T E C H N I C A L  A R T I C L E S

Newest Additions
Bob Herbst's article on Pyro Densitometry
Home Grown Carbon Tissue

Platinum & Palladium
Coating Rod Illustrated Instructions - contents  tube coating  summary - A sample chapter from the Sullivan/Weese book The New Platinum Print, with over a dozen photos illustrating how to use a puddle pusher. Great introduction for all alt. process coating rod users.
How to Use a Coating Rod - Another quick how-to paper. Good general interest paper for all alt. processes.
Platinum Printmaking Made Simple - Gary Auerbach's instructions on platinum printing.
Na2- A New Contrast Agent - An interesting salt of platinum allows for wide ranging contrast control in the platinum/palladium process. Great news for all platinum printers, read this!
Satista + - An updated palladium and silver process.
Ziatype - The new palladium printing out process (POP)
Abney and Clark's - Platinotype and its Preparation 2nd American Edition - This is the classic historical work on the platinum process. It is in .PDF format (adobe acrobat) and is a 250 K download. The formulas are in need of alignment but it is still very readable.
The Ziatype Compared to the Ware-Malde process
Ziatype Coating Discussion
All About Ferric Oxalate - An interesting look into the chemical sensitizer used in platinum printing and the kallitype process, including how to prepare liquid ferric oxalate.
The Care and Feeding of Ferric Oxalate - More about this often misunderstood compound, its proper storage and shelf-life.
Gold Toning PT/Pd prints - The Sullivan method.
Tween 20 - An emulsifier that (sometimes) improves consistency of handcoated papers.
Platinum Green - Platinum printing and the environment.

Alternative Silver
Kallitype
Argyrotype - Dr. Michael Ware's update to the Kallitype process
POP paper
Van Dyke
American Handbook of the Daguerrotype
One of the definitive texts on making a Dag. From 1858. An e-text reprint from Project Gutenberg. Even if you never intend to splash about in mercury making one of them, it is an eye opener for understanding what the early photographers had to do to make a picture. The formatting is a little rough as it was auto-formatted in Word.
Photo Miniature No. 47 - Another rare gem. This edition is dedicated to the Kallitype process.
Silver Nitrate - Notes on its hazards.

Cyanotype
Classical Cyanotype
Modern CyanotypeModern Cyanotype - The Ware Process

Gum Arabic
Zimmerman's gum process. Jpg's of Zimmerman's 30 page long description of his unusual and weird gum process. From Photo Miniature #113 October 1910. Pages are fairly large to accommodate for the scans of 3rd generation copies. They are very readable but take time to download on slow servers.
Sullivan's Substrate Gum method - Solve many of the paper shrinkage and registration problems in gum printing by dry mounting your paper to linoleum or other surfaces.
Gum - Sullivan's prints from the 1970's.
Gum Printing Green - About the environmental hazards of gum printing and proper disposal of waste water.
Gum: The Ancient Ingredient for the 21st Century! - A Sudanese promotional paper from a now defunct government web site describing the wondrous properties of gum arabic and its origins.
Clearing Gum - A brief list of useful clearing agents.

Enlarged Negative Making
Stuart Melvin's enlarged negative system - Save money using less expensive litho film, developed in pyro. Produces stunning results for alt. processes like platinum.
Michael Kravit's write-up and modification to Melvin's method - A great elaboration on Stuart Melvin's enlarged negative system.

Digital Negative Making
David Fokos - A paper on digital negative making. Highly recommended!
Charles Palmer - Part l Part ll Part lll - Another excellent paper on digital negatives.

Miscellaneous
The B&S Product Formulary - The formulas we use to mix the various products we sell.
Vacuum Frame Construction - a basic outline and diagram from Richard Sullivan showing an inexpensive and effective method for making vacuum frames for contacting large prints.
Making Carbon Tissue - e-mail from the Alt-Photo List
Bromoil and Oil
The Anthotype - A discussion of the flower petal pigment process of the 1800's.
The Mortensen's Method of Paper Negative Making - One of the great William Mortensen’s 'secret' processes, passed from Jack McDonald to Dick Sullivan.
Mortensen's Etch-A-Tone and Abrasion-Tone - More of Mortensen's lost processes.
Peter Frederick's paper negative process - Make translucent images from enlarger paper.
Big Old and new lenses- A great chart of specs on big ol' lenses.