NOTES AND QUERIES ABOUT PRINTING. BY "ADJUTOR." petually at war, are dangerous and troublesome allies, and so the less their aid is required the better. Keeping this in view, a serious difficulty meets us at the first step, namely, the scarcity of properly albumenised paper. Rarely, indeed, is a sample to be met with which is not strongly acid to test paper. It ought to be prepared with the white of fresh eggs only, and free from acid. No sane man can expect to turn out photographs which can be relied on, if he uses paper spread with the putrid masses of corruption, saturated with gases and acids innumerable, which it is far from uncommon to see in albumenising establishments. And here I must expostulate with even the more honest of the "poor albumenisers," who mix acetic acid with their albumen to make it limpid. This pernicious practice would seem to be universal, even where it is loudly repudiated. Let it be abandoned, and fewer complaints against bad paper will be heard of. SIR,—In a paper which appeared in THE ILLUSTRATED PHOTOGRAPHER a month or two ago, that indefatigable observer and writer, Mr. Sutton, excited afresh the flagging interest of photographers in the important inquiry as to the occult causes of the fading of photographs; and I am glad to see by a contemporary that our no less industrious cousin over the water, Mr. Lea, is following up the subject. It is earnestly to be hoped that the researches of experimental photographers will not be relaxed until this lurking dragon is found and destroyed. Assuredly a conqueror's reward awaits the slayer; for who would withhold his meed of praise and gratitude from him who should confer " length of days" upon the lovely offspring of the camera, which hitherto has been brought into existence only to be devoured by this insatiable sulphurous monster? The task Next comes the nitrate bath. It should contain nothing may be difficult, but is daily getting easier, and might soon be accomplished were a more generous and apprecia- suit the particular paper and negatives employed. Pure but pure nitrate of silver, and of such strength as may best tive spirit to prevail amongst "the brethren." Observed facts must be the foundation of this as of all other sciences, occasionally one meets with a bad sample. Not long ago! nitrate is, luckily, not difficult to get now-a-days, although and therefore every facility ought to be given to secure had a hundred ounces from one of the most respectable their publication. I have no doubt that many would houses in the trade, with which I could not get a decent gladly communicate important exceptional phenomena which may have presented itself in the course of practice, picture, do what I might, and it resisted all the doctoring which I could think of. On trying it in a negative bath and assist in its elucidation, were it not for the fear of being along with one made at the same time with silver from a treated as "idea-thieves," or laughed at as humbugs. This different maker, I found that while the latter was all right, ought not to be. Every scrap should be "thankfully received and gratefully acknowledged." The history of the the former was "slow," and the negatives harsh. A dose of nitric acid, followed by careful neutralising, did no economic arts abounds with examples of accidental discoveries made and turned to practical use by those who good. So the whole had to be converted into metallic go back had no conception either of the principles involved, or of silver and redissolved, when all went right. To the vast expansion of which they were capable. So also to the silvering bath. If the paper is neutral, the bath should be some of the "wrinkles" of photographers may be of this rendered very slightly alkaline class, which a wise policy in professional writers and jour-nitric acid set free during the exposure in printing. If ammonia. The purpose of this is to neutralise the nalists might bring within the pale of scientific research. age bath. with But to return to the subject of printing, from which I this is omitted, the pictures will go wrong in the toning have digressed. Soon after I began the use of alkaline acid or with any of those complicated acids generated in Should the paper be impregnated either with acetic toning (and prior to the publication by Hardwich of his formula), I tried the effect of an alkaline silvering bath, will be required to neutralise it. But in this case it will decomposed albumen, a proportionate quantity of ammonia and was overjoyed with the result. It wrought like a charm, and I thought I had found the elixir of photograph composition. Every sheet silvered, leaves in the bath some be impossible to keep the bath anything like uniform in life. How soon the delusion was dispelled, and I in a "sea of troubles," looking back wistfully to the easy-going old of its acidity and corruption, till by-and-by it becomes a hypo days, I need not say. By the way, I hope that chemical cesspool, fatal to photographic life. Has anybody American Lot's wife, Dr. Towler, has been turned into a tried any mode of silvering the paper without floating, so pillar of salt. He deserves to be. The most frequent and as to keep the bath always the same? I attempted spreadannoying of these troubles were the