The photographic news

• Bandzählung: 13.1869
• Erscheinungsdatum: 1869
• Sprache: Englisch
• Signatur: F 135
• Vorlage: Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst Leipzig
• Digitalisat: Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst Leipzig
• Digitalisat: SLUB Dresden
• Rechtehinweis: Public Domain Mark 1.0
• URN: urn:nbn:de:bsz:14-db-id1780948042-186900000
• PURL: http://digital.slub-dresden.de/id1780948042-18690000
• OAI: oai:de:slub-dresden:db:id-1780948042-18690000
• Sammlungen: LDP: Historische Bestände der Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst Leipzig
• Sammlungen: Fotografie
• Bemerkung: Heft 545 (S. 73-84), Heft 547 (S. 97-108), Heft 589 (S. 599-610) fehlen in der Vorlage. Paginierfehler: Auf Seite 444 folgt Seite 443
• Strukturtyp: Band

• Digitalisat: SLUB Dresden
• Strukturtyp: Ausgabe

222 THE PHOTOGRAPHIC NEWS. [May 7, 1869. of water, and a little ammonia added, beaten to a froth, allowed to subside, and then filtered. In the preparation of glass and transfer pictures, for which purpose the employ ment of albumen is unnecessary, it is requisite merely to cover the plate with a single coating of collodion ; but in the reproduction of negatives it is better, when the first coating has dried, to apply another, so as to obtain greater opacity. The desiccation of the plates is best done upon a warm oven; when printed, they are handled in the same manner as paper pictures. They are thoroughly washed, and transferred to a weak gold bath, for it must be borne in mind that a strong solution weakens the impression. (A bath which has served on the previous day in toning pictures, and to which no subsequent addition has been made, is recommended for use.) The plates are next fixed in hypo sulphite of soda, and then well washed; rinsing in water is insufficient, but lengthened immersion in several changes of water necessary. From the glass positives produced in this way, and with out being varnished, any required number of negatives may be printed off. It is, of course, scarcely to be expected that negatives reproduced in this manner should present all the perfection of the original; nevertheless it is possible, by retouching the glass positive, to secure effects incapable of being produced by any other means, more especially when dealing with copies of old oil paintings. . The method here given of preparing the collodion is specially adapted to the production of negatives ; if required for furnishing prints, it would, doubtless, be advantageous to make certain additions and alterations. Results furnished by the collodio-chloridc are much superior to those obtained with iodide of silver dry plates, as, by employing the latter process, the more delicate gradations of tones are generally lost. The quality of the collodion depends upon the presence in it of a notable amount of free nitrate of silver. The amount of chloride of calcium specified is so small that the silver is not taken up in anything like an appreciable extent; indeed, even the whole quantity of the chloride of calcium cannot be taken into account, as the gun-cotton prevents perfect precipitation. It is not necessary that the film on the plate should be perfectly opaque, for it is often astonishing how slightly turbid collodion will yield vigorous prints. The presence of the citrate of ammonia plays here, without doubt, an important role, producing an analogous effect to nitrate of ammonia, which, when added to the silver bath in ordinary printing, ensures the produc tion of proofs of extraordinary brilliancy. ON PAINTING IN WATER COLOURS; More Especially in Reference to the Colouring of Carte de-Visite and other Pictures upon Albumin ized Paper. BY JOHANNES GRASSHOFF.* The dark shadows of the head are now commenced, after the preliminary face-wash and the red upon the cheeks have dried. All these shadows are coated with a pretty brilliant red, consisting of burnt yellow ochre to which madder or Vandyck brown has been added. The mixture of these colours is regulated by the original colour of the face ; some times cinnabar or light red must be used, more particularly when a light flesh-tint is to be produced, and the photo graphs exhibit very dark shadows, a defect which very fre quently occurs. The delicate half-shadows now appear, under the faint wash first applied, of a brownish or greenish tone, according to the original tint of the photograph. It is in the treatment of these half-shadows that the painter in water-colour generally comes to grief, as he is apt to over paint these portions of the picture, covering up the grada tions with a coating of paint, which imparts a preponderance • Continued from p. 211. of colour to the face : for instance, if the coating applied is too yellow, the tint produced is too dark or too green, in which case the portrait has a sickly appearance; and the same effect is obtained by the employing too much blue, &c. Before, therefore, these half-shadows are tinted any further, a little violet-black (composed of Indian ink mixed with a little Prussian blue and Vandyck brown) is employed, to connect the deep reddish-brown shadows ; and when this has dried, the other tints—yellow, green, red, brown, &c.—may be softly laid on. The mixture of these tints depends by rights upon the colour of the original, and should not he filled in according to the taste of the painter, as it is quite unnatural that one coloured portrait, whether of light or dark tone, whether brunette or blonde, should present the same series of tints as that exhibited by another portrait, the two being representations of people quite unlike one another in nature. Thus, a gentleman with a dark complexion is repre sented with the same tints upon the face—coloured, perhaps, somewhat darker—as a delicate lady of fair complexion; this being, of course, quite the reverse of the truth, inasmuch as the gentleman’s countenance exhibited many more greenish- brown half shadows than that of tho lady. This method of treating all portraits in the same style is one much in favour with painters in water colour; it arises from the fact that the greater part of the pictures are coloured from memory, or on speculation, so that faults and discrepancies very easily occur. On the temples, under the chin, and often on the lower part of the cheeks, the application of a slight tint of blue is necessary. The lips are treated with a mixture of cin nabar and madder, a pale tint being first laid on, which is strengthened by subsequent manipulation ; attention must be paid that the upper lip receives sufficient colouring, as in the photograph it is often of a very dark colour, and then requires the application of a thick coating of cinnabar mixed with white or carmine to render it at all presentable. The eyes arc carefully painted with suitable colours. Brown eyes, as well as some description of grey ones, appear quite dark in the photograph, and in colouring these features, there fore, one of the ochre colours must be used, which is applied first of a pale tint, and afterwards worked up until the re quired intensity has been reached. The same method must be adopted for blond hair, which is also reproduced in pho tography of too dark a hue. Sometimes the light reflected in the eyes appears much too bright and glaring, and the softening down of this effect is not accomplished without considerable trouble. By careless manipulation the eyes are often made to squint, and the likeness is thus greatly dete riorated ; in most portrait photographs the light spot in the eye is too large, and to remedy this it is best to increase the size of the pupil, and thus render the spot more proportionate to the eye. With dark eyes it is often necessary to tone down the light with a grey tint in order that the white spot may not appear too bright and unnatural. If it is necessary to employ body colours for flesh tints in order to improve the gradations from light and shade, or to soften down prominent marks and folds, these should be obtained by mixing together white (to which, as with all other colours, sufficient gum has been added) and burnt light or yellow ochre, or any other suitable colour, according to the kind of.tone desired. As a matter of course, the fine character of the photograph often differs by the application of much body colour, but, unfortunately, their employment cannot be helped in working up inferior pictures. High lights on gold and silver articles may be painted with muscle-gold or silver, or with a white pigment pre pared in the following manner: a cake of ordinary white paint is placed in a small porcelain shell, and covered with water, in which condition it is allowed to stand for three or four days, the water being changed every four-and-twenty hours ; by this treatment nearly all the gum or glue in the pigment is removed, and tho colour becomes possessed of more body. The colour thus prepared is not so bright as it was formerly, but much better results can be obtained with it