Tag: dye transfer

Forum Follies

Posted on Posted in as written, the fora, the metaTagged , , 3 Comments

The take away is more than one, you say. What do forums do… they seem to wonder what they do well; paticularly after they’ve been running a long time. Even the simple questions lead to toxic shock.

Summary: You can’t talk about the meaning, nor the nature of photography. You also can’t see it on the internet, therefore, you are wasting your time and their bandwidth showing pictures on the web. Further, talking tech is pretty much wasted since you can’t tell what the pictures will look like. Even worse, you don’t know if the person offering their instruction is capable of anything other than web boasting. The circle seems complete. Actually, it seems like a spiral. Smaller and smaller.

So, you can offer to buy and sell. That, at least is about as far as we’ve gotten. Except, how do you trust in this circle. After all we can’t know if the words or the pictures of the items are correct either. Do we?

crits are tough. they do require shared language. not necessarily what can be brought from experience as an insurance inspector.

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Note Mr Katz’s sig asserts his presence on the forum has been since 2008. Membership claims have meaning beyond the factoid they’d seem to have.

They hold desire, and need to belong. Why else would he return.

trust the print, if you have seen it.

web should display what print showed from trusted source

only way to know is to know ahead.

shades of communication theory and post-modern death

perhaps they are headed to a post-forum internet.

Which leads me to a wayback time. Laura Gilpin asked CCA to match a color litho that had been made of her “Rainbow” — it, of course couldn’t be done as a type-C. It would have been very difficult to do as a dye-transfer. One form doesn’t complete an image, nor does it make it less useful.

Gilpin: Rainbow. Amon Carter attempts to show the print. Greyscale on side provides uniform meter for those who try.

“The proof print we sent you of the rainbow more closely matches your original than the litho does.” [12/68]

Even her original wasn’t what she wanted after seeing what a lithographer could/had done with the image.

What’s so hard about Dye Transfer

Posted on Posted in art school, dye transfer, PrintsTagged , , 1 Comment

Back in the day of dye transfer, photography was a trade taught in the US Miitary as well as private trade schools, many of which gladly accepted GI Bill tuition payments.

Large labs, processing hundreds of prints a week, divided the work into skill layers. As someone improved they were assigned to other tasks. Prove yourself often enough and you will have made it to a secure will paid career.

jobs. skills. steps

  • load film, clean, mop
  • soup film
  • mix chemcials for lab
  • make masks/seps
  • make mats
  • manage dyes and do rollup

The last task is key to the final result: rollup. This is primarily autographic; skill of hand, eye, timing with feedback. All the previous steps come together well, or the print fails.

Most of those who fail at dye transfer do so because they lack courage. They make the task harder than it is. Not even rollup is difficult, just needing attention.

Anyone who can teach dye, can teach anyone who can learn, in about 45 hours. This assumes you can get film in and out of a camera, and in and out of chemicals.

The hardest part about dye transfer was those who sold their weekend teaching skills to timid camera counter conversationalists.

Kodak’s Frank McLaughlin used to take people through the steps over the telephone. That’s how hard it was.

Frank wrote the latter editions of Kodak’s Dye Transfer Guide, the edition I pan elsewhere. I discount it since it was incomplete, as it tried to be thorough. The editions from the 50s was thicker, better, but referenced other materials. They were usually given away upon request; they did have prices marked.

A text that was used by many during the buildout of the Silver Rush was written by Mindy Beede. She is derided by many of the “not so many” print crowd. The slow brews that make as many as 20 prints in a career. If you wanted to learn, start with her book.

learning dye transfer

A — doesn’t match the information in B, and C; however, it is available. Items B and C are from my materials collected over years as a commercial printer.