pranks of the mealying it with a glass rod, but found that plan impracticable. imp; but I observed that as the nitrate bath advanced in his machinations became powerless, and my pictures then presented that charming tint-transparent and delicate described by Mr. Sutton. They were admired by everybody, and I was proud of them; but a short experience revealed the unpleasant truth that their constitution was as delicate as their beauty. From that time to this I have laboured in vain either to understand the disease or to cure it; every prescription-published and unpublished-of which I have heard or could think having failed. In the course of my experiments, however, I have learned some facts which may be worth noting, if only to corroborate Mr. Sutton's observations, and to show some of the conditions under which the phenomenon in question operates, and, peradventure, to excite further inquiry. There are one or two other things connected with printing about which a few words may not be out of place; not with the view of advancing anything new or original, but simply as the convictions at which I have arrived, after an experience of Now comes the special point to which I am anxious to direct attention. it is when the bath is thus saturated with organic matter that those beautiful but treacherous tints to which I have before alluded are got, and which I When I first have never been able to obtain otherwise. observed this, I purposely added to my new baths a por tion of nitrate of silver in which albumen had been digested; and when Palmer published his gelatine formula, recognised the principle as the same, and on trial found it to be so, although perhaps a shade better. My discovery, however, of the liability of these prints to fade compelled me to avoid this state of things as far as possible. At first I attributed the fading to careless washing, but having some photographs to print for the great Exhibition of 1862, I prepared them personally with the greatest care, squeezing and sponging out every particle of hypo; but after all they faded badly, and I was ashamed of them. Now, chemists, I join Mr. Sutton in asking— What is this organic compound which exists more or less in every albumenised print, and how can it be got rid of? Excess of ammonia should be carefully avoided, as it prevents the prints from toning, and if present in large quantity, eats off the albumen from the surface. Excessive fuming has the same effect. I cannot agree with those who recommend weak baths I have tried a host of them, propped up with soda, &c. and found them all worthless. The only feasible plea for them is a saving of silver, but ordinary care in collecting the wastes makes the difference very small indeed. With all the ordinary neutral or alkaline toning baths I have been about equally successful. If I have a preference, it is for the carbonate of soda bath, prepared at least twelve hours before it is used, and but slightly alkaline. Whatever bath is employed, it should get ample time to ripen; no newly mixed bath will tone well, and I presume the same cause prevents the proper toning of prints in which acid is left unneutralised. Were this well understood and acted upon, nine-tenths of the failures usually charged to the toning would disappear. A slight trace of free nitrate, left in the paper when washing it up for toning, often accelerates the action of the bath, and gives clearer prints than when the silver is all washed out. Does any harm result from this apart from the precipitation of a little of the gold, and provided the pictures are thoroughly washed after toning and before fixing? I have never detected The hypo bath should be made of such strength as to fix the pictures in ten or fifteen minutes, and should have a little chalk or ammonia in it, to prevent any chance of its getting acid. any. Another query and I am done. Why is it that the prints sometimes turn red when first put into the hypo, and gradually blacken again? Is that not sulphur toning of some sort going on? The pictures of the peculiar tone before adverted to all present this peculiarity. ONCE A MONTH. BY YOUR GOSSIPING PHOTOGRAPHER. ONSCIOUS of doing no wrong when I saw an unmounted photo-relief print, on which a surface of gelatine, varying greatly in its degrees of thickness, appeared by its contractile nature to have tightly rolled up the paper supporting it, I said simply that it looked suspicious, and did not at all expect either that I was pooh-poohing a good process to death, or damning it with the eloquence of a head-shake; nor did I expect to receive a rebuke of the " you're a liar" kind, so common in low neighbourhoods. However, considering the pain felt when a "favourite cornwhich is that we take most care of, I suppose is unintentionally trodden upon by some careless fellow, a little unreasoning anger on the part of the sufferer is excusable. I quarrel not therefore with Mr. Woodbury. 