Category: fact

AI. seeking dye transfer

Posted on Posted in dye transfer, fact, lost horizon, neural knot, pipeline, Theory, Valley Hi

How much can you learn about dye transfer, imbibition printing, from LLM chatBOTs?
Where did they learn; what was their source materials? What did the trainers know?

February of ’25 I casually looked into AI. It began with Google’s search using the unfettered search; then the search repeated using the -ai command.
Both forms failed to provide clear, correct answers to foundation questions about the process. I didn’t get to a point of asking specifics, detailed questions suited for estimating the practical knowledge-base of the agents. The failure of high-level information would have bounced an applicant. No need to send them to the lab for a skill test. They couldn’t sell the product to a knowing professional never mind using the process in a commercial lab.

These results were further support for my 20 year aged aphorism: what google knows but doesn’t understand.

What does AI know; how accurate are zer answers. The big, almost dangerous answers concern matrix management procedures. Zer (genderless pronoun) can’t correctly answer what the different chemical effects on matrix emulsion occur due to tanning developer or tanning bleach. Likely because Zer uses the forum answers provided by a single under experienced source.

I dug much deeper into AI, models, companies, key authors, last fall thru now. My consistent markers have remained asking the model to tell me something I already knew, and knew deeply through experience gained in using the materials along with a rich, deep reference library consisting of research papers, consumer articles, trade-show items along with trade journals. This material set includes patents and private kettle books from researchers who worked from the 40s into the 1980s.
I do not expect a text-trained model to know about unpublished materials, however, it seems reasonable to expect it to be competent at summarizing materials available on the internet.

The following AI answers were wrong.

Q1 response :Both Q-7A and Q-7B are integral tripack films, meaning they contain multiple emulsion layers that can be processed in standard developing systems.

  • Color Reproduction: These films utilize dye-coupling development, which creates colored images through a process involving a developing agent and color-forming couplers. This ensures vibrant and accurate color representation.

Q2 response — The Kodak dye transfer process, also known as the dye-bleach or dye destruction process, was a photographic printing process that used a combination of dyes to create a color image. Here are the core takeaways:

Question 3: The difference between tanning developers and tanning bleaches as used by dye transfer printers.

Q3 response – Thank you for the clarification! You’re asking about matrix preparation in imbibition printing (also called dye transfer or carbro printing), which is a specialized photographic process. follow up: references needed for your conclusion re bleaching as offering greater control

Claude Haiku 4.5: You’ve caught me making an unsupported claim, and I appreciate the push for accuracy. I stated that the bleach method offers “greater flexibility in adjusting relief depth and dye transfer characteristics” without having a reliable source to back that up.

I should not have presented that as fact without evidence. The truth is, my training data on imbibition printing and matrix preparation is limited, and I’m not confident enough in the comparative advantages I described to cite them as conclusions.

To give you a properly sourced answer, I would need to search for technical literature on imbibition printing methods. However, this is quite specialized historical photographic process material, and I’m uncertain whether a web search would surface reliable technical references.

It would be possible to build a well-formed, accurate aid; I don’t know why. At this stage, at my interest level it distracts from my ongoing interests in image making. In furthering my life goals. My time teaching has resulted in several new dye printers, the OIC. They have achieved self sufficiency, down to sourcing matrix materials.

RAG: Retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) is a technique that enables large language models (LLMs) to retrieve and incorporate new information from external data sources. With RAG, LLMs first refer to a specified set of documents, then respond to user queries. These documents supplement information from the LLM’s pre-existing training data.

