Re: "The Fresson Secret"

[Sandy King <sanking@clemson.edu>]

John Grocott wrote:


>Dick wrote...
>
>"..........and no, I did not get the Fresson secret!"
>
>Hi Dick and All, For the enlightenment of myself and others who have an
>interest in the Fresson process, may I respectfully enquire what you would
>intend doing with the "Fresson secret" if you managed to acquire it?  Would
>you post up the formula on this list and make it available to the whole
>world?  Only the  very naive would believe this ! !  The Fresson family have
>kept this secret for  well over one hundred years. What is this information
>worth in financial terms? How much are you, or anyone else, willing to pay
>for such a sought after system which can produce such desireable results?
>



I have a feeling that some on the list will disagree with what I am 
about to write but so be it. For what it is worth my personal opinion 
is that the "Fresson secret" is worthless information in financial 
terms. Even if one knew exactly how to make the paper and/or offer an 
equivalent printing service I seriously doubt there would be any way 
to commercialize the knowledge. I am in complete agreement with what 
Dick Sullivant wrote, i.e. "Fresson's success is not really do to any 
"secret" in my mind. It is due to the diligence of the family to 
produce nice images at reasonable prices."

Let us remember the history. Fresson is one of numerous direct carbon 
papers that were commercially produced in the period from 1890-1930 
when the pictorial style was in vogue. I could list at least a half 
dozen like processes, and perhaps more. All of these processes worked 
and in fact some may have been better than Fresson. I have personally 
seen side by side prints made on Fresson and Artigue and preferred 
the surface qualities of the latter.

All of these papers eventually disappeared from the market, in part 
due to the waning of the pictorial style, in part due to competing 
photographic systems. Bromoil and  bromoil transfer in particular 
were/are able to render the same pictorial look with either less 
effort or with more versatility than direct carbon.

Is there a market for commercial direct carbon materials toda?. I 
doubt it. The number of persons interested in the pictorial look 
rendered by direct carbon processes is relatively small, and for 
those who are interested in the look there are any number of hand 
coated processes that can provide it.

So quite frankly if I had the complete "Fresson secret" or any other 
secret that would allow one to make wonderful direct carbon prints I 
am inclined to believe I would just make the knowledge public, as 
Peter has done with his Temperaprint process for example, because in 
the long run the possibility I could turn any profit from the 
knowledge ranges from slim to none, IMHO.

But prove me wrong if you can.

Sandy King

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