Can anyone tell me a good resource on what the difference between Gelatin Silver printing and Platinum or Palladium? I understand about the paper having silver in it and the sensitivity to light but what is all the hubub about Platinum? Where do I look to find out? Thanks, Matt

-- Matt Mengel (mstrbelv@mail.icongrp.com), September 21, 2000

Answers

You might want to take a look at Dick Arentz's book, "Platinum & Palladim Printing". He devotes some discussion to the differences between the two processes. Be prepared for plenty of sensitometry.

-- Henry Friedman (friedlew@worldnet.att.net), September 22, 2000.

I think you would have to see some platinum prints for yourself reading about them and seeing reproduction will only give you clues as to what they look like. I can tell you from the few that I have seen they are not as sharp as silver prints and they have more of a moody look that can work really well.but i personally would not touch the process to expensive, you cant control the contrast as easily as silver and you can only contact print. platinum also requireds negatives with losta contrast so you run into difficult if you wanted to print the same neg on silver.-J

-- josh (devil_music@usa.net), September 22, 2000.

For a few web resources on Pt/Pd printing, see http://duke.usask.ca/~holtsg/photo/faq.html, http://www.jps.net/kerik/ptprnt.htm, http://home.att.net/%7Ejeffrey.d.mathias/. You will find lots of others if you do a search.

-- Chris Patti (cmpatti@aol.com), September 22, 2000.

Thanks for the Pt/Pd heads up, I found what I was looking for. Cheers, Matt

-- Matt Mengel (mstrbelv@mail.icongrp.com), September 23, 2000.