Who has tried Pt/Pd printing and didn't like it?

[Sitron]

You should check out a new book came out over the summer on Irving Penn's platinum prints. It talks about his trials and errors over years of experimenting with the process. He ended up mounting the paper in aluminum and coating and exposing the paper a few times to get the depth he wanted. He had some system to make sure the negative was precisely registered each time. The book shows test strips he made, as well as some unsuccessful attempts. It convinced me as much as I like the look of platinum, I don't have the time!

[robert_4927]

Sitron, I haven't seen Penn's book but I'm looking forward to it. To use multiple registers or overlays use to be more common I think when papers weren't so good. I've even heard of printers sizing their own papers to hold the emulsion better. But nowadays the we have some beautiful papers to work with and with proper coating technique you can achieve single registered prints that are quite stunning. Seee... we Pt. printers have advanced in the paper dept. But on the other hand as I mentioned before Izu is doing the same thing but using two different processes and that's quite interesting in itself. But the technique is not that difficult with a good magnivisor and some masting tape. ( A good elbow rest and a couple of shots of good 18 yr. single malt always helps too.) The thing is, it is the kind of process that you get so excited about doing or you don't want to bother, there is very seldom an in between. But if you're drawn to the additional midtones and tonal shifts you can get from the process you'll understand what I'm feebily trying to describe. I guess a better word to sum it up would be addiction. ( now that's something I know about....but that's a whole other post.)....lol...have fun

[Jorge Gasteazoro]

Robert is right, we should credit Bostick & Sullivan for giving us a great set of papers to star with. Once people got on their way, testing alternative papers became a snap.

[Pete Caluori]

Greetings,

I'd like to add another thought to this discussion and that is process. Each process is different and as "artists" working in the photographic medium we have many different processes to chose.

Joh Cook used the analogy of his MG-GT, well allow me to expand on this analogy. You wouldn't use a MG-GT to move you household goods from one geographic location to another, instead you would probably use a truck. By the same token, you probably wouldn't use that truck to tour the countryside, but rather an MG-GT. I believe this same analogy is transferrable to photography. Some images are very well suited to the the look of silver gelatin, while others are better suited to the look of Pt/Pd, but in the end each of us needs to make the determination of what best suits "our" image.

For myself, I absolutely love the look of palladium toned van dykes, which exhibit an even longer tonal scale that Pt or Pd, but I also realize that not all image are suited to that process, so I don't limit myself. I work in a number of differnt processes including Pd and Pt/Pd and I would never give them up.

In order to make a determination for yourself, you need to work with a process and see what its capabilities and limitations are, then and only then can you decide if it suits your asthetic and the way you wish to express yourself.

Regards, Pete

[Struan Gray]

Does anyone here make cold-tone Pt/Pd prints? Most summaries of the process I have seen talk about being able to produce a wonderful range of tones from warm to cold, but all the prints I have seen have been brown, cream or pink. How easy would it be to make chilled prints?

[robert_4927]

Pete, Take a look at what Wynn White is doing with Van Dykes. His over developing then bleaching back his prints technique is rendering some very stunning results.

[robert_4927]

Struan, For warmer toned Pt/pd prints I use a Potassium Oxalate developer. For a colder toned print an Ammonium Citrate developer can be used. Like I said this process is very versatial.

[robert_4927]

my apologies for not using the spell check " versatile"

[Jim collum]

I'm printing with Ziatype, using Palladium:Platinum 2:1 ratio. I'm printing on COT 320, using the Bostick& Sullivan chemistry. I expose with the paper at about 60% humidity, and get almost dead neutral prints. If the humidity goes down below 40%, it starts to get very warm toned.

jim

[robert_4927]

Jim, What you are using is POP process. I think you're probably using lithium palladium chloride and ferric ammonium oxalate. This process I'm not very up on but I do know that humidity will effect tone in this process. I work with the more traditional pt/pd developing out process where humidity won't have effect on the tones and how they shift. Although when coating I keep an eye on the room's humidity just for the fact of how the emulsion spreads when coating the paper. Cot 320 is a great paper and probably one of the best you can use. If it weren't for the fact that I'm playing with the Van Dyke process and still printing mostly in Pt/Pd I would love to give this POP process a try. But there's just not enough time in the day to do everything I would like. I would love to see some of your results once you get comfortable with it. These processes can be so much fun once you start playing with them. What type of light source are you using? You can make excellent prints with the Sun but you may want to consider a UV light box or a plate burner if you haven't already. With a good UV light souce you can really dial in your times and get more consistant results than printing with the sun.