Overall I can’t imagine a better introduction to alternative printing techniques—Paul’s process and equipment really takes the guesswork out of making beautiful prints, and the skills and information he gives can be applied to other darkroom setups (though if I can, I will try to replicate his studio because it’s completely dialed and a pleasure to work in).
I just completed a 4 day platinum palladium printing workshop and it was spectacular! I have very little experience in the darkroom, but came out with a dozen or so prints that I’m very happy with, and more importantly, the confidence and knowledge to continue improving my craft in this new (to me) media.
Paul balances clear, thorough instruction with ample time to actually work on your own printing once he’s gotten the group up to speed on the negative creation and equipment linearization—he even accommodated me bringing in my own paper and doing my own linearization with a paper stock that hadn’t been tried before.
I think the price of the workshop was more than reasonable, especially when you factor in how generous Paul was with supplies—he didn’t put any limits on how much we used so long as we were taking our time not to waste paper, film, or solution.
I was the least experienced in darkroom printing techniques in our group, yet I had no problems understanding Paul’s method or adopting the techniques involved—just make sure you have raw files to work with! One of the other people in our group struggled with files that weren’t of a high enough quality. This process will expose things about your photos that your monitors don’t even catch, it’s that detailed.