Ah I am so glad Sean created this site, I am so steamed! Since I moved to Mexico I find it hard to find paper for my pt/pd prints, so I was looking for references about paper, treating it etc etc....so surfing the web I made a Google search for platinum, and came across this article about John Cone and his piezography system. Well let me include his comments about pt/pd.

Of his latest development Jon Cone says, "Traditional platinum printing requires great skill, exposure to toxic materials, and enormous expense. To produce a traditional platinum edition is an expensive and laborious process. Also, large format traditional platinum prints are no longer being made due to the withdrawal of specially prepared large format films and papers by the specialty vendors. With DigitalPlatinum Giclée weÌre not only able to produce as beautiful a process as the traditional way, but we can print up to 35" x 47" on a wide variety of art papers, and do it on-demand. I believe that we have made a new digital medium available to a large segment of the photographic community, which was unable to take advantage of traditional platinum printing because it proved too expensive to be practical."



I would like to start my rant looking and Cone's opinion sentence by sentence:

"Traditional platinum printing requires great skill, exposure to toxic materials, and enormous expense. To produce a traditional platinum edition is an expensive and laborious process."

Ah, digital proponents always say it requires a lot of skill and experience to create an image comparable to the best traditional method, I guess now we know in Cone's opinion even a monkey can do it, since pt/pd is so hard, we better get rid of all our equipment and buy all them computers and printers. Of course since printers capable of making these type of prints, as well as computers capable of handling photoshop are now being given away I guess it is so much cheaper to do it.


. Also, large format traditional platinum prints are no longer being made due to the withdrawal of specially prepared large format films and papers by the specialty vendors.

What is this moron talking about? we have now, more than ever more types and sizes of film than ever before. Bergger, Fuji, Ilford and even the bad yellow father are still making film for LF. What the hell was "specially prepared"? I am not knowledgeable about film manufacturing, but I imagine film makers make film on big sheets and cut them to size, I cant see them coating each and every little 4x5 sheet!

With DigitalPlatinum Giclée weÌre not only able to produce as beautiful a process as the traditional way

Whaaaaat? ok first lets star with the name, digitalplatinum glicée is nothing more than an ink jet print on watercolor paper, so far as I know they have not put platinum in their pigments. I remember when piezography first came out they clamed it was the future of print making, close down all darkrooms finally a digital way to make prints "just like silver prints", then things started to come out, ah! D max is not good enough, "oh well we are a new technology we need papers etc", Ah! the longevity of my prints is not good enough, "Ah well we are making advances on that, with new papers and pigment inks we are surpassing even the silver based process" sure, sure! Let see one of them prints 100 years from now! As far as I am concerned accelerated testing is not irrefutable proof these prients are going to last the 200 years they claim!

but we can print up to 35" x 47" on a wide variety of art papers, and do it on-demand

Yep, pt/pd printing for dummies....what more can I say!?


I believe that we have made a new digital medium available to a large segment of the photographic community, which was unable to take advantage of traditional platinum printing because it proved too expensive to be practical."

AAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH! where is the platinum in this prints?
I suppose what he is saying is that now thanks to new technology we dont need craftmanship, care, love for the process, and technical expertise...now any monkey with a computer can make a million copies of his half assed look alike platinum print cheaply! Thank God for progress!

Ah well, soory for the long post, I just had to vent my spleen....and as Millers said....I could be wrong this is just my opinion


http://apug.org/forum/html/emoticons/mad.gif

But....but...it's DIGITAL!

I feel your pain Jorge! We can only hope niche markets stay alive and produce most of the supplies we need to continue our craft. I see so many people jumping on the digital bandwagon. Modern convenience is king!!! The excuses are beyond transparent. It's amazing to see what excuses people come up with (the process doesn't matter because the final print is only a means to an end, chemicals are too dangerous, dark rooms are too dark, etc). I wish they'd just admit they are too lazy and can't be bothered with a real commitment to craft. Then I'd have a lot more respect for them.

Where will this all end?

I'll tell you.

