Digital Platinum?

[Bill_1856]

I wonder if anyone's tried using platinum pigments in an inkjet printer?

[C. D. Keth]

What would that accomplish over something like a piezography set of inks?

[Sylvester Graham]

And what is a platinum pigment? Metallic platinum ground up in ink?

[IanG]

Some, not anyone I know of jhere, already produce Inkjet Platinum prints, and they are of course fakes.

Ian

[Doug Howk]

Platinum/Palladium printing is one of the easiest and most consistent of the alternative processes. So I don't know of much if any benefit to spitting out the prints vs contact printing whether from in-camera or digital negatives.

[Lenny Eiger]

Bill,

Classic platinum is based on Ferric Oxalate (a light sensitive iron compound) and Potassium Chloroplatinite (a salt of platinum). In the traditional method, one actually makes an iron print during the exposure. During developing there is a bonding effect that happens and everything drops out except the platinum on the paper. (And some palladium if you like.)

There are no pigments. It is a chemical process. The color comes from the platinum and palladium.

That said, I have made a print recently, with my special mix of Cone's K7's, that are indistinguishable from the platinum print - from the same negative. The color is almost identical and the tonal range matches nicely.

Lenny

[Preston]

I always wondered what platinum printing was. I've seen a few prints and the tonality is wonderful. I am curious about something, though, Lenney. Given the two compounds you mention above, where does the palladium come from, or is there a different compound used in the platinum/palladium alt-process?

--P

[sanking]

"where does the palladium come from, or is there a different compound used in the platinum/palladium alt-process,"

Palladium and platinum, along with rhodium, ruthenium, iridium and osmium, are metals in a group of elements referred to as the PGMs (the platinum group metals). The largest mines for palladium and platinum metals are in Russia and South Africa. You may have noticed that one of these mines in South Africa was in the news recently because of a strike of the workers that resulted in a number of deaths.

Platinum printing, as we use the term today, typically means a combination of palladium + platinum, or perhaps only palladium. There is no specific pt/pd curve, as the shape depends highly on the combination of these two metals. Prints made with pure palladium, when printed with analog negatives, typically have a long toe and long shoulder.

Sandy

[ROL]

Some, not anyone I know of jhere, already produce Inkjet Platinum prints, and they are of course fakes.

Ian

Course flakes? :D


There seems to be a lot of enmity here as regards p/p that I rarely see applied to GSP's and "pigment" (inkjet) printing, which I believe many LF shooters here (not me) engage in.

[Sylvester Graham]

Platinum/Palladium printing is one of the easiest and most consistent of the alternative processes. So I don't know of much if any benefit to spitting out the prints vs contact printing whether from in-camera or digital negatives.

Are you forgetting the price of platinum??

[Cletus]

Easy and consistent?

[Doug Howk]

All things are relative, no absolutes. After having tried Kallitypes for a couple of years and other alt processes too, pt/pd is a breeze.
Ease: 3 methods of which NA2 may be the easiest to learn ( and uses little if any Platinum). If you can determine the density range of the negative (densitometer or light table + step wedge), then how many drops of each element of the coating for contrast control are in readily available tables. Some printers don't even bother with this step, and print all negatives the same ( consistently exposed negatives, eg BTZS).
Consistent results: keep good notes of the variables and practice consistency of workflow.

[Thebes]

I note that there are "collected" photographers whose work is sometimes already misrepresented as "carbon print" due to previous marketing rubbish.
I dearly hope that shucksters aren't trying to co-opt yet another term to apply to their giclees.

[Kirk Gittings]

I note that there are "collected" photographers whose work is sometimes already misrepresented as "carbon print" due to previous marketing rubbish.
I dearly hope that shucksters aren't trying to co-opt yet another term to apply to their giclees.

Who for instance? I have heard of people doing this but have not seen any examples.

[adam satushek]

When I lived in Seattle near my (shared) 9800 I printed large negatives for a photographer who was making platnium prints. It seems like a cool process, but at least the negative printing was very exacting. I printed small proofs/test strips for him, and each time he would go back to his darkroom and make test prints, and then tweak his files to to bring to me for additional proof files. This happened 5 or 6 times...but of course no complaints because he paid for the prints and my time. Eventually, once the process what honed, I printed 3 or 4 ~30 x 30 inch negatives for him to make platnium contact prints from.

This is not quite what is being refered to in this thread, but it was an interesting process. I just wish I would have made an effort to see the final results

[Vaughn]

Easy and consistent?

