You say
" in fact in our water it
doesn't take all those trickling hours. If the thing isn't overexposed,
and isn't over-dichromated, an hour or so in water generally clears down
to naked pigment."
My comment was based on a very delicate blue in the gum print of the view of
which I gave you a screen print. It did take six hours to get it back to the
colour I first thought of.
Incidentally I have two macho male football playing aesthetes in my Saturday
workshop at the moment, one rugby the other soccer, but they both tend to be
disconcerted by the tough female football hater. I draw no conclusions.
"However, my arithmetic says the negative range of .7 you refer to above
would be less than 5 steps on the 21-step. Depending on the pigment,
paper, mix, etc. you can get a bunch more than that. Especially if you
don't mind some shouldering. (But, ahem, maybe not with Gloy.)"
Of course you can. But if you want subtlety of gradation and delicate interplay
of overlapping colours, you will make each exposure from you 'grade 2' neg,
cover a limited range of that which is possible.
Terry