99 Mr. Dawson may regard all opinions opposed to his own as of course and necessarily foolish, and like the dislike of Dr. Fell in the ancient epigram, devoid of proper foundation; and hence, perhaps, without due investigation he occasionally jumps to conclusions somewhat prematurely, otherwise I think he would have found that my reply to Mr. Woodbury did give a reason why, and was therefore not evasive. The reason of my suspicion was, of course, the curling up of the print under the circumstances described, and I still think my suspicion was justifiable. but once_܂ I have had some practice with gelatine used as a substitute for albumen, and have had painful experience of its effects; when in combination with the latter, it formed the surface of certain "cheap and nasty,' strongly recommended, photographic papers. I also know something of the effect of alum and gelatine in the carrying out of sundry experiments with another photorelief process, intended to produce relief blocks for printing with type; hence, perhaps, the pardonable distrust with which I regard this complex material. Mr. Dawson says a weak solution of tannin would probably, if it left the lights pure, "get rid of all cavil about permanency" in photo-relief printing by enclosing the picture "in a piece of well-tanned leather." Mr. Dawson here makes an excellent although, as he may know, by no means a novel suggestion. In the long magniloquent report of the French Commission appointed for awarding the Duke de Luynes's prize (1859), a process of varnishing, used by M. Blanquart Evrard, of Lisle, was described as consisting of repeated applications of gelatine and tannin so as to form a compound which M. Blanquart called leather-varnish. The commission thought the advantages of this method were incontestable, although, being of a mechanical nature, its author was not competent as a competitor for the prize. When a capital translation of this report appeared in an English photographic journal, Mr. Wentworth L. Scott, of Misson, near Bawtry, wrote a letter, which was duly published, and in which he stated that he had prepared prints by this insoluble leather process for two years and a half previous to the publication in England of the said report, that he found his photographs "much improved in appearance" thereby, and that "their durability was indubitable." If Mr. Scott is still in this "vale of tears" and smiles, and is not so disgusted with our long neglect of his truly excellent preservative process in favour of collodion, unstable varnishes, &c., as to have thrown photographic literature where Macbeth desired his doctor to throw physic, he may perhaps be induced to favour us with some account of the present condition of prints thus preserved between ten and eleven years ago. The preservation of silver prints being a subject to which considerable attention has been recently given, I think the republication of Mr. Scott's process alluded to above may not be thought undesirable. I give the modus operandi in the words of Mr. Scott : "To one ounce of Nelson's gelatine add a pint and a half of cold distilled water, and allow them to digest for a few hours; then boil in an enamelled saucepan, and clarify with white of egg in the usual way. Strain through a cloth, and then filter through animal charcoal in order that the liquid may be perfectly decolorised. I need scarcely mention that this solution must be kept at from 90° to 120° Fahrenheit to prevent gelatinisation on the surface of the print. A number of finished and dry photographs may be immersed in this for five or six minutes, air-bubbles being carefully avoided as usual. At the end of that time they may be taken out and pinned up to dry, if possible, in the sun, or before the fire. They should next be soaked from ten to fifteen minutes in a cold aqueous solution of pure tannic acid, which should be dissolved in the proportion of 200 grains of the acid to each pint of water. This, before using, must be decolorised. The prints must be impregnated with the two solutions alternately several times, carefully drying them after each immersion, according to the quality of the paper, and the surface it is thought desirable to obtain. Commence and finish with the gelatine solution; rinse carefully in tepid soft water, and dry for the last time. "As the above solutions become coloured by use, they should be again passed through animal charcoal, and their strength recruited by the addition of fresh material." Nobody seems to read old volumes of the photographic journals. I wonder, if I had given the above process as a wonderful, new, and vastly important discovery, with a fine new name, whether the London Photographic Society would give me the President's gold medal or not. If a majority on the council were of a snug little party which I originated and headed, and, as my peculiars," they were also vainly anxious for some more legitimate mode of distinguishing and gratifying me as their leader, they probably would. What do you think? 66 66 Photographic blocks to print with type" are very desirable things, Mr. Seymour; but have you taken into consideration certain very serious difficulties which, apart This process is best suited for plain or salted-paper prints. You will see why its use with albumen would be objectionable.