LIGHT SENSITIVE COFFEE

[koraks]

Thanks so much @sol bol , I appreciate the swift response.

 

[sol bol]

Bienvenido, Saul! Fascinating stuff!

thank you Daniela

 

[Sirius Glass]

A bit late: Welcome to Photrio!

 

[sol bol]

OK, but with all due respect, what you're telling us is that the proof of your method hides safely with you and is not accessible to anyone else. At the same time, you argue that you have no interest in marketing the silver chloride paper since it's obsolete, but you also don't provide details of what makes it fixable with kitchen salt.

Surely, if you're concerned by the safety of people, it would be a logical course of action to give the world population access to your innovation. That way, it can actually make a difference.

Sure Am concerned with the safety of people, especially the children which have come to make this world better.

But I sincerely think that silver halide photography is dead for the masses, digital photography has put it in a comatose state.
and rightly so, no one can detain the march of progress.

Gelatin Silver halides served the world well for about 150 years. It was the king of photographic processes. It was the bread and butter of millions of worker worldwide for many generations and was not toxic...

as was the daguerreotype that used deadly mercury vapors, and wet collodion which used toxic ether gases, and the positive papers which used very poisonous eye blinding silver nitrate baths, the list of the black art goes on.

fine Silver grains are superior to pixels, they have a resolution beyond the resolving power of present optics.
silver at this time still have some scientific applications besides to nourished the creativity of a some artists and the movie industry. I firmly believe this:

"NOTHING CAN REVIVE NOW
THE GONE GLAMOUR OF SILVER GELATIN PHOTOGRAPHY"

Sooner than later it will cease to breath, as did the carbon process with the toxic dichromates. It will eventually die as those other processes it itself killed.

I wrote my gelatin silver emulsion book for the few, those few that will eventually keep the flame alive, a legacy for the future, a bridge to cross and to find in the other side
"An art that was lost"

-The ruins of a monument that changed in its time the world, science and art.
I, like many others before me, left enough bricks to re-erect its temple, but it will never again have as many followers. Star dust in the wind.

All is subject to the dynamics of change. Other technologies will come to bury the ones that today reign supreme.

I am sorry but I will not use the time I have left or use my energy to enrich the hopeless.

It is sad, but it is too late, as you say:
"to make a difference"
The weeks or months that I will spend elucidating in writing:

" How to Fix Gelatin Silver Chloride
and Bromide Emulsion with kitchen Salt "...

...it, in all honesty; makes no sense to me. Its a bygone art. It will make no difference In My view, its value is only of scientific interest.

Its moment is gone. It is a of little use. it is expensive and a waste time. Nothing will now heal this patient in intensive care.

If I find enough time and energy I will teach or write books of other disciplines that I think are a lot more more useful.

I prefer to use my wood on the fire I have left,
focusing now in the
"LIGHT SENSITIVE COFFEE" process,
this is inexpensive and simplicity itself. The crown Jewel of CAFEGRAFIA.

Of course this is a trade secret and a "Proprierity" process.
It took 11 years of my life to perfect it.

it may be left to an institution of Costa Rica. This country that protects with the same vigor its animals and nature as well as its children and old, this country deserves it.

At this time, It has been shown and filmed by friends only.

I can not publish any particulars of how it is made because if I apply for a patent, the office might penalize any prior publishing of the novelties of the invention before applying.

I know my time is running out, My game is almost over and have to be very careful as to in what direction I kick the ball.

above is attached one of my "OROTIPOS", Some of these works were first seen in the Museum of Art of Costa Rica in 1989.

It is a permanent pigment image made on glass and backed by gold leafs. It can now be done a lot easier and faster with:
"LIGHT SENSITIVE COFFEE"

Also attached is: PHOTO-CERAMIC, imperishable photos that I have been making since 1980 for grave yards.

It can also be made now with LIGHT SENSITIVE COFFEE PROCESS,
in this way:
I will add o the coffee light sensitive emulsion finely powdered glass, a metallic oxide as a pigment and a flux like Borax to reduce the fusing point of the powdered glass.

After exposure under a negative, the paper can be transferred to glaze ceramic tile and developed with water there on, after drying it can be fired in a ceramic kiln.

