Re: tonal inversion and pigment loads

Tom,
I think our difficulties arise largely from the different ways we
define things. I spent some time a while back rethinking my
definition of pigment stain, and in fact did a lot of my thinking
about this in public; the result of these ruminations can be found in
the revised pigment stain page I announced yesterday. I now define
pigment stain as pigment deposited where it doesn't belong, and I
define tonal inversion as a special case of pigment stain. . If you
don't share my views on this, and if we are going to try to talk
about this using completely different definiitions for pigment stain,
then we're just going to go around and around in circles.

On Jan 27, 2006, at 1:09 PM, Tom Sobota wrote:
>
>
> In every example of inversion that I have seen, there are three
> regions:
> 1. A first region corresponding to what we could call the shadows
> in the negative. Speaking in terms of step tablets, the lower
> numbered zones. In this region everything happens as expected.
>
> 2. A second region where the density of the negative (or step
> tablet) is such that it doesn't produce any density on the gum
> positive. This region is actually an extension of the first. It
> should go until the darkest zones of the negative or tablet, and in
> general it does, except that but sometimes it doesn't, when there's
> inversion.
>
> 3. A third region where the inversion happens, when it happens. In
> this region the density is in general lower than in region 1, and
> in some cases a few steps are differentiated. In other cases, as my
> examples on glass, no steps are visible.

But in all of these cases, it's pigment being deposited where it
doesn't belong, which is what I call stain. It can be indelible or
not indelible, and it can be lighter in tone where it deposits on top
of a gum resist which repels it, but in every case, it's pigment in
the wrong place, call it what you will.

Katharine
Received on Fri Jan 27 16:02:25 2006