Terry, I think you're feeding me catnip, as alt-photo manuals are my
pet peeve in the universe. The two most hateful qualities are (1) the
"formulas" that don't work (as John Rudiak mentions, usually when author
includes formula from yet another source that he/she cannot have tried),
and (2) disorganization.
My most recent experience with #1 (did you say we can name names, Terry?)
was David Scopick's formula to be used when mixing up dry pigment for gum
printing, which made the color cling to the paper like a sick child to
its mother's skirts. (Following the info back to its cited source in
Ralph Mayer, I found it had been taken distinctly out of context, so Mayer
cannot be blamed.) But I think we have all known many such.
The disorganization can perhaps be laid to the fact that the editors, if
any, haven't got a clue about photography, let alone alt-photography, and
decide to assume that the incoherence, if they notice it, which they probably
don't, is due to said ignorance, and that people who understand this mumbo
jumbo will know what it all means.
However, let us note that several of the plain-vanilla black and white
photography manuals of now-classic vintage are models of coherence,
clarity and order, first among them David Vestal's two books (now out of
print & selling in the $75 range), as well as Horenstein and Hattersly. I
attribute this to Big Yellow -- Kodak's large and strong body of
well-tested scientific data and the tradition of their *stars* writing on
these topics. In other words, in these precincts science types, not art
types, set the pace.
Alt-photo writing, on the other hand, has been invaded by, um, creative
spirits, so pleased to get the decimal point in the right place that they
neglect to check the formulas. However,let me note that I never found an
error in Bea Nettles ("Breaking the Rules") and recommend her book to
beginners (tho I haven't seen her revised edition, which I understand now
includes gum instead of Kwik Print. Scopick's first, simpler, less
ambitious, The Gum Printing Book, was also excellent.)
As for computer manuals, I am told by a woman who tests software for a
living that the manuals are written before the programs are finished, so
that manual writer must figure, "it will probably have an x that will go
under the Y." Which is to say, vague of necessity.
Judy