More thoughts on the Semi-Stand process

Patrick, sorry but I will go with Mees rather than you. He is the expert in this case, not you.

As for paintings, you are comparing apples to oranges. Both are friut but not comparable. Both are paintings and photographs can be art but are not comparable.

PE

Sharpness is not directly related to resolution, although it is true the the greater the resolution, the less need for artificial sharpness from adjacency effects. Go to an art gallery and see how many works recognized as great paintings have edge effects.[/QUOTE]


Moonrise over Hernandez, NM,” 1944 is artificial, yes? It surely is, possibly the grandest artificial depiction of the Great Southwest ever conceived.

You guys are missing the best part, it is a means to achieve an end result which until now was not possible, artificial or otherwise.

Go to an art gallery and see how many test results are recognized as great photographs and hung on the walls.

I'd like to think this thread has been informative, it certainly has been entertaining!

Steve Sherman said:

I'd like to think this thread has been informative, it certainly has been entertaining!

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It has been both Steve...and Thanks for the information...stand/semi-stand with Pyrocat-HD is high on my list. For no other reason, than the points you've made....Ok, and those nice looking prints on your website.

Did I start all this?

Steve, I like your work and thanks for all the information, it looks like an interesting process to try. I would also like to see you put together an article for APUG on this subject sometime.

Regards,
John

Steve Sherman said:

Sharpness is not directly related to resolution, although it is true the the greater the resolution, the less need for artificial sharpness from adjacency effects. Go to an art gallery and see how many works recognized as great paintings have edge effects.

Click to expand...

Moonrise over Hernandez, NM,” 1944 is artificial, yes? It surely is, possibly the grandest artificial depiction of the Great Southwest ever conceived.

You guys are missing the best part, it is a means to achieve an end result which until now was not possible, artificial or otherwise.

Go to an art gallery and see how many test results are recognized as great photographs and hung on the walls.

I'd like to think this thread has been informative, it certainly has been entertaining![/QUOTE]

Steve,
If you are referring to adjacency effects, they have long been known. Judging by "The Theory of the Photographic Process" it is difficult NOT to get adjacency effects, to the extent that various schemes for avoiding them are described, including vigorous agitation. The authors admitted that some adjacency effect may be attractive, but none described methods of producing them because they are a natural occurrence. I am sure they were not referring to the exaggerated effect that looks like the negative of the outlines in a child's coloring book. I'm sure you are not promoting that extreme either.

The same treatise describes a similar facet of human vision, called the Mach Effect that enhances edges in many cases. If you really pay attention to what you see, I am sure you will see these adjacency effects at sharp edges without benefit of photography. If a camera lens were sharp enough to delineate edges, which actually requires high resolving power, perhaps we would not be so enamored of means to generate adjacency effects. Maybe it's just a sign of the times.

Nothing I have said contradicts anything I can find that Mees said or wrote. I said nothing for or against stand development as a generator of edge effects. I only said that I found no significant change in shape of the H&D curve that we use to define the relationship between density and exposure. I have repeated some of those experiments with different developers, and still have not found any significant change.

I only said that I found no significant change in shape of the H&D curve that we use to define the relationship between density and exposure. I have repeated some of those experiments with different developers, and still have not found any significant change.[/QUOTE]

That is the beauty of the process, it doesn't change the beginning and ending points as they relate to ordinary positive materials, it allows us to change what lies in the middle of the H&D curve.

Through exposure, development and now controlled agitation and dilution both macro and micro contrast are completely within our control.

No down side the way I see it. I just wish there was more talk about how these factors could play into various lighting and contrast conditions as they exist in the real world, preceived or conceived.

I see a benefit to putting my process down into a step by step and posting to the Articles section, we'll see how that goes. Give me some time.

thanks to all who chimed in

Steve Sherman

CREDIBILITY

craigclu said:

The credibility of the material was completely lost in just a few pages. ... I can only assume that many others like me have had this same experience. Maybe this could be a publication with twice the readership with some attention to the details.....