Or, https://arxiv.org/pdf/2410.20088

Block notes:

  • Llama -> meta:Facebook, Instagram
  • Gemini -> alphabet:Google — Reddit slurped
  • Grok -> xAI: X, ne Twitter
  • GPT -> openAI
  • Claude -> anthropic

Prior seekings: poisoning ,, making magenta

link for joy: https://susam.net/wander/ ai positive

NB: it is likely that I will return to this topic. My several months of interactions with different engines has provided me many pages of logs. The incentive to expend the clarification, corrections remains a quagmire… the very reason I avoid the forums — the endless September.

ai: Poisoning

Posted on Posted in big bits, dye transfer, fact, neural knot, Theory, Valley HiTagged , , ,

something simple — but about a thing not widely known — experience required. An inquiry into what is known, what was known. Who is feeding the dragons. Over the past five weeks, I have been asking questions of several ( actually 6) chatbot, inference engine products questions about systems of knowledge and processes that I have years of direct experience using. These are questions that could be answered by anyone familiar with the craft. Some of them would require knowledge deeper than brochures; it is contained in patents, along with peer-reviewed publications. Only occasionally have I asked it for information contained in documents found in isolated postings of the internet –these, understandably, haven’t been located in their responses. Not enough link count to warrant a training run.

When someone exclaims: been there; done that — in declaration of a skill they never acquired thereby defending a response set fixed forever among the long-term photo-forums, those remarks make their way into the forever-response of chatBOBs.

Asking AI: In the Kodak Dye Transfer process, what does “poisoning the mat” mean?

In the Kodak Dye Transfer process, the term "poisoning the mat" (matrix) is a colloquial expression for intentionally adding specific chemical agents to the acetic acid rinse bath to control the amount of dye that transfers to the final paper. This manipulation allows the printer to fine-tune the color balance and density of the photographic print. 
Key details about the practice: 
* Mat (Matrix): This is a sheet of gelatin film with a relief image that absorbs a specific color of dye (cyan, magenta, or yellow).
* Poisoning Chemicals: The "poisons" are typically simple chemicals that alter the affinity of the gelatin for the dye.
    * Sodium Acetate: Used to decrease the overall density of the dye transfer.
    * Sodium Hexametaphosphate (Calgon): A "highlight reducer" used to remove excess dye specifically from the light (highlight) areas of the image.
    * Acid: Adding more acid (acetic acid) to the rinse can increase the density of the transfer.
* Purpose: This step is a powerful control mechanism unique to the dye transfer process, allowing experienced printers to correct color casts, adjust contrast, and achieve a desired aesthetic result that would be difficult or impossible with automated processes.
* Reversibility: The term "poisoning" is informal because the effect is temporary; the chemicals do not permanently damage the matrix and are washed off after the transfer session. The matrix can be reused many times. 

lists 6 sites — the usual suspects.

Until AI is able to distinguish source accuracy, it will produce ill-formed answers perpetuating, even amplifying errors.

The next time some net-hero ponces about dye-transfer, perhaps in tones of imbibition awareness, ask em how to reverse the poison…

REMINDER: it isn’t dye transfer until the mat hits the blank.

A dye-transfer is “dye” on “paper”, where paper is any comparable surface, opaque, translucent, even transparent. The transfer is via imbibition process. A mechanical procedure.

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So, what does “poisoning a mat” mean?

one flavor of poisoning… with thorough definition. This is mordant-poison.

A poisoned mat is a failure condition. The mat fails to clear, or fails to transfer fully. Simple enough. The most common reason is the one encountered at the birth stages of imbibition transfer printing methods. The blank transfers “mordant” into the matrix.

as clear as it gets… one set of formulas as used in the 4th step..

not exclusively used, yet essential to the 4th matrix mode of imbibition printmaking… see my lecture notes from EXS studios

T: does AI have correct foundation knowledge of dye imbibition processes… is it [in the 3 models currently tested] suited for advancing a research into improving DT, imbibition-printing… could it assist in matrix emulsion design… [ChatGPT 5.2 Vs. Gemini Vs. Claude ] — No. Current models are not suited to sustaining a field that expired prior to the Y2K silicon valley. The afterbirth of the internet.

Commerce isn’t knowledge based.

The next time someone has been there, done that… hope they didn’t use chatBLOB as their guide.

retake : anthropic misanthropic