<< Though maybe THE major variable is development... but because development
is so flexible, you can go easy on other controls (as long as your basics
are working) and tweak or noodle by length of soak or water temp, or spot
development, or whatever.
>>
Yes, I found this to be a great characteristic of gum. When I started, I was
really trying to control everything including the exposure / development of
the interpositive of the final negative. I am sure we all try to control as
much as possible, but I was doing it in an extreme, crazy way.
Then I found that is is not really needed in actual printing because with the
final negative I can approximate the exposure of gum, and I found that when I
was not very sure about the exposure I could just overexpose a little because
I could always use longer soak (assuming I haven't gone extreme and have 10x
overexposure, of course).
I guess this is why Judy always calls gum printing "senstive and forgiving."
Dave
:)