The coffee and any organic matter will carbonize an disappear in a gas between 400-500 degrees C,

the glass in he image will fuse at 900c, leaving in its body the refractory metallic oxides as pigments, all of the mass will combine at red heat and cement to the glaze of the ceramic tile.

On cooling the image is a hard as glass and it will never be affected by fire, water or light for centuries.

I think it is more satisfying and more useful for me and for others if I write a book about that process step by step.

Said process I also have done in the past in many different ways with other known sensitizer including silver besides my Light Sensitive Coffee.

By the way, digital photography has brilliantly in the past few years put in the market vitrifiable inkjet and laser inks that will do the same thing I mentioned above.

But this NANO-inks have to be ground to too small of a particles more than 100 times the thickness of a human hair so they will not clog the cartridges of computer printers.

Unfortunately This make them very vulnerable to UV light which will fade them under sunlight in 25 to 50 years.

 

[cliveh]

" How to Fix Gelatin Silver Chloride
and Bromide Emulsion with kitchen Salt "...

...it, in all honesty; makes no sense to me. Its a bygone art. It will make no difference In My view, its value is only of scientific interest.

Its moment is gone. It is a of little use. it is expensive and a waste time. Nothing will now heal this patient in intensive care.

In that case you will have no objection to informing us of how you do this?

 

[pentaxuser]

Can anyone put me out of my misery about the prints beíng contact prints only and ín UV light only

pentaxuser

 

[sol bol]

Can anyone put me out of my misery about the prints beíng contact prints only and ín UV light only

pentaxuser

i will try to help you if you explain clearly what you need to know

ANSWERS:

The light sensitive coffee paper is exposed in contact under a negative the same size as the final print.

The spectral radiation of the light sensitive coffee paper is mainly UV Radiation.
It can be handled WITH NO DARKROOM but not under direct daylight otherwise the unexposed parts under the negative will fog.
The paper has been formulated to be handled under indoor light conditions.

The spectral sensitivity can be extended to to other spectral radiations to make it extremely light sensitive. But then a darkroom will be necessary,

and that am strongly opposed to because I believe it is one of the many reasons analog photography fell apart for the general users that do not have vocation for complexity.

SIMPLICITY was the goal of this new composition
so it can be handled by children and persons who object to steep learning curves

 

[koraks]

@sol bol, a couple of things come to mind, reading your lengthy post:

Yes, silver halide photography, or indeed any kind of 'analog' photography, is marginal in terms of its total volume compared with digital. That's OK - the world is a big place and there's 8 billion people on it. This still leaves a considerable population actively and/or passively enjoying analog photography.

Also, if analog photography and printmaking are pretty much dead, there's no reason to believe that this will be different for your new 'cafegrafia' process. It's basically an extension of what you've just argued to be a dead-end street, as it appears to bear considerable conceptual similarity to carbon transfer printing. Still, you invest time in it - and I enjoy reading your adventures and would like to know more of the technical details. So maybe it's not as dead as it looks.

As to carbon transfer: that certainly isn't quite dead, yet, and it appears to be difficult to extinguish. Dichromate has been going out of fashion, yes, but many people still use it as a sensitizer. But with the new century, new technology also emerged, in the form of DAS sensitizer as well as the promising but more technically complicated Chiba system, which relies on ferric ammonium citrate. Then there's the promising world of direct pigment processes which have received a boost by advances in the UV curing inks and resists domains (used for graphics printing, screen printing, PCB manufacturing, etc). Some of these photo-initiator/resin pairs turn out to be well-suited for fine art printing, as evidenced by e.g. the 'zerochrome SbQ' process or Printmaker's Friend. Then there's the exciting advances being made by people using plant-derived proteins and mostly ferric ammonium citrate to make direct pigment prints.

The field that you consider a dead end appears to be a pond that teems with more life forms than ever before, with better accessibility to a larger audience than ever before.

Then there's the argument that @cliveh also offers: if silver halide is as irrelevant as you consider it to be, what harm would there be in releasing what you know to the general public? If it's a dead-end street as you contend, why speak of the possibility of applying for a patent? I'm sure you also realize, based on your earlier apparent experience with applying for a US patent (which I've not been able to locate in the US patent databases btw; perhaps you could link us to it?), that a small market is generally not a viable basis to recoup the considerable cost of applying for, and upholding a patent internationally.