A photo-bot, that's where! A mobile roving robot with AI programming and a cmos sensor. You program it to rove around it's 3 km radius and take your photos for you! Hell, why bother even going through the trouble of taking photos? It's such a ridiculous inconvenience! Just program your new photo-bot3000 with Ansel Adams AI mode and send it off. Or if you like just explain to the bot what your exact style is and it will learn to provide you with the exact subject matter you desire. The bot will not only take your photos with precision composition skills, but it will wire them directly to your printer. Send your bot out in the morning, and by afternoon sit back and view your fine art platinum prints.

sigh http://apug.org/forum/html/emoticons/wacko.gif

Well Sean what really chaps my hide is not that he has created a new digital process to rival pt/pd. Is that he is so blatant about trying to make people think it is just like the real thing. The same way his piezography inks have not turned out to be the best thing since sliced bread, this digitalplatinum crap will never be the same as a real pt/pd print. Had he called Alternative digital glicée or something like that I would not have a problem with it! But here is this guy giving us the same exact arguments digital proponents claim not to be true. So which is it, does digital want to be exactly like traditional methods or not? Why spend so much time malining traditional methods to uplift their methods?

The one good thing I see from this is that as soon as we start seeing the crappy stuff these people start to put out, quality images made with care will be so much more valuable. I suppose we should do all we can to make this people start using this stuff! http://apug.org/forum/html/emoticons/rolleyes.gif

One word drives digital.

HYPE

Let's face it, the last decade in the hi-tech world was ALL about hype. Look at the average Dotcom of two years ago. The Internet could do ANYTHING. Companies SWORE that their products would change everything for you.

Yeah, right.

So now we have computer companies selling cameras. And the hype machine still keeps rolling. They would have us believe that a 3Mp camera can rival a Hasselblad. Digital output now lasts longer than platinum according to some!

This is just more hype. Why spend all that money and actually LEARN to coat the paper and make a contact print from a large negative? Just have the computer print one out!

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiight.....

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Robert Kennedy @ Sep 15 2002, 05:21 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>One word drives digital.

HYPE

Let's face it, the last decade in the hi-tech world was ALL about hype. Look at the average Dotcom of two years ago. The Internet could do ANYTHING. Companies SWORE that their products would change everything for you.

Yeah, right.

So now we have computer companies selling cameras. And the hype machine still keeps rolling. They would have us believe that a 3Mp camera can rival a Hasselblad. Digital output now lasts longer than platinum according to some!

This is just more hype. Why spend all that money and actually LEARN to coat the paper and make a contact print from a large negative? Just have the computer print one out!

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiight.....</td></tr></table><span id='postcolor'>
You elitist luddite!!! http://apug.org/forum/html/emoticons/tongue.gif

Let's face it, the last decade in the hi-tech world was ALL about hype. Look at the average Dotcom of two years ago.

Awww men dont remind me!! bought Barnes & Noble.com at $24, sold at $12...... http://apug.org/forum/html/emoticons/nugget.gif


Yes, Hype is the word and I suppose I was preaching to the choir here, but I just get so pissed when the digital users claim "the output is what matters" and then they go for the "just like platinum prints"! So if it was only the output that matters why make this statement!?

Ross quote "You elitist luddite!!! "

Ross
When you christened this site APUG did you also consider the acronym of LPUG? or ELPUG? Analoge is far to PC.

I mean if you are going to be accused of it anyway why not go with it.

lol!

I love being surrounded by you elitist luddites, it's just plain great! http://apug.org/forum/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif

No hay que preocuparse Jorge, the truth always comes out. Even if digital does come out with a method better, faster and more permanent, don't you love the chemical process for its own sake. And another way to look at it: factories make blankets with perfect, even stitching but do they compare to your grandmothers handmaid quilt?

BTW Jorge, I've been reading your various posts for a long time and appreciate allot of help and information you've given. Why worry about nonsense claims? Just keep giving those pearls of wisdom like your brush technique.

http://apug.org/forum/html/emoticons/w00t.gif Mateo thank you for your kind comments, and I absolutely agree with you, is not that I worry, in the end if I show my prints and people like them then who cares how they were made. I also feel the same about digital, as a matter of fact among the prints I own I have a couple by Dan Burkholder, who uses digital technology to make his negatives and then prints them with pt/pd. So I am not worried about this, what really makes me MAD is the blatant hypocresy of these people. Cone is representing his new process as something that I actually doubt very much it will deliver.

