Re: Could someone summarize that gum up or down discussion?

Good morning!

In reference to Marek's back exposed print on plastic, what conclusions are
you all drawing from this, could someone please summarize?

Since it was initially a test to prove the notion of top down hardening, if,
in fact, the dichromate in a brushed on coat "sunk" to the bottom of the
brushed on coat and therefore lurked near the surface of the paper, wouldn't
exposing from the back therefore still support both theories--either top
down hardening or hardening where the dichromate lurks? Just wondering...

Tell me that NO ONE is saying that you cannot achieve this tonality with gum
from front exposure, please please please. I fear we are revisiting the
arguments around Pouncy 150 years ago that have been severely disproven
since.

Tell me, instead, that you all are just finding a way to successfully print
contone on plastic? If so, kudos to Sandy, Marek, and Katharine for pursuing
this idea. The bummer may end up being that you can only do this one coat
because the next coat you will be exposing through the previously hardened
layer which in turn will hold back light in the shadows...or so it is said,
as I have not done this so forgive me in advance if I am passing on a myth.

One last thing, since gum is a short scale process, making a digital
negative curved to that short scale will therefore print a fully tonal
image, so personally I feel that a lot of the problems with gum printing in
the 1800's were due to not having the right negs for the process. If they
had overexposed and underdeveloped their negatives back then to contract the
zones they would have avoided a lot of this "gum doesn't do halftone"
stuff...

But how exciting that the community of the list is working together from all
parts of the globe to hash out this stuff!!
Chris
Received on Sat Apr 15 20:00:56 2006