-G.P. altogether from the merit of a mechanical process of engraving, must seriously retard its commercial progress. Artists who draw on wood do not, as a rule, study the printing quality of every separate line they put on the block. They leave this necessary task to the engraver. Provided they give the lines sufficiently open for ordinary printing, or sufficiently clear for more careful printing what the engraver calls "book-work "-this is enough; the rest is very carefully done by the skilled mechanic with his graver. What with Indian ink, flake white, and repeated alterations and corrections, I have seen wood drawings by our very best artists an almost unintelligible muddle. Now the question is, would the men who make these drawings condescend to patiently study every line of their work, with a view to its being faithfully reproduced in metal fit and ready at once for the printer? Don't you, also, politely call me a liar, Mr. Courtenay, if I say that I suspect they will not. Can Mr. Pouncy inform us Londoners where specimens of his colour-printing process in oil pigments can be seen? Halation again received attention last month. Mr. Dawson, in a characteristic reply to Mr. Kennedy, stated that certain conditions of the film and the light are essential to the production of the defect in question. Major Russell says nothing of these conditions, but merely states that with a film prepared by any process long exposed to any subject presenting great contrast of light and shade, the necessity for absorbing light transmitted through the film will be surely demonstrated. Mr. Dawson's reply to Mr. Kennedy was not conceived in a spirit sufficiently tolerant of contradiction, or the controversy might probably have been continued, and some good have cropped up in the way of practical facts or suggestions. In argument one should not urge on one's own reasons, as Swift says, without the least regard to the answers or objections of one's opposite. Truth can never be confirmed too much, awarding the medals of last year have published their report, and the awards are made to Mr. John Talbot and M. l'Abbe Laborde. Drs. Lenker Vogel and Fritzsche are the gentlemen entrusted by the Prussian Government with the management of the photographic department of the Solar Eclipse Expedition. One of this month's magazines, I think it is Temple Bar, introduces sundry matters photographic into its leading story, which therefore contains much that will be very novel to photographers-for instance, the staining of an unfortunate's fingers with chloride of silver. The British Journal of last week calls attention to a mode of recovering iodine and bromine from useless collodions, old iodising solutions, &c. The process is thus described :-"First prepare a solution of nitrate of potash in water. To the iodine liquor a few drops are added, and then some dilute sulphuric acid, or oil of vitriol, until the iodine is thrown down. If bromine be present, it is also obtained by this treatment. Having separated the two bodies from the liquid, we now pour into the bottle some bisulphide of carbon, and shake the liquid vigorously. The bisulphide dissolves all the iodine and bromine, and sinks with them as a heavy, violet-coloured layer to the bottom of the bottle, leaving the liquid quite clear and decoloured. A few drops more of the nitrate solution and a little acid are again added, in order to be sure that we have decomposed all the iodides and bromides. If further colour be produced on this treatment, we again shake up, and the bisulphide again dissolves out the iodine and bromine. Having now obtained a strong solution of iodine and bromine in bisulphide of carbon, we pour off the waste liquid and replace it by a little plain water, and shake the bisulphide of carbon solution in order to free it from acid, &c. ; then pour off this waste water and agitate the bisulphide with common solution of caustic potash of the shops, added cautiously, with good shaking after each ad My French polish friend again turned up in Mr.dition, until all colour is removed from the bisulphide. In Seymour's "Jottings" last month. What a strange bewildering jumble of inconsistencies and contradictions that unfortunate man ties himself up in, to be sure! A few weeks ago he was denouncing "the doctrine of the matter of-fact school" in art as " utterly wrong, a pestilent error, without even a figment of truth to support it," &c., &c., and last week he wrote-" Photographers must never rely on the excuse for departing from nature, 'Painters did it thus.' They must not defy, but court criticism-leaving themselves at liberty to reject it if it is obviously wrong-and they must rely on nature for success. Photo graphers even of daring genius' cannot afford to depart from nature, as these old painters did, partly because nature is a sure guide, and partly because it has not yet been settled what 'daring genius-as far as it applies to photography-really is." "Oh! what a tangled web we weave," Mr. Robinson. "When once we practice to deceive," Mr. Robinson. By writing from the books we've got, Mr. Robinson. On subjects we understand not, Mr. Robinson. I have seen some of Mr. W. H. Smith's examples of collodio-chloride printing on paper. They deserve all Mr. Wall said in their favour (see page 291). In preparing this paper, it is first coated with a suitable size, in which China clay, or some other white pigment, is dissolved, after this with a solution of India-rubber, for which I think something more reliable might be advantageously substituted, and then with the