* *
The most important improvement in photographic processes that has
been introduced since Maynard first made collodion, and Archer
discovered its adaptability to the production of photographic
negatives, is the gelatine bromide dry plate.
Wet plate photography had reached its utmost point of adaptability
to the demands of the times.
A few men of marked ability, and the skill of long study and
practice, had reached the point of highest excellence in working
with collodion, and the great multitude were pressing on toward that
designated height to which it was given to but few to attain.
It had been demonstrated that wonderfully beautiful effects could be
produced by the collodion process, but that there was a limit beyond
which progress could not be made. The great range of subjects in
still and animate life requiring very rapid exposures, were
practically out of the power of collodion, to compass satisfactory
results. At this time, when there seemed to be a very constant and
increasingly urgent demand for more rapid acting lenses and for
"lightning processes," there appeared the wonderful argentic bromide
Gelatine Emulsion, which, in four short years, has superseded the
collodion process almost, if not altogether, and besides
(notwithstanding the opposition of the elite of the profession, whom
for a time it [p008] leveled with the rest of the workers, but
who were quick to see and acknowledge the extraordinary merits of
the new candidate) it has caused such a quickening of the pulses of
the business, and such an increase in its range and adaptability as
never before was known, and which, in the year or two past, has
caused such an activity in invention and in other ways, as to make
that period of time so remarkable for the many new things that have
been brought out, and the many new processes that have been adopted,
as to render a detailed account of such for the profession, and also
for the amateur, most desirable.
It is with such a view that this book is offered to the photographic
public, and that numerous and still increasing army of amateurs, who
have taken up photography as an amusement, to while away a leisure
hour.
For to these latter a few hours' study of a good hand-book is about
all that is necessary to enable them to expose and develop a dry
plate, a little practice only being requisite to the successful
performance of the same.
There may be many, however, who, having made a promising
commencement, would like to proceed farther and acquire a knowledge
of former photographic processes, as well as those which succeed the
making of the negative, such as printing, toning, fixing, etc., and
in fact, learn how to make a finished photograph.
To such, particularly, and to all photographers, this book is
offered, in full confidence that it will be a useful companion in
the studio and in the field.
To accomplish this end we will take the reader as an apprentice, and
commencing at the beginning, instruct him in that knowledge he would
have to acquire were he an actual apprentice in a photographic
studio, [p009] working the wet collodion process, after which an
equally full course of instruction will follow for the dry plate and
other new processes, both for negative making and for printing.
In the following pages, also, will be found many useful formulæ that
have been carefully culled from a mass of published contributions,
from many of the leading spirits in photography, most of which have
been verified practically by the author, and others bear on their
faces so plainly the impression of their practicability as to need
no assurance that they are reliable.
In getting up this work I have availed myself of information from
any and all sources at my command, giving credit where possible, and
endeavoring to make everything clearly understandable, and
neglecting no details necessary to the successful working of every
formula, even by the youngest learner. [p010]