By A. GOODALL.
[Footnote: Read before the Dundee and East of Scotland Photographic
Association.]
The process of making gelatino bromide of silver prints or enlargements
on paper or opal has been before the public for two or three years now,
and cannot be called new; but still it is neither so well known nor
understood as such a facile and easy process deserves to be, and I may
just say here that after a pretty extensive experience in the working of
it I believe there is no other enlarging process capable of giving
better results than can be got by this process when properly understood
and wrought, as the results that can be got by it are certainly equal to
those obtainable by any other method, while the ease and rapidity with
which enlarged pictures can be made by it place it decidedly ahead of
any other method. I propose to show you how I make a gelatino bromide
enlargement on opal.
[Mr. Goodall then proceeded to make an enlargement on a 12 by 10 opal,
using a sciopticon burning paraffin; after an exposure for two and
a-half minutes the developer was applied, and a brilliant opal was the
result.]
We now come to the paper process, and most effective enlargements can be
made by it also; indeed, as a basis for coloring, nothing could well be
better. Artists all over the country have told me that after a few
trials they prefer it to anything else, while excellent and effective
plain enlargements are easily made by it if only carefully handled. A
very good enlargement is made by vignetting the picture, as I have just
done, with the opal, and then squeezing it down on a clean glass, and
afterward framing it with another glass in front, when it will have the
appearance almost equal to an opal. To make sure of the picture adhering
to the glass, however, and at the same time to give greater brilliancy,
it is better to flow the glass with a 10 or 15 grain solution of clear
gelatine before squeezing it down. The one fault or shortcoming of the
plain argentic paper is the dullness of the surface when dry, and this
certainly makes it unsuitable for small work, such as the rapid
production of cartes or proofs from negatives wanted in a hurry; the
tone of an argentic print is also spoken of sometimes as being
objectionable; but my impression is, that it is not so much the tone as
the want of brilliancy that is the fault there, and if once the public
were accustomed to the tones of argentine paper, they might possibly
like them twice as well as the purples and browns with which they are
familiar, provided they had the depth and gloss of a silver print; and
some time ago, acting on a suggestion made by the editor of the
_Photographic News_, I set about trying to produce this result by
enameling the paper with a barium emulsion previous to coating it with
the gelatinous bromide of silver. My experiments were successful, and we
now prepare an enamel argentic paper on which the prints stand out with
brilliancy equal to those on albumenized paper. I here show you
specimens of boudoirs and panels--pictures enlarged from
C.D.V.--negatives on this enamel argentic.
[Mr. Goodall then passed round several enlargements from landscape and
portrait negatives, which it would have been difficult to distinguish
from prints on double albumenized paper.]
I have already spoken of the great ease and facility with which an
argentic enlargement may be made as compared with a collodion transfer,
for instance; but there is another and more important point to be
considered between the two, and that is, their durability and
permanence. Now with regard to a collodion transfer, unless most
particular care be taken in the washing of it (and those who have made
them will well know what a delicate, not to say difficult, job it is to
get them thoroughly freed from the hypo, and at the same time preserve
the film intact), there is no permanence in a collodion transfer, and
that practically in nine cases out of ten they have the elements of
decay in them from the first day of their existence. I know, at least in
Glasgow, where an enormous business has been done within the last few
years by certain firms in the club picture trade (the club picture being
a collodion transfer tinted in oil or varnish colors), there are
literally thousands of pictures for which thirty shillings or more has
been paid, and of which the bare frame is all that remains at the
present day; the gilt of the frames has vanished, and the picture in
disgust, perhaps, has followed it. In short, I believe a collodion
transfer cannot be made even comparatively permanent, unless an amount
of care be taken in the making of it which is neither compatible nor
consistent with the popular price and extensive output. How now stands
the case with an argentic enlargement? Of course it may be said that
there is scarcely time yet to make a fair comparison--that the argentic
enlargements are still only on their trial.
I will give you my own experience. I mentioned at the outset that seven
or eight years ago I had tried Kennet's pellicle and failed, but got one
or two results which I retained as curiosities till only a month or two
ago; but up to that time I cannot say they had faded in the least, and I
have here a specimen made three years ago, which I have purposely
subjected to very severe treatment. It has been exposed without any
protection to the light and damp and all the other noxious influences of
a Glasgow atmosphere, and although certainly tarnished, I think you will
find that it has not faded; the whites are dirty, but the blacks have
lost nothing of their original strength. I here show you the picture
referred to, a 12 by 10 enlargement on artist's canvas, and may here
state, in short, that my whole experience of argentic enlargements leads
me to the conclusion that, setting aside every other quality, they are
the most permanent pictures that have ever been produced. Chromotypes
and other carbon pictures have been called permanent, but their
permanence depends upon the nature of the pigment employed, and
associated with the chromated gelatine in which they are produced, most
of pigments used, and all of the prettiest ones, being unable to
withstand the bleaching action of the light for more than a few weeks.
Carbon pictures are therefore only permanent according to the degree in
which the coloring matter employed is capable of resisting the
decolorizing action of light. But there is no pigment in an argentic
print, nothing but the silver reduced by the developer after the action
of light; and that has been shown by, I think, Captain Abney, to be of a
very stable and not easily decomposed nature; while if the pictures are
passed through a solution of alum after washing and fixing, the gelatine
also is so acted upon as to be rendered in a great degree impervious to
the action of damp, and the pictures are then somewhat similar to carbon
pictures without carbon.
I may now say a few words on the defects and failures sometimes met with
in working this process; and first in regard to the yellowing of the
whites. I hear frequent complaints of this want of purity in the whites,
especially in vignetted enlargements, and I believe that this almost
always arises from one or other of the two following causes:
First. An excess of the ferrous salt in the ferrous oxalate developer;
and when this is the case, the yellow compound salt is more in
suspension than solution, and in the course of development it is
deposited upon, and at the same time formed in, the gelatinous film.
The proportions of saturated solution of oxalate to saturated solution
of iron, to form the oxalate of iron developer, that has been
recommended by the highest and almost only scientific authority on the
subject--Dr. Eder--are from 4 to 6 parts of potassic oxalate to 1 part
of ferrous sulphate.
Now while these proportions may be the best for the development of a
negative, they are not, according to my experience, the best for
gelatine bromide positive enlargements; I find, indeed, that potassic
oxalate should not have more than one-eighth of the ferrous sulphate
solution added to it, otherwise it will not hold in proper solution for
any length of time the compound salt formed when the two are mixed.
The other cause is the fixing bath. This, for opals and vignetted
enlargements especially, should always be fresh and pretty strong, so
that the picture will clear rapidly before any deposit has time to take
place, as it will be observed that very shortly after even one iron
developed print has been fixed in it a deposit of some kind begins to
take place, so that although it may be used a number of times for fixing
prints that are meant to be colored afterward it is best to take a small
quantity of fresh hypo for every enlargement meant to be finished in
black and white. The proportions I use are 8 ounces to the pint of
water. Almost the only other complaints I now hear are traceable to
over-exposure or lack of intelligent cleanliness in the handling of the
paper. The operator, after having been dabbling for some time in hypo,
or pyro, or silver solution, gives his hands a wipe on the focusing
cloth, and straightway sets about making an enlargement, ending up by
blessing the manufacturer who sent him paper full of black stains and
smears. Argentic paper is capable of yielding excellent enlargements,
but it must be intelligently exposed, intelligently developed, and
cleanly and carefully handled.
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