Relatively speaking, of course. If one can do a cyanotype, one can easily do a platinum/palladium print. Pick a good paper, spread a few drops of the ferric oxalate and the metal salts (bought pre-mixed), toss in a tray of the developer, a few clearing baths (HCA or whatever), wash and you have a print. Making good prints consistently takes a little more effort.

[Thebes]

Who for instance? I have heard of people doing this but have not seen any examples.

In particular I am speaking of Michael Berman, whose "home town" gallery rep told me carbon ink prints were "carbon prints" and whom luminous lint and other fine art resources list as having worked in that process, though he never seems to have. I know that there were problems early on with Cone's inks and Clyde Butcher as well, although he seems to have acted reasonably to end such confusion when workers in the carbon process expressed concern.

I think, naturally enough, that people working in giclee processes wish to differentiate their work from their peers. The problem I see is that sometimes to do so they attempt to co-opt a term for another process to market themselves or their inks. Even "pigment print" which has come to mean a pigment giclee, has takeb the name for a process of Mortensen's. I know he's not so well regarded today as he was while alive and publishing his many books and teaching workshops, but a fair number of people seem to have worked in his process. Now that process is relegated to a side note, just to find a new way of saying giclee. Artists working with acrylics never felt the need to come up with a hundred ways to say acrylic. I don't think digital photography can come into its own as an art-form until people embrace the newness of the media rather than attempt to make it into something from photography's "past".

[Kirk Gittings]

I think your points are well taken, with a couple of points I would take issue with. I know of no serious (a judgmental term I know) photographers working with digital prints who use the term Giclee. Giclee is a widely accepted term in the broader arts but not in photography as it doesn't fit with some common naming conventions in photography and doesn't sit well with photographers-me included. Its describes the mechanics of making the print-not the makeup of the print. It would be like calling P/P print an "optically exposed contact print" instead of what distinguishes the makeup of the print from other printing papers. When I was first showing silver prints in the early 70s I started referring to them as "Gelatin Silver Prints" which was very common at the time in museums and galleries and I continue to use it today. Hence most serious photographers prefer something like "Archival Ink Print" or "Archival Pigment Ink Print" or if you are using one of the pure carbon inksets I have seen "Carbon Ink Print" used. Some use the name of the particular ink set like "Ultrachrome Print" or "Piezography Print". A name reflecting the type or brand of inkset is becoming common. In all the myriad of group shows I have been in or seen I have never seen anyone use then intentionally confusing terms you describe above, but maybe it was a trend that has passed and I missed it.

The other point is "I don't think digital photography can come into its own as an art-form until people embrace the newness of the media rather than attempt to make it into something from photography's "past"". With digital photography widely exhibited in galleries, museums etc and widely collected by the same-this has really been a non issue for a long time except in small enclaves of pre-digital traditions like this forum. You may feel this way personally but the greater art/photography community has embraced digital at all levels. While there is wide respect for people working with traditional processes that is not the same thing as lack of acceptance of digital workers. That ship has long since sailed.

While very little of my personal work is "pure" digital work (ie digital capture>digital printing-4 images to date.) I have had no problem exhibiting or selling digital prints to knowledgeable collectors or museums. AAMOF both my volume of exhibits, print prices and volume of sales have increased with digital prints. Where is the not yet "come into its own"?

[Lenny Eiger]

I don't think we should call inkjet prints "carbon prints". I am happy to be accurate, and do not want to confuse what i offer with with other types of printing. I usually use the term "carbon pigment" print, and I let everyone know it is done with an inkjet printer. I might also let them know I work in a "hybrid" process, that begins with film, and a scan.

If someone comes up with something more reasonable, I'll be be happy to use it.

However, the term "Giclee" is slang in France for the concept "to ejaculate". I am sorry, I am not going to call my prints "sperm prints". I like sex (with my lovely wife of 17 years) as much as anyone else, but I work a little too hard at this to be flip about what I am producing. I find it sincerely disrespectful.

I want to be respectful of the alternative process and their original names as well. Carbon pigment seems to work, people seem to understand it. I think its just a matter of agreeing to something, that respects all sides, and moving forward.

Lenny

[Vaughn]

There is only one doing Pixiegraphs on this forum...

[Doug Howk]

I don't think digital photography can come into its own as an art-form until people embrace the newness of the media rather than attempt to make it into something from photography's "past".
Why bother creating new terms when you can just abscond the existing. "Traditional Photography" equals minimally manipulated digital images. "Alternative processes" will include digitally printing on Tin (japanned metal). As with politics, if you can control the terminology, you've won the debate.