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If I read Steve Sherman’s comments correctly on our forum, his July article was based on some very old information. If so, a reference in the article should have been made. For example, Steve said “Mystery Arch shot was done years ago before I was aware of Semi-Stand. So yes the discussion is about the added benefit of Semi-Stand over a Water Bath variation”.
And – a valid observation was made by Gainer as follows: “My original complaint in this thread was simply that Steve Sherman pointed to a photo on which he did not use stand development as a reason for using stand development

OK, you've found the place where the "Holy Grail" of photography is buried. Next we'll see if you can dig it up. Even so, I don't see how you could have made your Mystery Arches picture without burning in the open sky part, stand development or not. Good luck. I presume you will show us what you learn, either here or in some publication.

Off point, I wish we could have our meetings in person.

Just to clarify some points.

Edge effects are not always a natural consequence of development or of the use of conventional photographic materials. They are the result of hard work by engineers who built in the correct amount of edge effects into film and developers.

Isn't it nice to know that someone did pay attention to data and curves, and finally was able to come up with something that made better pictures and thereby better art work? I know that no one makes a living selling curves. But, an engineer must pay attention to them in order that he/she may develop better photographic materials through understanding the science involved.

Some expect that reading will bring that understanding, others believe that practice of the art and science will do this for them and a third group believe that both reading and practice are necessary in order to understand and advance photographic knowledge.

In the definition of 'practice' by most photographic engineers that I know, they belive that practice involves both the art and science of photography as stated above. Science further includes the understanding at a fundamental level and lab work, and not the superficial level gained by reading a book or just looking at pictures.

Both pictures and hard data are used to come up with new films, papers, and developers. An average film improvement takes up to 5 years to do right. Same for a new developer. I doubt if anyone publishing a new developer formula here has spent anything like 5 years or so gathering data to prove that the new developer is indeed better than an existing couterpart. It is, as we read above, done by eyeballing a few pictures. You will see in Mees that dozens of obeservers sometimes disagreed on the rank ordering of some films and lots of data were needed to average out and discern what the various observers were judging to be better. Then they were able to quantize it and come up with films like Super XX and Panatomic X.

PE

By P.E. "An average film improvement takes up to 5 years to do right. Same for a new developer. I doubt if anyone publishing a new developer formula here has spent anything like 5 years or so gathering data to prove that the new developer is indeed better than an existing couterpart. It is, as we read above, done by eyeballing a few pictures."

Sandy: How long have you been doing sensitometry testing of Pyrocat-HD with various films, dilutions, development methods and related research data to date? 3 months? 3 years? or the developer of the month club this month? is it perhaps more? Just being nosy. A single number will suffice. tim

Not Sandy, but can say that the article over at Unblinkingeye is dated around 1998-1999. That said, would mean Sandy has over 6 years of information gathering that has been done. So, while not having the resources that a corp. has, would say that there has been more than a bit 'eyeballing' done. Just my thoughts...

Having taken a workshop from Sandy and talking with him about this, I would say its well researched.

Tim, I don't know if you meant it this way, but your posting was a little condensending in tone (I thought). You might not have meant it that way. Its one of the little things that get lost in written communication (the subtle nuances) and causes lots of strife on this board (that and the fact that people seem to lose social inhibitions while on-line.)

Steve
(someone that owns a sensitometer, and two densitometers and in the process of doing a big film-developer test for a commericial firm (and hopefully a book))

I think you missed my point. Hard data with comparisons are involved in this 5 year test period for films and developers. Not just sensitometry, but granularity and sharpness are compared and quantized. The results take out subjective measure of good vs bad and normalize viewer bias. Mees describes this.

I am not running down Sandy's work, but rather trying to indicate how much more goes into the work done at primary R&D labs. Please don't trivialize the work done at Kodak, Fuji, Agfa etc. And I don't intend to trivialize Sandy's work. I just mean to show how much more is done at the professional R&D level.