Some of the details are debatable, too. You mention inkjet as being unstable due to pigment particle size. This is a problematic statement in various ways. But if we compare apples to applies - i.e. monochrome inkjet to your monochrome cafegrafia prints, then I don't see how the latter would be inherently more stable. Monochrome pigment inkjet is based on (mostly) finely divided carbon. Your cafegrafia prints are exactly the same. A carbon transfer print made with something like india ink (a popular pigment source)? Precisely the same, again. Yes, there are caveats when it comes to colored pigments. But that point is moot, since your cafegrafia process is monochrome. It can't do color. It doesn't make sense to shoot down inkjet for something it can do, which your process isn't even capable of in the first place.

Having said all that, I remain interested in the technical details of both your silver halide process innovations as well as those in the caffegrafia domain. I consider them valuable and interesting extensions to a larger and still rapidly expanding body of work, as I've explained above.

I will fix the problem in a few minutes

Please keep us updated on this; I'm sure I'm by far not the only one who would like to read the html book you're referred to several times.

As to this:

Can anyone put me out of my misery about the prints beíng contact prints only and ín UV light only

i will try to help you if you explain clearly what you need to know

@pentaxuser is asking two things:
1: whether your cafegrafia process is done by placing a negative in direct contact with a light sensitive emulsion. The implication is that a negative is needed of the same size as the final print.
2: whether the light sensitive part of the process is sensitive to UV light, only, or whether it has a different spectral sensitivity. This of course has implications for the kind of light source used.
I'd like to add that if the answer to (2) is that your process does not rely specifically on UV light, how you ensure that no fogging takes place while handling the supposedly light-sensitive material in regular daylight or at least indoor room light. Is any particular safeguard necessary to prevent the photosensitive material from building image density while not being exposed to the actual negative?

Finally, thank you for posting several illustrations. They look interesting, although the very limited technical quality of the images makes it difficult to see what kind of prints those are. It's also rather unfortunate that many of your photos consist of montages that are heavily edited and augmented with artificial (digital) elements, which severely blurs the boundary between the supposedly real prints and the digital additions you've made to them. It would be most helpful if you could show some unedited, plain photographs of actual prints or artworks instead. Please note that we don't have access to the recordings of your national TV station that may have been made several decades ago.

 

[miha]

I'm just going to say it outright: I don't believe any of this.

 

[Don_ih]

I'm just going to say it outright: I don't believe any of this.

Well, the question would be: why not?

 

[sol bol]

@sol bol, a couple of things come to mind, reading your lengthy post:

Yes, silver halide photography, or indeed any kind of 'analog' photography, is marginal in terms of its total volume compared with digital. That's OK - the world is a big place and there's 8 billion people on it. This still leaves a considerable population actively and/or passively enjoying analog photography.

Also, if analog photography and printmaking are pretty much dead, there's no reason to believe that this will be different for your new 'cafegrafia' process. It's basically an extension of what you've just argued to be a dead-end street, as it appears to bear considerable conceptual similarity to carbon transfer printing. Still, you invest time in it - and I enjoy reading your adventures and would like to know more of the technical details. So maybe it's not as dead as it looks.

As to carbon transfer: that certainly isn't quite dead, yet, and it appears to be difficult to extinguish. Dichromate has been going out of fashion, yes, but many people still use it as a sensitizer. But with the new century, new technology also emerged, in the form of DAS sensitizer as well as the promising but more technically complicated Chiba system, which relies on ferric ammonium citrate. Then there's the promising world of direct pigment processes which have received a boost by advances in the UV curing inks and resists domains (used for graphics printing, screen printing, PCB manufacturing, etc). Some of these photo-initiator/resin pairs turn out to be well-suited for fine art printing, as evidenced by e.g. the 'zerochrome SbQ' process or Printmaker's Friend. Then there's the exciting advances being made by people using plant-derived proteins and mostly ferric ammonium citrate to make direct pigment prints.

