Category: olden modern

seeing magenta

Posted on Posted in alt photo, dye transfer, olden modern, the fora, Theory, Valley HiTagged , , , , ,

ask around the net for dye-transfer information. seek insights, perhaps advice, what you are provided by 2025 search-AI models is counter to insight — confusion is increasing. Dilution over diffusion flourishes. Clicks are the clique formers.

One simple example. Seeking specifics about Kodak’s magenta dye used in Dye Transfer printing.

NB: search used this tree [:: Photrio -> koraks ] getting to an answer about magenta dyes used in Kodak dye-transfer, imbibition printing. Photrio is large site with over a thousand posts related to dye transfer; koraks site is listed as sigline in posts by a moderator taking part in dye-transfer related threads over the past several years. I doubt that K~ has ever made a dye transfer, certainly hasn’t synthesized the dyes. Another example of dilution of knowledge.

The inference engine of AI cannot distinguish quality, meaning accuracy, applicability, from quantity, meaning the number of referral links made over time. [the specific information provided in this conversation is based on general knowledge and does not directly cite specific pages or sections from these references.] Different models often respond that the information on [dye-transfer] is collected from practitioners internet archives.

Kodak CIS-154 Magenta Dye in Imbibition Printing
example response: I want to be transparent that my previous responses were speculative and not directly based on the Kodak publication you mentioned. Providing more details will help me offer a precise and accurate interpretation of the source material.
[I used 5 different engines... none could provide useable, correct answers.. each required, in essence, that I give them direct references, which they then could summarize.  ]

Provided that I correct enough, staying with the multiple AI engines, we get somewhere. However, I had to provide a page, a CAS number, then prompt the answer machine with guidance on selection criteria for synthesis. In other words, I had to know much more than any of the AI engines were able to source. I was provided patent references, incorrect, so taking additional time for me to read, and return to prompt for correction. The initial failure though, the one leading through the darkroom help forums sounded, to the untrained, inexperienced, like a correct answer. An answer which would be repeated by the novice.

Since the process is being used by mere handfuls who do gather and exchange information and support these aren’t significant practical matters. The failures keep the stalled busy, out of the way. The lesson is that small errors can be amplified sufficiently to distort information into a contorted arcade reflection of what was.

gelatin imbibition refsDownload

CARP Fishing

Posted on Posted in A Symbol Life, bead game, Carp Fishing, olden modern, The Biz

Writing about drying prints reminded me about Pakosol and drum drying of prints, even dye transfer prints.

Even though Kodak Dye Transfer paper was much thicker than most darkroom paper, it would still curl. This curl meant that retouching was harder, since retouching was the most common purpose behind making a dye transfer, we were making the process longer, and more expensive using any but the most efficient drying method.

I have, over many years, grown to test someone’s knowledge, trying to compare what they know by practice to what they know through overhearing; their gossip BS quotient. I did this because I hired people for labwork; since I didn’t have the patience to give them trial time, I talked, a bit, like an idiot, or I questioned them like their life depended upon correct, quick answers. In a way, it did.

A comment made to a Dye Transfer Group was that we used Pakosol when glossing our dyes. Not exactly true, although it went unchallenged. People too polite, or just didn’t have enough experience, which they realized. Only one of the 100+ talkers had lab experience; he was at BK+L. He may have known the use was to wipe the borders, not immerse the print for glossing, since those of us making dyes commercially were sending them to retouchers.

Wiping to White — clearing the borders was common practice; it carried over to “flashing white” to type Rs & Cibas. Art Directors expected R(review) prints to have borders they could write/markup.

Dye transfer died because of bullshit trumping behavior. As in most idler things, most people just doodle away, preferring to talk about it; so too in the camera counter world. People learn by shopping means they learn little of use beyond the sales chatter. The gossip review. The Efke Orthomatrix sold less than a third of what was made. No one bought more than 10 boxes! US importers basically stiffed the exporter.

Amateurs want a claim to meaning. This explains, rather, it justifies the costs of an in-effective hobby.

Back to print flattening: the solution is hygroscopic — something like dilute glycerin. Pakosol had glycol in it.

kodak’s 50s advice about drying paper flat.

dampen backs and re-dry between blotters under pressure.

Print flattening solution works well by slowing drying in winter atmospheres

[ from yesterday: https://webionaire.com/2023/04/02/drying-fiber-prints/ ]