> I just got the latest PhotoTechniques Magazine with Carl Weese's article on
> the Ziatype. Mind you, I am not a neutral party to this, but it is a
> stunning article. It is eight full pages of detailed information. It is not
> your typical beginners article. This is a breakthrough for a traditional
> photographic magazine to go into this much detail, especially on an
> alternative photographic process. This is the same magazine that printed
Continuing my appointed role as bad fairy at the christening, I comment
that although the article seemed to do justice to Ziatype, and I would
expect any right-minded potential Ziatypist or pl/pd printer would want to
see it, author Carl Weese makes a couple of sweeping assertions about
"pigment-based alternative processes (gum, bromoil, etc.)" which he hadn't
ought to of.
That is, he asserts "the soft, low definition of pigment processes" as a
given, which of course isn't even true for gum, unless you print it that
way -- I can't speak for bromoil, never having done it -- but is certainly
not true for carbro and carbon, which on gelatine-coated baryta might even
be "higher definition" than platinum on artists' paper, and are also
pigment processes.
In short, I am troubled when a magazine as authoritative as Photo
Techniques spreads error where there should be light. Surely a process as
elegant as Ziatype needs no invidious comparisons or treacherous
shibboleths to increase its appeal....
As for the amount of detail in this article, it seemed about right to me,
but Phil Davis's 2-part article on gum printing last year was even more
detailed -- and, I might add, with a proportionately higher ration of
error. David Kachel, Jolly, and others have had very detailed articles on
silver processes (SLIMT, which is excellent, and some other fine contrast
reducing methods), in which I found no errors -- but of course I don't
know so much on those topics ....
On the bright side: Since it seems humidity during printing is critical
for ziatype, I wondered if you'd tried Goretek (spelled phonetically)
behind the paper in the contact frame....?
Judy