How many people would be interested in a "Palladio" type paper?

[Jeremy]

Pt/Pd printing has the reputation of being expensive, time-consuming and difficult. None of which is true!

Kerik
www.kerik.com

Kerik, what are you doing?!? Don't let the cat out of the bag!

 

[Charles Webb]

I would jump right in the middle if it were made available. AZO is expensive to me, if the pt/pd paper was in the same general ball park cost wise, I believe a lot of folks would be interested. I dislike no I hate mixing chemicals and coating things. I will avoid doing so even if it means I can no longer print my negatives. ;-)

 

[magic823]

Actually making carbon tissue is a lot of fun. But the variables are many and it is very difficult to learn how to make tissue on your own without first having seen someone else do it. This is one of the reasons the learning curve is rather steep.

Carbon tissue has a shelf life of about six months if stored at room temperature (72º F and 50-65% RH). If stored in a freezer it might last for decades.

Sandy

I agree, making the tissue was a lot of fun, but I certainly wouldn't have liked to try it with Sandy there the first time.

BTW, Sandy, I'm headed back over to the Formulary the last week of August (to fix their network and train them on thier new website before it goes live). I'll also be working on doing some more carbon (and Sharon wants to try it). Is there any testing that you would like me to try that might help you out next year (we're gonna make sure that class runs again)? I bought another light intregrator that I going to leave over there. I also was able to pickup a NUARC FT40V3UP Platemaker for very cheap to go along the Nuarc I won when we were in Montana. I'm going to try them both to see which one I like and the other will go up for sell. Anyone looking for a UV light/intergrator/vaccum table. I'm going to have one available soon. Just perfect for all your alt process needs!

 

[Ole]

I would try Palladio or similar if it were available, but I can't promise I would be a regular customer. I would buy some, try some, just to see if it was for me. Then I would start worrying about hand coating. It would be nice to have a reliable pre-made paper to eliminate that source of error on the first attempts.

 

[Kerik]

Personally, I think Platinum printing IS expensive. I can only afford to buy what is needed in small portions. When I compair how much money it takes to make X amount of platinum prints, I can usually make 10 times that many silver prints for the same price.

Now, I am not a serious platinum printer thought, like many of you are. I print platinum for a change and something new to work with. Because I only print platinum once in awhile...having a manufactured paper would be nice.

Dead horse time... Even at small-quantity prices, one can make an 8x10 pt/pd print for about $3.50. I suppose if you're printing on a silver paper that is 35 cents per sheet (does that even exist anymore?), then what you say is true. But, there's another factor here. In general, I suspect it takes several more sheets of silver paper to get to the final print than it does with pt/pd. Because it has a more linear response, there is much less dodging and burning and micro-adustments in platinum printing than in silver printing. At least that's my experience and I repeatedly get the same feedback from workshop students. They often find that negs that were very difficult to print well in silver print effortlessly in platinum (and other alt-processes with similar linear response). So, if you look at the cost of getting to the final print, even higher-priced platinum printing supplies are comparable in cost to cheap silver paper. And typically you will spend less time getting to that final print in pt/pd than silver.

Sorry Jeremy, am I letting too many secrets out of the bag, here?

Kerik
www.kerik.com

 

[phfitz]

Hi there,

The cost issue is pointless, the final print quality is the only concern. Personally I'd sell a few lenses and buy a year's worth at a time for convenience and consistency.

Just a thought.

 

[mmcclellan]

If it was in production again, absolutely 100% without a doubt no question about it, I would be a regular buyer -- great stuff! )

 

[Marco Gilardetti]

I will sure purchase some. Not that this would change the present situation a bit, unfortunately.

 

[Jeremy]

Dead horse time... Even at small-quantity prices, one can make an 8x10 pt/pd print for about $3.50. I suppose if you're printing on a silver paper that is 35 cents per sheet (does that even exist anymore?), then what you say is true. But, there's another factor here. In general, I suspect it takes several more sheets of silver paper to get to the final print than it does with pt/pd. Because it has a more linear response, there is much less dodging and burning and micro-adustments in platinum printing than in silver printing. At least that's my experience and I repeatedly get the same feedback from workshop students. They often find that negs that were very difficult to print well in silver print effortlessly in platinum (and other alt-processes with similar linear response). So, if you look at the cost of getting to the final print, even higher-priced platinum printing supplies are comparable in cost to cheap silver paper. And typically you will spend less time getting to that final print in pt/pd than silver.

Sorry Jeremy, am I letting too many secrets out of the bag, here?

