Digital BW, The Print

I just saw the Irving Penn show of Platinum Prints at the National 
Gallery here in Washington, DC and am struck by the similarities 
between Platinum and Matte Black digital looks.  Both are warm toned 
and have a long tonal range without intensely dramatic blacks.  

The Penn prints were of some of his most interesting images during
the course of his career.  In the '70s he decided to print these 
himself.
 
The story of how he coated the paper and recoated the prints and 
with perfect registration re-exposed in order to increase density 
amazed me.  

The show is outstanding.  There are interesting reviews of it in The 
Washington Post and New York Times.  After seeing this show I think 
that as far as working with Matte Black the "Holy Grail" should be 
Platinum prints, not Silver Gelatin on air dried fiber.  I'd bet 
that the Penn prints could be reproduced very closely with Matte 
Black ink on high quality paper.

Andrew

> me about that. It wasn't just gelatin but a "secret" sizing that
> had something
> added, according to legend. He said pretty much gelatin and possibly some
> kind of starch. So, when double coating was done the paper didn't
> shrink at all
> and the blacks didn't sink into the surface like a lot of earlier
> platinum work.

I understood part of Penn's process was that he dry mounted the paper to a
sheet of aluminium first so that it didn't shrink during the drying
processes


tim a