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http://www.mteww.com/mtaaRR/news/twhid/darkrooms_dying.html

Darkrooms going the way of egg tempera?

Before oil painting was invented the state-of-the-art of painting was
egg tempera. Egg tempera uses egg yolk as a binder and vehicle for the
pigment and is a very unforgiving medium to paint with. You don't find
many artists working with this medium because you can get (more or
less) the same effect using oil paint which is cheaper, easier and
faster. Once oil painting was invented most painters started using the
superior medium (it was a gradual process of course, things moved very
slowly in 15th century europe).

Strange thing is, you can still find people using egg tempera (there is
even a Society of Tempera Painters) though it's an archaic,
technically-dead medium practiced by the sort of people you'd find
playing dress-up at a renaissance fair.

With the help of digital photography darkroom photo printing seems to
be heading the way of egg tempera (according to the NYTimes.com).

<quote>
[…] Mr. Megargee hopes that the darkroom will endure. "Platinum
printing is still around, despite the convenience of silver printing,"
he said. "What we do in the lab here, in 15 years, may be a very
specialized area, like platinum printing. But it will still be viable.
I don't see the craft not being here."
</quote>

Is darkroom printing fast becoming a dead technique practiced by a few
die-hard revivalists?

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