You said:
>Well, once again, Terry, you're way ahead of me, as you are able to tell
>*in advance* which tests will prove "practical" and which not.... unless,
>of course, you count as practical being able to cite your own evidence &
>not simply the word of a "usually reliable" fella at the RPHS.
What I meant Judy was that I usually do tests when there is a practical problem
to be resolved.. Sometimes I do tests if there is a new idea to be explored or
on a 'what if' basis. Ammonium dichromate and potassium have served me well and
nobody has given me any reason to believe that there is another dichromate salt
that will do the job better or that there is any reason to change. People have
been using these salts in photography for nearly one hundred and sixty years.
>
>Practical or not, I prefer making my own mistakes. I have found far too
>few "reliable fellas" in any of these processes, and one's own mistakes
>are so much easier to explain away -- for instance:
OK so the guy told me the stuff was slow but I had no need to disagree or
evidence to suggest that it would be to my advantage to do so.
>A while back I said acrylic size for gum was "lousy," a statement which I
>now realize was a gross overgeneralization which I should have known
>better than. As Larry said so eloquently this week, in gum every variable
>changes all other variables. (Yeah, I've said it too.) My tests were (and
remain) for one-coat printing, ie, one pigment-rich,
longest-possible scale coat. Acrylic size didn't handle that well, giving
less depth of color & grainy highlights. But, if you're planning to do
several coats anyway, acrylic size gets much better
I find that acrylic size works well; Gloy is a form of acrylic ! I fid that it
works well for the first coat in a series and can see no reason why it should
not work well if one were to restrict oneself to one coat.
>.So forget the lamp, ivory and jet blacks, forget brown and burnt sienna.
>Think Quinacridone red (for magenta), Winsor or thalo blue (for cyan) and
>yellow, practically any old yellow.
What's wrong with burnt sienna ? Are we talking of one coat gums, or multicoat
gums or four colour gums ?
Terry