collodio-chloride. The French Photographic Society's Commission for * Like some MSS. with which poor printers are tortured in this hot weather. -PRINTER'S DEVIL. this way we succeed in dissolving out all the bromine and iodine from the bisulphide, and leave the latter ready for a new operation. Thus an ounce or two of the bisulphide, which costs but a penny or twopence, may be used over and over again. The potash solution is poured off and allowed to evaporate at a gentle heat in a saucer or dish until a dry mass is obtained. The residue is then placed in an iron spoon, and may be fused easily over a spirit lamp, with the addition of a very little charcoal in powder. iodide of potassium." We wonder what would be the origiThe residue, after fusion, is a mixture of bromide and Would it not be very much cheaper to buy it at a chemist's? nal cost of iodine and bromine manufactured in this way. The Morning Star says, "Nadar carried off a victory, which has been considered amongst savants as an impossi bility. He started in the "Captive" balloon, and at 300 metres above the earth's surface was enabled so skilfully to arrange his apparatus that in two hours he alighted on this nether earth with a series of proofs representing the planesphere of Paris, with a minute correctness never hitherto obtained from a balloon, thus proving the strategetic services which, during a siege, might be obtained by photographs taken from cloudland. The studio of Mr. W. Curry, of Bath-street, Bolton, was burnt, and other portions of his premises very severely The damage was damaged by fire on the 22nd ult. estimated at £400. Two-thirds of this loss is covered by the insurance. Frederick von Voightlander has placed a sum equivalent to about £450 English in the hands of the Photographic Society of Vienna, the interest of which is to be used for awarding to the members of that society annual prizes, to consist of medals or grants of money for improvements in photography. This is a good idea liberally carried out, and an example which many who have made large fortunes out of the art might, and probably would, worthily follow if we had a society honest, honourable, and respectable enough to be trusted. Alas! I am sorry to see that Messrs. Henry Graves and Co. have publicly admitted that they employ paid spies to discover photographic pirates, and urge in excuse that the law is so ineffective, and the pirates up to so many dodges, that they have no other alternative. In Sir Walter Scott's novel of "Redgauntlet," one of the characters says, "In business, as in war, spies and informers are necessary evils, which all good men detest; but which all prudent men must use, unless they mean to fight and act blindfold. But nothing can justify the use of falsehood and treachery in our own persons.' This, I suppose, may stand for the apology of Messrs. Graves and Co., but I think with young Darsie that it is not honourable to avail ourselves of knowledge dishonourably obtained, and that we are as much responsible for dirty actions when we induce others to perform them, as if we had performed them ourselves. There is certainly a distinction here, but I do not see a difference. The peripatetic photographer of a contemporary having questioned the accuracy of certain extraordinary theories advanced by Mr. Warner, that gentleman replies:-" Mr. Warner begs to refer to a careful observation of material light, and heat proceeding therefrom. Should the anonymous correspondent experience difficulty in understanding such phenomena, a sincere and repeated asking of the Great Spiritual Light will enable him to arrive at the same conclusions as Mr. Warner." Suppose the P.P. thinks the process would tend to his, rather than to Mr. W.'s conclusions. The North London Society adopted the plan of advertising for their presentation print this year. The process must have been rather expensive, and turned out, I am told, pre-eminently unsatisfactory. The committee had to wade through some hundreds of specimen photographs, the great mass of which were of the poorest degree of merit-if indeed they had any merit. The prints chosen are, a cloud view by Nelson Cherrill, and The Cavalier by Lake Price. The old plan of selection appears to be both the cheaper and the less troublesome. THE PHOTOTYPE PROCESS. THE blocks produced by this process reached us just too late for this week's issue. We shall therefore give in our next engravings illustrative of different applications of the process, a landscape and figure subject, and space permitting, a reproduction, and an enlargement. With the blocks just received from Mr. Fruwirth we are very pleased. W. Zay, writing to an American contemporary on the subject of halo-printing, gives the following as his process:"I select a thin piece of glass the size of the negative printed from; next, I make a block, either oval or whatever shape I wish it, bevel it on one side, and then glue it on the glass plate, beveled side down. After I have made my vignette in the ordinary way, I take off the vignette-board and negative, and in their place lay on my glass with the block; this, of course, reverses the order of things, covering up the print where, before, it had been exposed, and exposing where it had been covered. The block, of