The field that you consider a dead end appears to be a pond that teems with more life forms than ever before, with better accessibility to a larger audience than ever before.

Then there's the argument that @cliveh also offers: if silver halide is as irrelevant as you consider it to be, what harm would there be in releasing what you know to the general public? If it's a dead-end street as you contend, why speak of the possibility of applying for a patent? I'm sure you also realize, based on your earlier apparent experience with applying for a US patent (which I've not been able to locate in the US patent databases btw; perhaps you could link us to it?), that a small market is generally not a viable basis to recoup the considerable cost of applying for, and upholding a patent internationally.

Some of the details are debatable, too. You mention inkjet as being unstable due to pigment particle size. This is a problematic statement in various ways. But if we compare apples to applies - i.e. monochrome inkjet to your monochrome cafegrafia prints, then I don't see how the latter would be inherently more stable. Monochrome pigment inkjet is based on (mostly) finely divided carbon. Your cafegrafia prints are exactly the same. A carbon transfer print made with something like india ink (a popular pigment source)? Precisely the same, again. Yes, there are caveats when it comes to colored pigments. But that point is moot, since your cafegrafia process is monochrome. It can't do color. It doesn't make sense to shoot down inkjet for something it can do, which your process isn't even capable of in the first place.

Having said all that, I remain interested in the technical details of both your silver halide process innovations as well as those in the caffegrafia domain. I consider them valuable and interesting extensions to a larger and still rapidly expanding body of work, as I've explained above.

Please keep us updated on this; I'm sure I'm by far not the only one who would like to read the html book you're referred to several times.

As to this:



@pentaxuser is asking two things:
1: whether your cafegrafia process is done by placing a negative in direct contact with a light sensitive emulsion. The implication is that a negative is needed of the same size as the final print.
2: whether the light sensitive part of the process is sensitive to UV light, only, or whether it has a different spectral sensitivity. This of course has implications for the kind of light source used.
I'd like to add that if the answer to (2) is that your process does not rely specifically on UV light, how you ensure that no fogging takes place while handling the supposedly light-sensitive material in regular daylight or at least indoor room light. Is any particular safeguard necessary to prevent the photosensitive material from building image density while not being exposed to the actual negative?

Finally, thank you for posting several illustrations. They look interesting, although the very limited technical quality of the images makes it difficult to see what kind of prints those are. It's also rather unfortunate that many of your photos consist of montages that are heavily edited and augmented with artificial (digital) elements, which severely blurs the boundary between the supposedly real prints and the digital additions you've made to them. It would be most helpful if you could show some unedited, plain photographs of actual prints or artworks instead. Please note that we don't have access to the recordings of your national TV station that may have been made several decades ago.

KORAKS
Before I reply if I do, to your very intelligent arguments and keen observations on matters of the present conversation, maybe the post below will help to clarify some matters, but as is usually the case it may lead to new questions.
Instead of carbon, my ligh sensitive coffee of latest CAFEGRAFIA can be made, instead of coffee, with absolutely permanent metalics oxides as explained below for photoceramics via silver salts, unquestionably surpassing the permanency of all inkjet printers under the accion of light

above a raw photograph not altered by computer technology.

It shows one my absolutely permanent pictures kept under sun and rain. This large format peace will last many centuries in exteriors.

This permanency can not be accomplished in any way with DIGITAL INKS, for the reasons explained before in this thread.

Neither can its stability be equaled by using carbon as a pigment.

stability of a pigment to light is governed by many different conditions and variables.
Too many to be listed here.

two main of these conditions are:
1) particle size
2) vehicle.

A large particle size is more stable to light than a smaller one.
glass as a vehicle imparts more stability to pigments than synthetic resins like acrylics, PVC, etc, or organic vehicles like gum, albumen or gelatin.

color pigments presently used in 3 or 4 color process produced by digital o analog mediums, will eventually fade.

Why?
because of particle size.

Knowing the above facts by years of research,
I did not use carbon in the above picture because in case the picture was under a great fire like the one presently going in California that destroyed hundreds of homes, carbon would not survive because it will disappear in C02 gas above 500c, so will all the inkjet inks.

