Platinum and Palladium photographs are produced using techniques that are over 100 years old and although some modifications in the techniques have occurred in the last 25 years, the printing process has changed very little. The process still requires coating paper with a metal solution and sensitizing agent and contact printing with a large negative using the sun or light source with similar wavelengths.

The resulting image, if well done, can have a beautiful and subtle tonal range as well as varying color and depth due to the metal deposition in and on the paper surface.

Variouls combinations of metals can be used depending on the desired result (platinum, palladium, gold, lithium and tungsten). The chemicals can be quite expensive and the process requires production of a negative the size of the print, using either silver- based negatives from a large format camera or enlarged negatives using internegatives or computer generated negatives.

The color range for these images can vary from neutral black to sepia to warm red and using palladium and gold combinations (Ziatype) the image can have purple to cool blue hues.

The reader is referred to the work of Dick Arentz, Richard Sullivan, Tom McCartney and Carl Weese for technical information and reference texts.

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