From: Carl Weese (cweese@earthlink.net)
Date: 04/28/03-03:44:08 PM Z
Sandy,
I have not resupplied recently, but the last time I bought Pt/Pd metal salts
(from ArtCraft) I think I figured the coating solution would be about $1.50
per 8x10 unit. That would be what, $12 dollars or so for a 20x24? I expect
that would be quite breath-taking when making a test print, but of course
not consequential at all when printing to deliver a sale. Cost is indeed
relative and whether it's for sales or speculation or personal fulfillment
makes a difference just like the depth of one's pocketbook.
The time factor isn't so much on how long it takes to make one print as how
many prints can be done in a session. Kalli steps are complex and I can't
imagine working except one print at a time, straight through. In Pt/Pd, by a
couple hours into the session at any one time I'm coating a sheet, exposing
one in the UV source, and processing the previous two in the
clearing/washing steps, all at once. I don't suggest one could do this with
a 20x24, so at that size the cost savings and relatively small increase in
time invested could make kalli an attractive alternate. I might even use it
at 12x20 if I felt like investing the time to eliminate the persistent
streaking problem I had when I tried it last year--that could have been the
paper. I was using Lenox and I notice you consider Stonehenge a better
starting point. Streaks, or any other process-related problem (other than
spots caused by unseen paper defects) are non-existent in my normal Pt/Pd
printing.
As for the toning possiblities--I'll leave those comparisons to others. I
can't stand toning. Making a print one way in order to turn it into
something else in subsequent steps just isn't the way my mind wants to work.
Any process that requires toning gets a bunch of demerits from me, and any
process that gives me results I want directly--as Pt/Pd does--gets a big
plus for compatibility with the way I like to work.
BTW, I'm happy to look at other people's toned pictures. Gowin's split-toned
aerial landscapes shown at Yale last year are breathtaking. I just avoid any
toning procedure like the plague in my own work.---Carl
--
Web site with picture galleries
and workshop information
http://www.carlweese.com
> From: Sandy King <sanking@clemson.edu>
> Reply-To: alt-photo-process-l@sask.usask.ca
> Date: Fri, 01 Jan 1904 01:14:25 -0400
> To: alt-photo-process-l@sask.usask.ca
> Subject: Re: Just Kallitype Now, was Re: Platinum Heresy, was Re: Satista
>
> Judy Seigel wrote:
>
>>
>> However, a propos of the discussion of platinum vs kallitype, I'd agree
>> 100% with her assessment that kallitype frees you to "push limits,
>> experiment and work large." As I recall, she was working 24 by 30 inches
>> at least some of the time -- with digital negatives from a large HP
>> printer. I don't think that's a size one undertakes casually and
>> "experimentally" in platinum.
>
> That is certainly a good point. I asked a question yesterday about
> cost and would still like to know the answer from one of our Pt/Pd
> printers. What would be the cost in chemistry alone to make a mixed
> platinum/palladium print of about 20X24" in size, assuming that one
> buys the chemistry from a place like B&S or the Formulary? I have
> made a few Platinum coated kallitypes of this size and can tell you
> that the cost is not insignificant when you are just using the metal
> to tone the print. I suspect that the cost to make a Pt/Pd print
> might take my breath away.
>
>
>> (I certainly wouldn't.) As for the
>> relative difficulty, she says that although fixing is an extra step, the
>> clearing is much quicker with kalli, so the total time is comparable.
>
> That is a point I had forgotten in my reply yesterday to Carl. I
> clear kallitypes for three minutes, but in most cases, and especially
> with the sodium citrtate developers, prints come out of the developer
> completely clear and don't really need further clearing.
>
>>
>> I do remember, for what it's worth, the advice that came with ammonium
>> citrate developer from B&S for platinu/palladium -- that the more you use
>> it the better it gets. Is that still operative ?
>
>
> Yes, I read that somewhere. Perhaps the ammonium citrate developer,
> which I have not used, works differently for kallitype than sodium
> citrate and sodium acetate.
>
>
>
> Sandy
>
>
>>
>> Judy
>>
>>>
>>> ON p. 22, in discussing the kallitype developer, Carmen write,
>>> "Finally, don't throw out your used developer; the more you use it
>>> the better it gets." My experience is slightly different. What I have
>>> found is that as a sodium acetate or sodium citrate developer is
>>> re-used there is an increasing tendency for the paper to develop a
>>> stain in the sensitized but unexposed areas of the print, and after a
>>> certain point the stain becomes so severe that it is not possible to
>>> clear it completely in the clearing bath. The only way I have found
>>> to prevent this stain with used developer is to replenish the
>>> developer, which I keep in one-liter containers, at the rate of about
>>> 200ml of fresh solution for approximately every 500 square inches of
>>> image area developed.
>>>
>>> I would be interested in Carmen's comments on this, as well as
>>> comments from other kallitype printers. Comments from platinum
>>> printers also appreciated since there may be a common thread here on
>>> developer exhaustion.
>>>
>>> Sandy
>>>
>>>
>>>
>
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