The glass in the picture above have more chances of survival under great fires, and if the glass melts or breaks;
the pigment composing the picture will survive and probably may be restored by expert archeologists

I made this PERMANENT picture with a mixture of
RED IRON OXIDE and BLACK MANGANESE OXIDE
thus:

First, I did not buy pigments from a reputable commercial provider, because by previous experience I know some of their pigments are not as stable as want them to be.
instead I made the oxides myself and tested its stability,
I made these oxides thus:

RED IRON OXIDE.
I submitted iron nails or iron wire it does notmake any difference, to a fire above 800 degrees celsius in one of my ceramic oven which I made myself.

The red iron oxide was taken out. Another batch of iron was fired above red heat at 900c, taken out and compared the red color to the red produced at 700c, it was a little less dark,

Next I immerse that last iron oxide in a weak solution of the mild alkali borax and dried the powder with out washing and encapsulate it immediately in an air prof container

so it would not reduce its particle size known by turning yellow on absorption of acid carbon dioxide in combination with humidity from the air.

Yellow pigments will bleach under the action of UV radiations over time, and more rapidly so if they are emulsified in an organic natural or synthetic vehicle.

BLACK MANGANESE OXIDE.
I make this oxide by firing Manganese Carbonate or nitrate to 900c to eliminate its Carbon atoms from its molecule and leave the pure black metallic manganese combined with air: Mangese oxide.

MAKING THE PICTURE ABOVE WITH A MIXTURE
OF THESE 2 OXIDES TO GET A SEPIA coffee COLOR.

I had to study a few days my numerous original notes of so many processes I know, to decide which way I would go to make the LARGEST and more permanent picture ever.

I decided to use rapid positive and light sensitive silver bromide gelatin emulsion which I coated directly on 6mm thick glass.
I made an enlargement on the light sensitive emulsion coated on the glass by projecting negative image on it and later developing in a reducing solution.

I never use metol, or hydroquinone as developers, I use a non toxic alkaline coffee solution or a solution of ascorbic acid,( vitamin C) both which I have in my kitchen or medicine cabinet and both neutralized with lime stones that I have in my backyard
or by heating baking powder to make sodium carbonate.

After developing the image on the glass I dried it without dissolving the remaining unused silver (FIXING)

I covered the whole silver image with a mixture of a liquid emulsion made of of the metallic oxides mentioned above, finely powdered glass ceramic glaze of low fusing point and emulsified in gelatin.

After drying I then immersed for a few minutes the glass bearing the image under a bleaching bath made of copper chloride and ordinary kitchen salt.


(THINK: the step above MAYBE ANOTHER METHOD OF FIXING SILVER IMAGES WITHOUT THIOSULPHATE)

Then I dissolved the unused silveras well as the pigmented gelatin in hot water to obtain a positive relief on the glass composed of black metallic silver covered with gelatin,
metallic oxides
and a colorless glaze of glass dust.

After drying I carefully placed the large glass inside one of my ceramic ovens, face up and laying flat leveled on a bed feldspar so the glass would not deformed or stick on softening by heat.

I gradually and slowly applied heat to reach in about 4 hours a temperature of 760c.

The gelatin will completely disappear, also the black metallic silver leaving a pale stain of yellow silver oxide giving a more warm tone to the sepia mixture of metallic pigments.

The glaze of he composition will fuse and cement to the glass carrying with it the oxide pigments.
The result on cooling:

A SEPIA A PICTURE MADE OF GLASS ON FUSED FLAT GLASS .

The remaining YELLOW silver oxide will fade overtime, as I said before because of its small particle size,

but who cares ?
The remaining black and red oxides will remain to defy time and whether for centuries.

This tecnique has too many steps, it is too complex to teach and requires expensive items.
Those conditions are against my present posture.

 

[miha]

Well, the question would be: why not?

The question’s for the OP, who won’t back anything up

 

[miha]

View attachment 388076
above a raw photograph not altered by computer technology.

You must be kidding, right? In this day and age, it’s pretty obvious the photo’s been put together.