PE

QUOTE=noseoil]By P.E. "An average film improvement takes up to 5 years to do right. Same for a new developer. I doubt if anyone publishing a new developer formula here has spent anything like 5 years or so gathering data to prove that the new developer is indeed better than an existing couterpart. It is, as we read above, done by eyeballing a few pictures."

Sandy: How long have you been doing sensitometry testing of Pyrocat-HD with various films, dilutions, development methods and related research data to date? 3 months? 3 years? or the developer of the month club this month? is it perhaps more? Just being nosy. A single number will suffice. tim[/QUOTE]

You know, after reading PE's comment about the five year research cycle I started a message on the subject of my initial development of Pyrocat-HD and erased it after a paragraph or so because I did not think anyone would be interested, but since you ask, I will give it another shot.

I introduced the Pyrocat-HD formula some years ago, in 1998 I believe. I have related on other occasions my reasons for developing the formula, which were, to have a formula that would 1) work in rotary processing without excessive oxidation, especially with the long times needed for alternative printing and 2) in stand processing. I tested extensive with different variations of the formula for 6-8 months, and then tested for another year or so with my real work. By that I mean, I would go on a shooting sessions and make duplicate negatives of scenes, and come back home and develop in three developers, FX-2, D76 1:1 and the formula that was later to be called Pyrocat-HD. I had on time back them a lot of surplus boxes of 20X24 Kodabromide and I compared grain and sharpness by enlarging 6X9 and 4X5 negatives to this size.

The criteria I used in comparing results were, 1) effective film speed (which can only be done with an exposure system based on light integration or with a sensitometer), 2) grain, 3) sharpness, 4) resistance to oxidation, and 5) cost and ease of use. Above all I tried to subscribe to the "do no harm" concept, i.e. don't bother the folks unless the formula was at least as good as the comparative developers in two of the criteria, and better in at last two. In other words, there had to be something that this developer offered that others did not, if not why bother? After all, I used PMK for about ten years and found it to be a great developer, so why introduce something that was not better in at least one or two important criteria.

I never had any idea of the success that Pyrocat-HD would have. But once the formula appeared in Post-Factory Photography and Ed Buffaloe put it on his site I suddenly started getting email from people all around the world who found that for one reason or another preferred it to other staining developers. At first these people were mostly alternative photographers because those are the folks who are most familiar with my work. Since them most of what I know about Pyrocat-HD has been learned from people experimenting with it in different way. I would mention people like Michael Mutmansky and Clay Harmon who have used Pyrocat-HD in the past and found that dilutions such as 2:1:100 and 3:2:100 give less B+F with high speed and thick emulsion films than the standard 1:1:100 and 2:2:100. And i too have done a lot of experimenting, with extra sulfite and ascorbic acid, both which boost the energy level significantly but with some disadvantages, with different forms of agitation, etc. I am still experimenting and may at some time in the future make modifications to the formula.

I could add a lot more but I believe this should answer the original question adequately.

But I do want to say this, since some persons might think that I am using this forum for personal financial gain. The fact is I have no commerical interest at all in the Pyrocat-HD formulas that are marketed by B&S, Formulary and Lotus and several other places in Europe. Most of these places asked my permission to offer the commerical product, and consult with me from time to time about technical details, but I receive no financial benefit from the sale of the developer.


Sandy

Photo Engineer said:

I am not running down Sandy's work, but rather trying to indicate how much more goes into the work done at primary R&D labs. Please don't trivialize the work done at Kodak, Fuji, Agfa etc. And I don't intend to trivialize Sandy's work. I just mean to show how much more is done at the professional R&D level.

PE

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IMO you have been doing just that, no one has said that the research has been at the same level as one of the corp. R&D levels, nor do I think anyone would think that. Sandy's contribution is a tangible one is all that I am saying.

magic823 said:

Having taken a workshop from Sandy and talking with him about this, I would say its well researched.

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Having asked Sandy directly what steps he took in the development of Pyrocat, I understand that he has put a lot of time, effort, and thought into the formulation.

