Conscience may prod one to share findings by putting them in the public
domain - it has the benefit of forestalling the kind of unpleasantness
we've just witnessed - but with a pension from a life's teaching, I can
afford to be generous to those who expect something for nothing. Phillipe
Berger, who claims to have the enlarging-speed gumbi process, may not be so
fortunate. (We are seeing a similar spat here in the UK at present, with a
different "secret" pigment process.)
If what is claimed is true (Klaus - have you any quantitative details about
exposure?), it's certainly worth *far more* than a measly $400, and the
chap should have no difficulty exploiting it and making his fortune. As
Judy said - it's a once-in-a-hundred-years discovery. Just think what it
could do for the commercial maker of permanent colour prints (e.g.
UltraStable or EverColor), or holography (for which the best medium is
dichromated gelatin) or the use of photoresists in the printing industry,
or digital imaging.
The fact that it is being offered to amateurs for so little, makes me dubious.
Photo-hardening of colloids like gum, gelatin and PVA is not my field, but
I know that there has been a lot of professional research out there, with
folk trying to sensitise the processes up to 'projection speed' for obvious
commercial motives. I have seen a number of published papers on attempts to
use dye sensitizers to achieve this. And it's anyone's guess what is
happening behind the closed laboratory doors of big K, A, F or I, etc. Is
there no-one on this list who is close to this kind of research and can
comment on the current state of the art? The C19th Gumbi process that we
all know and love, might actually be back among the dinosaurs.
Mike