 

[titrisol]

I saw your webiste years ago and was very intrigued, unfortunately havent had the time to take the trip to CR

 

[pentaxuser]

Thank you sol bol and koraks for your replies #32 and 33. That's is what I thought was the likely answer which is that the paper is UV sensitive only and this means that the prints can only be the same size as the negatives

Sol, usually UV sensitive paper needs a long exposure under the sun and can be exposed by inspection so a few seconds is not critical which is a major user advantage The problem with relying on UV from the sun is that the further north or south of the equator you are then the amount of UV varies enormously so in winter in Northern Europe, for instance such as the UK, the UV level falls to very small and even unusable levels The alternative of course is internal artificial UV but that involves a lot of extra cost

However it may be that your paper is much more sensitive to UV so can I ask what exposure time your paper takes under Summer sunlight between the hours of say 10:00 and 3:00 pm and those hours in the other 3 seasons and ask if in your opinion or estimation what exposure times might be required in the 4 seasons at latitudes 50 -60 North in those corresponding seasons

Finally can I ask if the brown colour of the all of the prints on display is a result of the emulsion used and if so can the prints be bleached and toned differently if required assuming that you have experimented with toners?

pentaxuser

 

[koraks]

above a raw photograph not altered by computer technology.

I'm afraid I'm going to agree quite firmly with @miha above. That photograph is anything but raw, and it's very heavily altered digitally. And, to be brutally honest, quite poorly so.

two main of these conditions are:
1) particle size
2) vehicle.

Yes, but this is not an exclusive list, and I think we both know this. Reducing the matter of permanence to just these two factors would oversimplify matters. However, I do agree with you that some metallic pigments have excellent stability in particular when embedded in a glass medium. Not all, though, and the stability furthermore depends on the quality of the glass layer. Pigments like iron oxide and manganese oxide are indeed very stable, but this is not because of their particle size (again, I'm sure you're aware of this). They are electrochemically stable - even if finely divided.

There's nothing inherently unstable about commercially produced pigments, btw. It depends on the type of pigment you buy, of course.
One drawback of some metallic pigments, especially iron oxide, is the difficulty of making a decent dispersion with them. I think this is one of the main reason it's not used in inkjet inks (laser printer/copier toner is of course based on black iron oxide).

Then I dissolved the unused silveras well as the pigmented gelatin in hot water to obtain a positive relief on the glass composed of black metallic silver covered with gelatin,
metallic oxides
and a colorless glaze of glass dust.

Ah, I see; so your approach exploits the tanning action of certain developers. And if I understand you correctly, you basically apply a non-light sensitive emulsion on top of the silver image, and then wash the undeveloped part of the silver gelatin emulsion away from underneath this pigmented layer. That's smart - but it does bring the question of print quality and reproduction of continuous tones. How did you tackle this? Because this approach would be challenging to use to make a decent, continuous tonal scale. Delicate highlights would easily wash off.

a pale stain of yellow silver oxide

I'm quite sure silver oxide is black. At least it comes out black whenever I've made it (well, brownish black, but mostly black, really). Then again, I've never made it at very high temperatures and very small particle size could very well turn out to be more colorful, as happens with metallic silver.

(THINK: the step above MAYBE ANOTHER METHOD OF FIXING SILVER IMAGES WITHOUT THIOSULPHATE)

Yes, quite so. Only warm water would be used on a gelatin emulsion that does not contain any other hardener besides a reducing developer that also tans the emulsion. Something like pyrocatechol, pyrogallol etc.

This tecnique has too many steps, it is too complex to teach and requires expensive items.

The main bottleneck is the steps that require intense heat, esp. for the vitrification step. But if one would accept slightly reduced archival qualities, the process should also work without such a step. Provided it does work as you describe. Lacking convincing photographical evidence, I think it's up to each of us to decide to what degree we want to put faith in your claims.

That's is what I thought was the likely answer which is that the paper is UV sensitive only and this means that the prints can only be the same size as the negatives

Sorry, I don't conclude this from @sol bol's post, but perhaps you are concluding it from other/additional information that I have overlooked. In fact, he mentions specifically this:

I made an enlargement on the light sensitive emulsion coated on the glass by projecting negative image on it and later developing in a reducing solution.

