re: error about gum

Judy Seigel (jseigel@panix.com)
Thu, 19 Jun 1997 12:55:54 -0400 (EDT)

Good god, is everybody we write about going to be on this list? How are
we ever going to let fly? Well, I've got one on tap about England's
Darkroom User (watch this space!), much more amazing and, well, just
unbelievably amazing than mere quibbling about pigment processes. However,

On Thu, 19 Jun 1997, Carl Weese wrote:
> Actually, far from introducing shibboleths, the statement was included
> to point out that Zia is not _quite_ the Holy Grail and that for some

The passage (perhaps condensed by the editor!) read:

"... pigment-based alternate processes (gum, bromoil, etc.) offer a
greater range of color than Ziatype, but this comes with completely
different pictorial qualities because of the soft, low definition of
pigment processes."

I took that "soft, low definition of pigment processes" to mean pigment
processes in general, not just gum and bromoil. I'm used to such
shibboleths about gum, of course, but still not entirelly indifferent, as
we have seen.....

> goals other processes are better: no invidious comparison at all. I also
> admit that I didn't know gum or bromoil prints can equal the definition
> of Pt/Pd or Zia: I've never seen one that does but am willing to stand

And so we see the platinum printers have been insidiously (if not
invidiously) at work. Now it's necessary to equal the definition of pt/pd
or Zia to avoid being called "soft, low definition"!? Maybe so, in
today's sharpness sweepstakes world. Perhaps as your editor I would have
inserted "relatively" into that phrase, although I have (elsewhere) made
invidious remarks about an esthetic obsessed with sharpness or
"definition" beyond what the eye can register or care about....

> corrected. Generalizations are doomed to misunderstandings, but magazine
> writers are forced to include some generalizations unless the editors
> let us have an entire issue for a single story.
>
> BTW, Judy, I'll be in town, almost your neighborhood I believe, next
> Tuesday. If you'd be willing to take a little time to show me some of
> your work in gum, I'd be delighted to stop by and increase my knowledge
> of the topic.---Carl>

Delighted to meet you.... Details offlist...

Judy