Jorge,
he's not representing his ideas, but rather selling his ideas....and we all know about "truth in advertising". http://apug.org/forum/html/emoticons/cool.gif

After seeing prints done via Cone's Piezography inks and printer drivers, I must admit that the results were quite lovely. Did they look like pt/pd prints? In a word, no. To me they reminded me of a fine photogravure (which I admire) rather than pt/pd prints. If I were in charge of marketing at Cone I would drop the 'prints like platinum' pitch - it doesn't hold water - and sell the process on it's own merit.

Cheers,
Roger...

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (rogein @ Sep 21 2002, 03:56 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>If I were in charge of marketing at Cone I would drop the 'prints like platinum' pitch - it doesn't hold water - and sell the process on it's own merit.

Cheers,
Roger...</td></tr></table><span id='postcolor'>
Exactly, no need to do anything else. I think they would sell better also!

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (rogein @ Sep 21 2002, 03:56 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>After seeing prints done via Cone's Piezography inks and printer drivers, I must admit that the results were quite lovely. Did they look like pt/pd prints? In a word, no. To me they reminded me of a fine photogravure (which I admire) rather than pt/pd prints. If I were in charge of marketing at Cone I would drop the 'prints like platinum' pitch - it doesn't hold water - and sell the process on it's own merit.

Cheers,
Roger...</td></tr></table><span id='postcolor'>
I second that as well. One thing to add too is that in my experience, making a great digital print is very difficult and time consuming. It actually takes me less time to throw some negatives in the soup and knock out contact prints. Leaves me more time for photography....

Aaron

I've seen some of Jon Cone's work in person during a digital printmaking workshop I attended a couple years ago at his Vermont Studio. (This of course was before I was redeemed and went off the edge on eBay buying 11x14 & 5x7 stuff.) Cone has some personal piezography digital 5x7ish prints from a Nikon Coolpix 800 (?) and Epson printer that were simply exquisite. But, they ain't platinum prints. I'd agree they are visually more like gravures.

I've yet to see anything done digitally that comes close to either his prints or any of the traditional chemical processes. It's simply a different beast. Cone's a good salesman and great cook. I've also been staring at an Epson 1160 clogged with piezography inks for the past year sitting on my desk.

I bought the system to make digital negatives for 4-color gum bichromate prints, and when it worked, it was great. I simply did not want to deal with using panchromatic films for large color separation negatives in the darkroom. I now use a different printer/ink combo and it is much less expensive than either pieziography or the film/chemistry route and much faster. But, I'm doing this for gum printing where the printing process masks the digital artifacts to some degree. It isn't there yet for other alternative processes in my opinion. (There's another thread going on about making digital negatives and the prints I've seen in processes like Pt/Pd from digital negs aren't anywhere close to those that can be achieved by even novice printers and traditional methods.)

Sorry to stray but I do think digital can be used effectively by some people. Same goes for traditional materials. It is however a mistake to confuse the two, or market them as interchangeable.

Joe

I know this post is quite old, but I just found it. Amen Jorge! All this means is that more of us should just keep making real Platimum prints to show the uninitiated what they really look like!

Regards, Pete

Digital Platinum is like saying Jumbo Shrimp.

The two don't go together....

Jorge
This kind of marketing is a real piss off and John Cone should know better.The funny thing is the traditional side of printing is making a comeback as the people who have drifted to digital only have realized that digital is not all what its being marketed as. Maybe he is getting desperate , as more and more epson printers are in the hands of photographers his digital printing services are less needed .therefore the need to create a new (digital platinum) item to sell to the less informed.
I saw your print on the gallery page a while back that was drawing debate and I must say I liked it very much. The contrast range was indeed extended and beautiful.
Handcrafted photographs will always have a niche in photographic community and those who appreaciate quality will seek it. Just like good beer
Bob Carnie

The one good thing I see from this is that as soon as we start seeing the crappy stuff these people start to put out, quality images made with care will be so much more valuable.
You got it in one Jorge, now stop wasting bandwidth and, more importantly, your time. Go smile through a veiwfinder, but not a digital one. :D

I don't think I've ever come across more paranoid bunch than you lot. No sooner do we get a forum for proper printing than you start using it to moan about digital. Stop looking over your shoulder, and get on with proper photography. Sean you should know better than encouraging them, can digital rants be automatically be redirected to www.Photo.net please.