course, must be on the centre of your glass, in order to cover up the image, and should extend over the edges enough to leave a white circle between the figure and outside dark edge. Print to suit the taste, either dark or light. You will notice that this requires no extra printing frame, as the same can be used on which the print was made, the springs holding down the glass the same as they did the negative." BACKGROUNDS. DR. H. VOGEL, writing to the Philadelphia Photographer, says :— 'My friend, Grasshoff, who is a very skilful background painter, tells me the best colours for backgrounds are Cassel's All other brown, mixed with more or less washed chalk. colours are superfluous. Persons buying a background will often find that some parts take too well, i.e., become too light, others too dark. It is only necessary to rub over the places which become too light, a little powdered gold ochre or umber, and to paint the dark spots with some precipitated chalk. Many faulty backgrounds have been doctored in this manner. While speaking of backgrounds, I have to mention a very simple arrangement, used in order to produce the splendid light effects shown in Salomon's pictures. The backgrounds in these pictures appear light on the side of the figure, and dark on the light shady side; and our friend Simpson has written to you already, that Salomon produces this effect by means of an inclined background; but this is not absolutely necessary. I have produced the same effect in a more simple manner, by opening a curtain in the darkened glass side, a few feet in front of the background, so as to produce the opening 0, 0. The annexed cut will make this plain. H is the background, P the person, A the camera; it is evident that, with this arrangement, the different points of the background must appear very differently illuminated. I have explained that the amount of light which a point receives depends on the size of the angle formed by lines drawn from the point to the opening 0, 0. It follows that the socalled angle of light is smaller for the point b than for a, and that consequently the background will appear lightest to the right of the person, i.e., the shady side, and darkest to the left, i.e., the light side." S Mr. Courtenay has not been able to get his blocks ready in time for the present issue of this periodical, I hope to have the pleasure of giving my readers the promised specimen of his phototype engraving process in my next. The above jottings, six in number, are from the following sources:-Fig. 1, from a pen-and-ink sketch by G. A. Figs. 2 and 5, from photographs by Mr. Wyles. Figs. 4 and 6, from photographs by Mr. Robert Gillo; and Fig. 3, from a photograph by Mr. A. H. Wall. The Mr. Gillo's Fig. 6 is specially suggestive. figures are not merely grouped for portraiture, they are doing something interesting. The young lady who has crossed the stile takes charge of the basket of wild flowers they are supposed to have gathered in a country ramble, while her companion prepares to cross it, and the action is both appropriate and natural. The parasol is well placed to complete the composition, and the stile is not a formal affair with ugly parallel bars nicely planed and squared, each the exact fellow of the other, but is itself picturesque. I hope soon to give my readers some pencil jottings of a new kind, suggestive of designs for backgrounds, and when I do so I shall not fail to make sketches from some of Mr. Gillo's pictorial backgrounds, they are so excellently adapted to their purpose. That behind these figures of girls crossing the stile, for instance, just hits that happy medium between necessary cons and naturalness, and makes the whole effect so good that I hesitated whether I should give the mere posing jotting from it, or make a more careful drawing of it and devote a separate article to it as a photographic picture. I should be glad in these background jottings to give the palm "where merit points 'tis due," by naming the artist by whom each specimen chanced to be painted. To know who paints, as a matter of business, a good and really artistic background, is a piece of information which many of my reader friends would consider valuable. The eye knows not how to see until it is taught; it will look upon objects without seeing them-senseless and vague. It cannot convey any intelligence to the brain, because it is in itself incapable of so doing: like the tongue, it has a language to learn, which, when it has learned it, can easily and readily express itself. It must be taught what to appreciate and how to appreciate what is beautiful, and wherein the beauty consists, and how it is developed. It must be a practised member, and be enabled to judge of size, of light, and depth, and space. It has also to regard position, variation, and inclination, as well as relative connection. In addition to these, it will be impressed with light and shadow, and will be materially affected by colour in all its infinitude of tone and tint. Through all these stages (too briefly expressed) it will have to pass before it can be pronounced to be "an educated eye;" and if so, surely it is not a matter to be lightly esteemed, as to how and in what manner the teaching of it should be conveyed.Aaron Penley. |