But I also see PhotoEngineer's point that there are certain tools that are unavailable to even the advanced photo tinkerers that hang out on this board. Sensitometers, (macro) densitometers, and eyes can't do everything. Certain tools like microdensitometers are just something that we are not going to be able to come by easily. Even looking at resolution targets under a microscope - differences are not going to be fully obvious due to the inherent properties (i.e limitations) of our vision. And then we add in the factor of stain, and all bets are off with making comparisons of visual observations, especially if comparing stained films with the completely different spectral characteristics that can be found even between pyrogallol and pyrocatechol based developers.

I suggested earlier this year that we should all get together and try to come up with a "standardized" system of film testing, or at least some well thought out guidelines that we can use to help minimize some of the time that is spend debating properties that we really can't prove one way or the other.

Kirk - www.keyesphoto.com

[

Photo Engineer said:

I think you missed my point. Hard data with comparisons are involved in this 5 year test period for films and developers. Not just sensitometry, but granularity and sharpness are compared and quantized. The results take out subjective measure of good vs bad and normalize viewer bias. Mees describes this.

I am not running down Sandy's work, but rather trying to indicate how much more goes into the work done at primary R&D labs. Please don't trivialize the work done at Kodak, Fuji, Agfa etc. And I don't intend to trivialize Sandy's work. I just mean to show how much more is done at the professional R&D level.

PE

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I did not take it at all that you were running down my work, or that of anyone else here doing developer formulation. However, outside of testing acutance, which I have not been able to figure out how to do without investing a huge amount into the project, I am confident that much of my tests is as thorough and revealing as anything the people at the R&D labs might be able to do, within the limits of my application of course.

Ultimately where I think we disagree is in the evaluation of grain and sharpness. This, in my opinion, can not be tested with machines. I don’t disregard the importance of testing that quantifies such things as sharpnes and grain, but the final evaluation can never be anything but the human eye. And never just one ey, because no matter how good the eye there is always the possibility of individual bias. So well-designed tests that use many people are the best measure of grain and sharpness.

Sandy

Kirk Keyes said:

Having asked Sandy directly what steps he took in the development of Pyrocat, I understand that he has put a lot of time, effort, and thought into the formulation.


Kirk - www.keyesphoto.com

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Darn, I looked for my message to you on this because I wanted to post it here instead of writing it all over again. But alas, I suffer from an acute lack of computer organization.

Which is one of the major reasons that I will always prefer film technology to digital!!

Hey, you folks who think I am too digital, did you hear that?

Sandy

EEEEE-FREAKING-GAD...but doesn't this thread have legs?!?!?!

I've just read the last couple pages and I think we should all get a tatoo of Steve's "Real Photographs Are Born Wet!" somewhere on our bodies...whadayathink? Then again, maybe that should be the APUG moto

OK...now I'll go back to post #1...

Murray

Couldn't do it...couldn't read them all...too tired...too many guys trying to piss further than the other guy...I'll stick with SLIMT

Murray

Magic, I do apologize to you and to Sandy, if the tone of my last post comes across as at all condescending in Sandy's direction, it was not my intent. There was a certain tounge-in-cheek approach aimed at the contention that no "individual" on the list has the experience or time to devote to developer research and come up with a superior product. Also, a certain allusion to the time spent in research by some, which P.E.'s post did nail quite cleanly (if not in the direction he intended) was intended on my part. I only hope the "Tar Baby" found it refreshing and poignant, as was my intention. Is that obtuse enough, or should I muddy the waters a bit more?

I would hope that Sandy understands that I have the utmost admiration and respect for him. His research, knowledge in the "real world" of photography and ability to convey this information, free of charge, to any and all with an interest in photography is refreshing. I would only hope that at some time he might make a small amount of income from some of his work, but I suspect he might not really be too interested. If not that, perhaps an award by some group, organization or peer achievement would be in order. Too bad I don't know of a suitable venue in which to nominate him.

Sean, how about an "APUG award of the year" for contributions to the community? I nominate Sandy. tim