Cost of platinum printing??

[sanking]

With whom did you correspond?

I would imagine that Dr. Michael Ware or someone at IPI (Jim Reilly), RIT or the GEH (maybe Mark Osterman would be a place to start) would have a pretty good handle on exactly what's happening with toning in gold.

Etienne Garbaux and Ryujij Suzuki among others. The discussion was on the alt-photo-process list in October, 2003, in a thread called “Test for Silver Metal in Print? If you read the thread and look at the comments you will find that some of the folks who weighed in on the subject are scientists with quite a lot of knowledge of the issue.

My original premise was that the silver metal could be completely replaced, which if true would mean there would be no difference at all between a palladium toned kallitype and a regular palladium. However, based on these discussions I concluded that 100% replacement of silver with one of the more noble metals does not appear to be possible, or if possible it would be more complicated than just to make a print with the more noble metal in the first place.

My own interest in the matter was satisfied by the discussion because the practical implication on image stability is more important to me than the theory. Whether the process is replacement, encapsulation, or something else the end result is that toning a kallitype in either gold, palladium or platinum gives it a lot of permanence. Selenium toning offers similar, or even greater protection, but the theory of selenium toning is already fairy well understood.



Sandy

 

[sanking]

Cost is relative. If one were to ammortize the cost of a process over the life of the print, platinum might be the cheapest process to use, or maybe carbon? Digital prints would surely be the most expensive process in these terms.

Other than death what is not relative? The point in discussions of this type is to provide people with accurate information and let them make their own choices. In other words, make apples to apples comparisons. I am not pushing any process or method of printing. I print in AZO, carbon, kallitype and Pt./Pd and I also make digital prints. I find advantages and disadvantage in all of these methods of printing. Carbon is without question the least expensive of these processes to work in terms of the raw materials, if you make your own tissue as I do, but in many ways it is the most exquisite of all photograhic printing processes, vintage or contemporary. But carbon has a very long learning curve and even after one masters the process it is still very time consuming to work, and failure reate is high, so if you put a value on your time it is the most expensive of all processes.

My original suggestion was that people who know nothing about Pt./Pd. printing can basically learn the rudiments of the process by starting out with kallitype. And, if you have the two processes calibrated it is entirely feasible to proof in kallitype and make your final print in Pt./Pd, which can result in a substantial saving in materials because there is no question but that it costs more to make Pt./Pd. prints than it does to make kallitypes. How much more is subject to many factors, including the cost of chemistry and paper, which can vary tremendously as we have seen: Don Bryant suggests $4-5 dollars for an 8X10 print, Joe Lipka in his article at unblinkingeye.com suggests about $6.50 for a Pt./Pd. print of the same size, while Kerik suggests a cost of $5.00 for a 12X20” print. My own costs are similar to what Kerik quotes, or perhaps even slightly less. But bear in mind that Kerik’s figures and mine are based on buying the metals in quantity for roughly 1/3 or less of what they would cost through Artcraft, B&S or Formulary , and on buying papers also in bulk with considerable savings over normal retail prices.

In the end I have no interest in championing any process and it makes absolutely no difference to me how people choose to print. But costs do matter to some people and I think it only fair that if we compare expenses it should be done in such as way that accurately reflects the different ways the base materials are purchased. Otherwise the comparisons are meaningless.

Sandy

 

[Tom Stanworth]

Thanks to you all. I will certainly be trying platinum printing. It may seem strange, but part of the motivator was seeing some paintings of river scenes that reminded me of some of Kerik's prints (I have seen more of his images than anyone elses) in terms of the tonal scale, colour and size. I then realised what an excuisite thing a decent sized platinum print must be (not sure that 8x10 is big enough...11x14 up methinks).. Somehow the 'look' of such prints seems to lend itself to smaller, more 'precious' prints than regular silver prints (not counting AZO as I have never seen one). I will experiment with 8x10 then sell body parts to fund something bigger if I like it enough. I quite like the idea of reducing the size of the darkroom and being able to work in decent subdued light (eventually). Not sure that this would be possible, as at a recent exhibition there was FAR more interest in (and sales of) large prints of 17" or more (corroborated by other exhibitors). People (excluding serious collectors and those with loads of cash to spend on tiny prints....) just seem to want large wall centre pieces in the UK at the moment. Maybe I need to move upmarket! There was a whole lot of support for traditional monochrome in genereal tho.

Thanks again!

 

[donbga]

Don Bryant suggests $4-5 dollars for an 8X10 print,
Sandy

FWIW, here is how I calculated the expense per 8x10 print.

1) Paper - I basing the print cost on the price of a premium paper in this case 1-11x14 sheet of COT 320. 25 sheets of COT 320 costs about $43 not including shipping. That makes each sheet $1.72.

2) Metal salts - I'm basing the per print cost for palladium on the assumtion that 12 drops of palladium would consume .6ml of palladium solution (each drop is about .05ml). Going by that usage about 42 prints can be made from 25 ml. Current B&S price of Palladium solution #3 is about $65 not including shipping. So that would make each print cost about $1.56 for palladium.

So just between paper and palladium the per print cost is $3.28. This price doesn't reflect the cost of other chemicals such as Ferric Oxalate, contrast agent, or clearing bath. Nor does it reflect the cost of shipping.

So one would probably approach about $4 per 8x10 print. The paper cost can be reduced, by using a paper such as Fabriano Extra White but that still requires an oxalic acid treatment, not expensive but another expense never the less. BTW, Jerry's Art O Rama just had Fabriano EW 140 on sale bringing a 22x30 inch sheet down to about $2.15 each. So it pays to shop around.


Good luck Tom,

Don