(emphasis mine).
However, the caveat is that @sol bol has been talking about several different (but somewhat related) photographic processes. His story above in #36 concerns permanent inorganic pigment-based prints that are made with use of an intermediate silver-gelatin image. I think you @pentaxuser were inquiring after the process that creates an image made up of coffee-derived finely divided carbon through a process that AFAIK has not yet been described by @sol bol in this thread.

 

[cliveh]

I'm still waiting to learn how you fix (permanently and in 10 minutes) silver chloride with salt solution.

 

[pentaxuser]

Sorry, I don't conclude this from @sol bol's post, but perhaps you are concluding it from other/additional information that I have overlooked. In fact, he mentions specifically this:

.

That's a very comprehensive set of replies, koraks and, a confession now: I confess not to have understood some things that sol has said including what makes it possible to both contact print relying on UV and how or whether the same emulsion can be used underneath an enlarger

Neither have I understood how it is possible to float the emulsion off the paper with what I understand to be water leaving a liquid that is now effectively coffee that you can drink without harm and yet the print on his emulsion is not affected adversely by water or so it seems from his reply If I have understood what was said on the information he provided. This emulsion with the picture intact is then easily and permanently attached to say a cup even if that cup is washed in hot soapy water every day or may be I have not understood at all what was said and it is permanent on a cup provided that cup is never used for drinking a liquid be that coffee, tea or quash but sits on a shelf

Clearly if such a thing is possible then that's a real breakthrough as it means that with what he has invented it is possible to use a medium format negative of some picture thing that I'd like to place on a my favourite mug for drinking tea and be assured that I can still use it and wash it and the picture will last if not forever then a very long time

If so, sol has discovered a niche in the market that, as I understand things, can only be done commercially and not using any analogue method so maybe in that sense is a unique product

As I say, I haven't the chemistry knowledge to work out what is possible or not, nor do I understand some of the debate between you and him. Not because either of you seek to complicate matters but in simple terms and using an analogy, it is as if I were a begínner in physics and trying to understand a debate between Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr

I appreciate I am the man in the street or Joe Public who has been told of things he has never heard of before and which he prevíously thought not to be possible but wishes to have his curiosity satisfied and is hoping for answers that cover his questions as símply as possible as a member of Joe Public

Thanks

pentaxuser

 

[koraks]

@pentaxuser I think you're mixing up some of the different processes that @sol bol has told us about. You're right that he hasn't explained in detail most (any) of them sufficiently for us to really understand what's going on. But I think @sol bol has also showed to be willing to respond to questions, within the limits imposed by inherent language barriers and the challenges involved in bridging probably quite different perspectives among all of us. So perhaps as the conversations develops, we may learn one or two more things.

 

[leaflitter]

@sol bol thank you for sharing your insights here.

I have tried to view your silver halide emulsion document as i am curious but the link appears to be gone again - would you be able to restore the link?

I like the aesthetic of your website by the way.

 

[largo]

A snapshot of Saul's homepage from Jan. 16th 2025 : https://web.archive.org/web/20250116140858/https://cafedesaul.com/index-english.htm

The chapter about developing images with coffee : https://web.archive.org/web/2025011...-prints-and-silver-photographic-emulsions.htm

 

[pentaxuser]

Thanks largo the second link was especially useful - even I had some of my Joe Public" questions answered when reading it

It would appear from what I read , that a good number of members here could replicate what Sol's process appears to be if they so wished

An actual video might be even better

pentaxuser

 

[Xylo]

I went looking on Google Patents and couldn't find anything about making coffee photo sensitive...
I've done Caffenol before, so that's pretty much just old stuff to me.

 

[cliveh]

I went looking on Google Patents and couldn't find anything about making coffee photo sensitive...
I've done Caffenol before, so that's pretty much just old stuff to me.

Curiouser and curiouser said Alice.

 

[Xylo]

Curiouser and curiouser said Alice.

Definitely as I personally don't get why keeping such an important discovery a trade secret would help anyone either financially or technically.
I'm always weary of magic bullet solutions.
I'm no chemist but I know enough to know that there isn't much in terms of photosensitive chemicals in coffee. Maybe it would be possible to turn the stain into an anthotype, but this is far from 32 ISO. At such a high claimed sensitivity, there would be a lot of people interested as it could prove to be a good replacement for expensive and rare silver.