Kerik
www.kerik.com

He's actually printing on Azo and when I did the math, when you factor in the cost of Amidol for each session on top of the Azo it was about flush against the cost of pd printing (with just a touch of Na2pt for contrast). The pd actually became cheaper once you started buying in bulk--the recent large amidol buy does skew things a little, but that's a once-in-a-lifetime thing.

Jeremy

ps: yes! too many secrets

 

[JohnArs]

I would buy it and I'm waiting for a while know!

 

[User Removed]

I pay about .70 cents for a sheet of 8x10 AZO. I pay about 4-5 dollars for the same size platinum print, because I buy in small quanity. Im sure I could invest a few hundred dollars and buy platinum in bulk...but I dont have the money to invest in something like that.

 

[psvensson]

What was the Palladio paper like? Did have a gelatin emulsion? Was it coated all over or just in the center?

 

[Joe Symchyshyn]

What was the Palladio paper like? Did have a gelatin emulsion? Was it coated all over or just in the center?

Coated all over, no emulsion...

It was smooth and creamy and printed like a dream... I'd buy it again in a second and jump back in with both feet. I've yet to get the results I had with Palladio by handcoating. Maybe it's just me.

joe

 

[richsul]

I had considered making it at one time but yes, there would be a problem with getting a good paper source. The coating is easy, much easier than running the carbon tissue machine that I have now.

Let's look at carbon for instance. making ones own carbon tissue is a pain in the butt. Yes, as good a tissue as machine made but you have a hard time making enough for a workshop or a print run.

But carbon allows you to pick and choose your final media. You can even put them carbon prints glass as Jerry Mader showed at APIS. With Palladio every print is on the same paper. In the old days one could get a variety of platinum papers from glossy to matt and from blue black to warm black. The market won't allow that variety of stock on hand.

But what is the point of a handmade photograph????

The very finest (and most expensive) artisan made furniture is made with hand cut dovetails.

Convenient?

Hell no.

There are fine woodwork shops in Santa Fe that have $30,000.00 writing desks! One expects hand cut dovetails for that price.

If you are a fine photographic printmaker, and Kerik here is one of the best, as opposed to an imagemaker, then the seat that goes into making the image is the vehicle for the heart and soul of the artist. Even if the print is made by an assistant or an atelier printer, there is the joy of having a handmade object. On a recent trip to ireland I noticed there were two prices for Aran wool sweaters. Approx $100.00 for a knitting machine made sweater and about $600 for a handknitted one. Guess which one was lumpy and a bit uneven in quality.

Dick Arentz once told me that every print he ever made he thought had a problem and could have been made better.

One last bit. I had a giuy contact me once that was trying to get an inkjet printer to spit platinum juice out. All you had to do was expose the print to light to darken the dotssies and develop it.

WTF?

--Dick Sullivan
The Center for Photographic History and Technology

 

[Dave Wooten]

it seems to me a person devoted to developing the skills to master the art of printing in the alternative processes would rather have the variable of hand coating........after a certain skill level is reached and understood, controling and using variables become the life of the print...

 

[scootermm]

hmmmm.... I just yesterday saw a book by PH Emerson printed in the 1800s. It was called the Norfolk Broads. The book had about 30 plates in it. All original platinum prints mounted onto the book pages. They were all printed on Palladio paper and were just gorgeous. So the longevity is, in my opinion, not in question.

I dont print platinum or palladium, YET. But if I did I dont think Id be interested in printing on precoated paper. hand coating is sort of part of the allure for me.

just my two pence worth.

 

[Peter Schrager]

Oh Yeah?

Scootermm-I don't know what book you were looking at but I own that particular one and those are PHOTGRAVURES my good man. Either there is a little too much heat or someone switched out the plates. And Palladio paper is the name that company in Massachusetts chose as it was the Palladio Company.
Great book by the way-I was discussing it with Christian Nze this very mornong.
Best, Peter

 

[photomc]

Dick Arentz once told me that every print he ever made he thought had a problem and could have been made better.

--Dick Sullivan
The Center for Photographic History and Technology

Hi Dick, glad to see you here...and welcome. Your comment about Kerik and the one above from Dick Arentz hold very ture IMO.

Hope to see you drop in from time to time...we may be a bit rowdy sometimes.but trust me, there are a number of folks here that appreciate all you have done for alt. process.

 

[sanking]

One last bit. I had a giuy contact me once that was trying to get an inkjet printer to spit platinum juice out. All you had to do was expose the print to light to darken the dotssies and develop it.

