> wrote:
  On Sat, 3 May 2008, Sandy King wrote:


 > Ahhhhh, the old gum pigment test. Now that bring back a lot of memories
 from the past.
 >
 > Just wondering, was there ever a consensus as to whether it actually works
 or not?
 >

  Oh Sandy, you're just saying that to torture me.  How could it possibly
 "work"? -- you know better than that !!!

  As for "consensus," puleeze !!! Consensus in the time of Galileo was that
 the sun revolved around the earth; in the time of the pilgrims, that girls &
 women were witches and had intercourse with the devil (hmmmmm); then there
 was the "consensus" that if women wore "bloomers" it would interfere with
 fertility -- also, if memory serves -- that the earth was flat.

  In fact the whole thing that drove me to distraction, was EXACTLY the
 "consensus" among the contemporary books that cut & pasted that nonsense
 from each other OBVIOUSLY WITHOUT TESTING IT !!!!!....  Including the
 consensus on this list -- from people who dutifully went through the entire
 rigamarole, but never "tested" it against anything, just accepted the
 "findings."  (Great science !)

  grrrr...

  I note, BTW, that my "test" was simplicity itself, but I hope you're happy
 now that I've given you the satisfaction of jumping up & down.... Meanwhile,
 however, um.... did you READ my critique in P-F # 9? "Engineering Gum
 Bichromate," beginning page 48. If not, go stand in the corner... If you're
 still trying to torture me, do the tests on page 49... ESPECIALLY "C."  (And
 for extra credit, send me the strip!)

  Test A shows that the more dichromate, the more stain, nothing to do with
 the amount of pigment. Test B shows a related effect with a different color,
 & Test C shows that a strip exposed WITH the dichromate makes a very nice
 scale and clears well, while the identical (IDENTICAL!) material WITHOUT THE
 DICHROMATE simply fogs, that is, doesn't clear at all. (As I said in the
 caption, "Need I say more?")

  I'll add, by the way, that another of Paul Anderson's claims (read "wildly
 mistaken surmises" also IIRC copied freely & thoughtlessly) is even easier
 to debunk. For some reason he decided that the more pigment you had, the
 more tones you could get, tho the exact opposite is true:  As I showed in an
 earlier P-F, the greater density blocks up the shadows, so you get
 ***fewer*** steps.

  But maybe you're being nice ?  You just want to get folks to say "Judy was
 right" ???

  Well, she was... Thanks !!!

  Judy


 >
 > > At 3:20 PM -0400 5/3/08, Judy Seigel wrote:
 > >
 > > PS. The "literature" gives a fair sampling of the level of mainstream
 publishers' books on "alt", as reviewed in various Post-Factory's -- for
 instance Robert Hirsch's chapter on alternative processes has some
 world-class idiocies, not from actual testing or printing, but from mental
 telepathy while chewing on a color chart.  Ditto for John Schaefer's "Ansel
 Adams Guide II" -- IMAGINE: in the name of Ansel Adams (tho maybe it serves
 him right?) as reviewed in an early P-F by John Rudiak & myself.... And
 those are just the two that leap to mind.  (Something tells me I may have
 mentioned the "gum-pigment ratio test" -- religiously cut and pasted right
 down the line -- already.)
 > >
 > > PS.  Chris, who is  Sarah Vowell?
 > >
 > > J.
 > >
 >
 >
 >