[Thebes]

The other point is "I don't think digital photography can come into its own as an art-form until people embrace the newness of the media rather than attempt to make it into something from photography's "past"". With digital photography widely exhibited in galleries, museums etc and widely collected by the same-this has really been a non issue for a long time except in small enclaves of pre-digital traditions like this forum. You may feel this way personally but the greater art/photography community has embraced digital at all levels. While there is wide respect for people working with traditional processes that is not the same thing as lack of acceptance of digital workers. That ship has long since sailed.

While very little of my personal work is "pure" digital work (ie digital capture>digital printing-4 images to date.) I have had no problem exhibiting or selling digital prints to knowledgeable collectors or museums. AAMOF both my volume of exhibits, print prices and volume of sales have increased with digital prints. Where is the not yet "come into its own"?

I think that maybe I have been less clear than I might have been. I never meant to imply that the art world has not accepted digital prints, digital photography, or even digital manipulations.
Rather I mean that digital fine art photography has not yet became, and won't become, what the medium is going to be known as / for until it stops being imitative in its forms.

If this seems absurd to you, consider this notion: photography in general didn't come into its own as an art form until Paul Strand sold his soft-focus lens.
Does that seem plausible?

What I mean, I think, is more akin to that than how you've taken my statement. Perhaps if I spent the effort to write a scholarly article I could communicate my thinking here more clearly, but I have better uses of my time and lack the patience.
Anyway, the closest things I think I've seen to what I think digital photography might eventually become are Gursky's Rhein II or some of John Paul Caponigro's works.
With digital fine art photography, I think that new kinds of manipulation are inherently a part of the medium, just as dodging and burning have generally been considered an inherent part of traditional photographic printing.

[sanking]

"If this seems absurd to you, consider this notion: photography in general didn't come into its own as an art form until Paul Strand sold his soft-focus lens.
Does that seem plausible? "

Depends on how you define photography as an art form. I understand your point of reference, but Strand's view is only one way of defining photography as an art form. Many before Paul Strand, including people like Peter Henry Emerson and Robert Demachy, defined it in different ways that are, in my opinion, as intrinsically valid as the modernist version promoted by Strand.

Sandy

[Kirk Gittings]

I agree with you Sandy and you got to that point sooner and clearer than I would have.

Thebes, I think you are confusing your personal standards and preferences and societal ones and setting up a straw standard. I could say I think automobile seat belts haven't come into their own because of some technical inovation I want. Yet clearly seat belts, like digital photography, is omnipresent in society and just as digital photography is overwhelmingly present in the arts. Their overwheling presence speaks to their validity. "Come into its own" is a personal perspective/judgement. DP is a medium that is more maleable than traditional photography but that doesn't mean that "straight" digital photography is some lesser use of the medium.

I think digital photography came into its own when it relegated traditional film photography to the status of an alternative process.......................

Which by the way, (IMO in the arts) is kind of a good thing as practitioners are now doing something exotic and out of the norm.

[RichardSperry]

http://www.kerik.com/new/

...Does digital platinum.

Beautiful prints, btw.

Love this video http://youtu.be/tdGV_XGgWCg

[paulr]

If this seems absurd to you, consider this notion: photography in general didn't come into its own as an art form until Paul Strand sold his soft-focus lens.
Does that seem plausible?

No. Photography has a vibrant art history starting almost from its beginning. The people who didn't accept it (or rather, didn't accept pictorialism, which was one of many branches of 19th Century photography) were just a group that had a contrary manifesto. They won—but only a battle that belonged to a particular historical moment, and that didn't have a huge reach beyond the United States. Consider that European early modern photographs don't usually look like f64 work ... they look like modern painting, especially constructivism, Dada, and Bauhaus.

Here's a more likely historical parallel: when photography took the burden of copying reality off of painters, the painters were free to do other things. This is when THEIR medium began to flower, or at least flower into modernism. I think we're at a similar point. Digital tools are more efficient at copying reality than traditional photographic materials. So the traditional tools are being prodded into proving their worth, and in new and exciting ways. A lot of artists are rising to this challenge. I'm seeing artists in places like New York and Denver doing work that is only borderline photographic, with traditional phtographic materials ... they're exploring the mysterious, indeterminate, and often spontaneous things that light-sensitive materials can do when pushed in unusual ways. I think this is an exciting time, and can't wait to see more of this stuff.

I also think it's true that we haven't seen even a fraction of the possibilities of digital photography. I suspect it's because most of the avant gardist energy is being directed into places with so little overlap with conventional phtoography that we're not seeing it. Most of what I see in shows like the perennial New Photography exhibits at MoMA are fairly conservative, with the exception of the purley concept-based stuff (Doug Riccard, etc.). In most cases it's not particularly relevent if the artist used film or pixels or both.