Information is far less rare than it might seem. And copyright or not, there is the basic matter of courtesy when posting the notes or manual of someone still alive, who is still sometimes active on a different forum, and might not be happy about its use without permission.
The official Kodak marketing pages from that era can be retrieved, and I probably have xerox copies of them on hand in some binder somewhere, which would be just as big a headache to dig up. But let's remember those were marketing statements to begin with, and not necessarily working technical details. The relevant technical pages about TMax in relation to DT can probably be retrieved too; I know who wrote them.
But an awful lot of legacy information is geared around films and materials no longer made. And potential equipment choice have changed at lot too, mainly for the better.
Frankly, there is still a tremendous amount of working information on the DT process still on the web, including a few reproduced thick handbooks - but not necessarily open for redistribution, just reading! There are also a number of how-to videos, as well as videos of historic interest, like Jim Bone's tour of Eliot Porter's old darkroom where he served as his assistant.
The most predominant teacher of the past was Bob Pace. Another person's manual you want to look into is David Doubley, which he does not allow to be downloaded. And despite a certain amount of criticism of Kodak's own old procedural manual, there is quite a bit useful in it, and the author of that is still alive, I think. Other relevant writers are too.
It is my belief, based on my research efforts, that all of the knowledge needed to properly use the Dye Transfer system at a professional level came from an Eastman Kodak Company training program operated from inside the Eastman Kodak Marketing Education Center (EKMEC), a former training department inside Kodak Office in Rochester, New York. Training was not available to the general public and was given only to customers and their sponsored affiliates, as well as college instructors to a lesser degree. The Dye Transfer process could not be commercialized by any professional lab that did not posses the proper knowledge to control it.
Kodak affiliated labs got this knowledge from EK to make DT prints to ISO and ASTM standards (color print standards) for Equivalent Neutral Density (END) of 5000K or 5500 K illumination. The masking equations were derived from using an END standard. I believe Kodak was running a kind of monopoly here.
There is still a great deal of secrecy as to data, and techniques once used by professional Dye Transfer labs to control the system. So far NOT A SINGLE former commercial DT operator has decided to publish this information they still have. This is both shameful of EK to used this model, and of the many operators who have a groupthink mentality. Equally shameful is that fact that the most non affiliated DT printers who have acquired this information selfishly guard this to this day.
On rare occasion former DT technicians or operators say they wont provide this information, but usually its a series of excuses such as: claim of disposed of records, records lost, records damaged in water main break, never recorded and forgot, your questions aren't important, or "your wasting your time", etc.
Again Drew, none of those sources have anything of much value for critical use of DT. They are helpful to those not familiar with the basic process, and will not be of use to those who want to make prints that “blow away” the digital inkjets.
Most of the problems with overall quality one will encounter with DT, come from poor separations. I think the importance of this is at least 70-80% of the time, possibly more. There (so far) is no good published procedure(s) to make excellent separations for DT. And it makes sense that selfish people are not going to give this away, even if they haven't used it in 30, 40, 50, or more years ago.
