The photographic news

• Bandzählung: 11.1867
• Erscheinungsdatum: 1867
• 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-id1780948042-186700008
• PURL: http://digital.slub-dresden.de/id1780948042-18670000
• OAI: oai:de:slub-dresden:db:id-1780948042-18670000
• Sammlungen: LDP: Historische Bestände der Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst Leipzig
• Sammlungen: Fotografie
• Strukturtyp: Band

• Digitalisat: SLUB Dresden
• Strukturtyp: Ausgabe

THE PHOTOGRAPHIC NEWS. Vol. XI. No. 456.—May 31, 1867. CONTENTS. PAGE Some Hints on Manipulation in Portraiture 253 Keeping Wet Plates between Development and Excitement ... 255 Mr. Blanchard’s Method of Collod ionized Prints 256 A Man’s Property in his own Portrait 256 A Few Thoughts Suggested by a Leader in the News of May 17. By W. T. Bovey 257 Memoranda on the History of Carbon Printing, Photo-litho graphy, and Photo-engraving 258 Mechanical Photographic Printing. By MM. Marechal and Tessie du Motay 260 On a Self-acting Focus Equalizer. By A. Claudet, F.R.S 261 How to Save the Silver. By W. A. Terry 263 Organic Matter in the Nitrate Bath. By R. S. Divine ' 263 Talk in the Studio 263 To Correspondents 264 SOME HINTS ON MANIPULATION IN PORTRAITURE. In concluding our recent description of the portraits of M. Adam-Salomon, we intimated our intention of making some suggestions on the mode of operation, which occurred to us whilst examining the negatives and prints we saw in his establishment. We were deeply impressed with a con viction, which has impressed us before, that in several points the tendency of many good photographers in this country was to a wrong direction in manipulating. We will allude first to that which impressed us most. We believe that a most prevalent evil amongst English portraitists is the tendency to short exposure and long development; the tendency to secure by continued applica tion of the developer that which should have been secured by the action of light. This is not a new doctrine with us; we have often urged the importance of full exposure ; but we have never before been so fully impressed with it. We found a general impression amongst such of the French portrait ists as we had opportunity of conversing with, that in England the tendency to under-exposure prevailed. M. Reutlinger, with whose charming published portraits most photographers are familiar, remarked to us : “ You know we give much longer exposures here than you do in England.” An examination of the best French portraiture suggested the same fact, and explained one of the sources of superior brilliancy in French portraiture generally. Nine-tenths of the English negatives we see have a granular grey deposit everywhere, which adds nothing to the intensity or to the gradation, but is simply the result of pushing the develop ment by the solution of iron, which degrades and flattens the whole picture, limiting, instead of increasing, its scale of tones. The possibility of forcing out an image after short exposure by the prolonged application of the iron developer is, to many operators, a seductive possibility ; but though moderately good results may be obtained by such an operation, it is fatal to the best class of results. Round ness and softness, force without loss of delicacy, and that richness of texture which we have heard an enthusiastic photographer not inappropriately style “ lusciousness,” are all lost in such an operation. There is detail without soft ness, gradation without modelling or roundness; or, if the image have boldness or relief, it suggests a model of sand stone instead of an image of living flesh. It is not by operating in such a manner that M. Salomon’s exquisite portraits are obtained. In our former article we remarked that we asked no ques tion of M. Salomon as to his formula! or manipulations, because we should have felt ashamed to appear to attribute the high qualities of his work to process merely. Neverthe less, the technical excellence is of course due to a certain method of working, our impressions of which we shall describe. We have before described the studio and light ing, and we may refer to the subject again; for the present we merely assume that the sitter is well lighted, so as to render his features in the most effective relief. A plate coated with a collodion giving a rich, creamy film is excited in a bath sufliciently acid to give perfectly clean shadows, and is then so fully exposed that when the deve loper—which should be an iron solution containing a full proportion of acetic acid—is applied, the image flashes out with moderate rapidity, and every trace of detail needed is obtained without continuing the application of the deve loper until a deposit begins to appear on the deep portion of the shadows. A deposit of silver, in due gradation, should be secured on every point where light from the sitter has im pinged on the plate, but there should be no deposit except as the result of such light; no deposit resulting from stray light in the camera or dark room, no deposit resulting from the prolonged action of the developer. Any amount of deposit of silver arising from diffused light or from the pro longed action of the developer, or from any other cause of abnormal deposit or fog, destroys brilliancy, and causes flatness. We insist strongly on this fact, the repetition of which should be needless, because we see so many negatives with this veil of general deposit, and because wo have heard some photographers absolutely advocate it as ensuring a certain kind of softness. It does in some instances give that factitious softness which is secured by an absence of vigour, instead of the softness which arises from true grada tion. Commencing at the lowest point of shadow, the absence of all light rendered by bare glass—but in this in extremely minute proportions—a negative with an ordin ary degree of intensity will yield prints of great brilliancy and vigour, and the gradations will be rich and delicate, free from the hard, granular character which we have deprecated. Old glass positive operators will be very familiar with the kind of image obtained by a very full exposure and short development. When, on applying the developer, the image flashed rapidly out, and the developer was quickly washed off, a picture suggestive of what wo mean was obtained. As a positive, such a picture was not good, for the detail was buried, and the lights were not of the silvery whiteness obtained by a longer development; but the extreme bril liancy was there, and the freedom from any trace of deposit where light had not acted. With collodion and bath in good order, a thoroughly well exposed portrait will often attain a considerable amount of intensity after a compara tively short application of the iron, and a very slight amount of after-intensification will give the extra density to points of high light required to secure the most perfect brilliancy in the print. Mr. T. R. Williams, whose whole-plate vignettes are admitted by common consent to be amongst the finest things produced in portrait photography, works much on the principle we have described. We have been