--Dick Sullivan
The Center for Photographic History and Technology

Someone asked me the same question about making carbon tissue. He was convinced that the inkjet printer was a natural for applying an even coat of pigmented gelatin to a piece of paper. Obviously he had not done enough homework to know anything about the required thickness of the pigmented gelatin layer, nor about its visscotiy or setting characteristics.


Sandy

 

[richsul]

People who can actually make things with their hands are getting rarer by the day. I watched a guy on the Learning Channel the other day hand make a teardrop gas tank for a Harley Chopper. It was utterly amazing what he did. It's that pgm with the grumpy dude with the big mustache. A hundred years ago onr the farm one had to know dozens of crafts from splitting staves to make a bucket to making explosives to blow out tree stumps. The craft of a cabinet maker required knowing how to forge steel to make chisels and other cutting tools.

I think your are dead on with the variables bit.

--Dick

it seems to me a person devoted to developing the skills to master the art of printing in the alternative processes would rather have the variable of hand coating........after a certain skill level is reached and understood, controling and using variables become the life of the print...

 

[richsul]

That's even weirder!

--Dick

Someone asked me the same question about making carbon tissue. He was convinced that the inkjet printer was a natural for applying an even coat of pigmented gelatin to a piece of paper. Obviously he had not done enough homework to know anything about the required thickness of the pigmented gelatin layer, nor about its visscotiy or setting characteristics.



Sandy

 

[Joe Symchyshyn]

If you are a fine photographic printmaker, and Kerik here is one of the best, as opposed to an imagemaker, then the seat that goes into making the image is the vehicle for the heart and soul of the artist.

I guess each artist chooses where to stop with just how "handmade" it becomes...

If doing every other step... Why doesn't the photographer make theirr own paper, film too right?

The woodworker could also have a forest and grow, dry and supply their own lumber... The knitter could raise their own animals for wool and so on and so on...

Each person chooses what is right for them and the comment about printmaker vs. imagemaker just sounds condescending for no reason.

joe

 

[scootermm]

Scootermm-I don't know what book you were looking at but I own that particular one and those are PHOTGRAVURES my good man. Either there is a little too much heat or someone switched out the plates. And Palladio paper is the name that company in Massachusetts chose as it was the Palladio Company.
Great book by the way-I was discussing it with Christian Nze this very mornong.
Best, Peter

okay.... I just referenced alot of different places and the book "Emerson, P. H. (Peter Henry). Life and Landscape on the Norfolk Broads" is a collection of platinotypes.


this is the book I viewed last week and even in the books intro page lists them as platinotypes. Perhaps you were talking about "Idyls of the Norfolk Broads"? because the Ransom Center is pretty good about correctly labeling all their info correctly and accurately.

 

[Allen Friday]

I have seen many prints from early in the 20th century made on manufactured pt/pl paper and some of them were incredible. My issues with the manufactured papers come from starting to print in pt/pl long after they they went off the market. Many of you have actually used Palldio, so I am hoping you can fill in some gaps in my knowledge of how this and other manufactured papers worked.

1. Contrast Control. I use two basic formulations for my pt/pl prints, depending on the look I want in the final image. I use potassium dicromate developer with sodium dicromate added to control contrast. Most printers seem to use the Fe1 and Fe2 method of control. Some, following the second edition of Dick's pt/pl book, use Sod. Plat. as their contrasting agent.

How was contrast controlled using the Palladio paper? And what effect did different developers have on the final image. I love the flexibility of the way I currently print. Is that flexibility possible with the Palladio paper?

2. Image color. By varying the ratio of pt to pl, and by choice of developer, many different tones can be achieved in the final print. I tested many formulations before settling on the two I prefer. Given the manufactured nature of Palladio, i.e. I assume it came in only one formulation, how much control does the printer have over final image tone/color?

 

[Joe Lipka]

I controlled the contrast of palladio paper using hydrogen peroxide in the developer. The neat thing about that is the H2O2 broke down after a day or two and the developer went back to "normal."

Flexibility with a manufactured paper is controlled by the exposure and development of the negative. This was pretty much left up to the user. Palladio did reccomend times and temperatures for some film negatives using Divided D-23 developer. With those reccomendations I made some wonderful prints.

Palladio offered two developers, a standard and a warm tone developer. You could also vary the tone by varying the developer temperature. Warmer developer produced warmer tones.

Today, the primary advantage of a manufactured paper would be the application of a digital negative that would match the curve of the paper. Pefect prints every time.