_Mounting of Photographs, and Difficulties in the Wax-paper Process._--May
I request a little additional information from your correspondent SELEUCUS,
Vol. ix., p. 310., respecting the mounting of photographs? Does he mean
merely the painting the edges, or the smearing of the photograph all over
its back with the Indian-rubber glue, prior to sticking the proof on the
cardboard? If the former, which I apprehend he does, SELEUCUS will
necessarily have the unsightly appearance of the picture's buckling up in
the middle on the board being bent forward and backward in different
directions? May I take the liberty of asking him in what respect the plan
proposed is superior to that of painting over the edges with mucilage of
gum arabic, containing a little brown sugar to prevent its cracking,
allowing it to dry, and prior to the placing it on the card, slightly
moistening it; a plan superior to that of putting it on the board at first,
as all risk of a portion of the gum oozing out at the edges is thereby
avoided.
I have long been in the habit of mounting prints and photographs in a way
which prevents their buckling, keeps the paper underneath quite smooth, and
in other respects is so perfect, that it positively defies the
distinguishing of the picture from the paper on which it is mounted. I am
not certain that my plan is applicable to the mounting on card-board, as it
cannot be wetted and stretched, thinking it useless to make use of such a
costly material when a tolerably thick drawing-paper will more than serve
the same purpose at a very considerably less expense, seeing that the
photograph thus mounted bears a much closer resemblance {382} to that of a
good and costly print. A good plain or tinted sheet of drawing-paper, 30
inches by 22, may be obtained at the artists' colour shops for sixpence,
sufficiently large for two drawings, 9 inches by 11, allowing a sufficient
margin.
After various trials, the plan I have found decidedly the best is the
following:--Soak the drawing-paper in a vessel of water for ten minutes, or
until it appears by its flaccidity to have become perfectly saturated; put
it at once into an artist's stretching frame, brush over the back of the
photograph with rather thin and perfectly smooth paste, allow it a few
minutes to imbibe a portion of the moisture of the paste, and then lay it
smoothly down on the damp paper now on the stretching frame, of course
carefully pressing out all air bubbles as you gradually, beginning at one
side, smooth down the pasted picture. It should remain in a dry place (not
placed before a fire) until the whole has become quite dry, about ten or
twelve hours. It may then be taken out of the frame, cut to the desired
shape, and a single or double line nicely drawn around the picture, at a
distance suitable to each individual's taste, by the help of sepia-coloured
ink and a crowquill pen, both of which may also be bought at the artists'
colour shop. Should it be required to be still more nicely mounted, and to
appear to have been one and the same paper originally, the back edges of
the picture should, previous to laying on the paste, be rubbed down to a
fine and knife-like edge with a piece of the finest sand-paper placed on a
wine cork, or substance of a similar size. The drawing-paper should be of
the same shade and tint as the ground of the photograph.
A novice in the wax-paper process (having heretofore worked the collodion
and calotype, from its very desirable property of keeping long good after
being excited, _i. e._ the wax paper), I am very desirous of getting over
an unexpected difficulty in its manipulation; and if some one of the many
liberal-minded contributors to your justly wide-spread periodical, well
versed in that department of the art, would lend me a helping hand in my
present difficulty, I should feel more than obliged for the kindness
thereby conferred.
My wax-paper negative, much to my disappointment, occasionally exhibits,
more or less, a speckled appearance by transmitted light, which frequently,
in deep painting, impresses the positive with an unsightly spotted
character, somewhat similar to that of a bad lithograph taken from a
worn-out stone. I should wish my wax-paper negative to be similar in
appearance to that of a good calotype one, or to show by transmitted light,
as my vexatious specimen does when viewed on its right side by reflected
light. As the most lucid description must fall far short of a sight of the
article itself, I purpose enclosing you a specimen of my failure, a portion
of one of the negatives in question. Would immersion, instead of floating
on the gallo-nitrate solution, remedy the evil? Or should the impressed
sheet be entirely immersed in the developing fluid in place of being
floated? And if in the affirmative, of what strength should it be? I have
thus far tried both plans in vain.