Practicus In The Studio: Printing Processes For Portraiture.

           I find that nowadays people are rather apt to get into a groove over their printing methods and apparently forget that any other process exists except that which they happen to be working. It thus occurs to me that a brief review of the Different printing media at present available, with notes on the characteristics of each, would be of service to those who wish to vary their work.
           The uncertain character of daylight in Great Britain has made bromide and gaslight papers very popular, and an overwhelming proportion of portrait work is now produced upon them, but thanks to the almost universal supply of electric current, we are not now altogether dependent upon daylight for what may be generally classed as "printing out" as distinguished from developing processes.
           The quality of the negative is an important factor in the production of the print, and only a small proportion of current negatives would yield even a passable result upon the old albumenized paper which for many years was almost exclusively used, so much so, in fact, that a print was hardly regarded as a "real" photograph unless it was made upon it By reason of the quality of the negative required, and because it was impossible to produce it by modern factory methods albumenized paper is now only a memory, and it is impossible to procure even a small quantity through the ordinary channels. Hence it is unnecessary to touch upon it otherwise than by way of reminiscence. Bromide paper in its various grades has taken its place, and I therefore put it first upon the list as being the process for the million, or that proportion of it who practise photography.
           Although in such general use, few portraitists fully appreciate the wonderful variety of surfaces, speeds, and character of emulsions which are available. I cannot fairly allude to any specific makes by name, but will be content to refer my readers to the advertisements in the B.J. Almanac, and the advertisement pages of the weekly Press. Bromide papers may roughly be divided into several groups, although these somewhat overlap each other. We may divide them by speed, that is to say, the time necessary to produce a print from a given negative by a given illumination; by the degree of contrast which can be obtained from the same negative by the surface texture, and by the colour of the paper base itself apart from the image. Thus we have "slow" and "rapid" papers, hard or contrasty, and soft, rough, smooth "platino matt," "satin," and glossy, these giving a range from rough drawing paper to a surface like glass. In many cases certain grades come into two or more of these classes. Thus we may have rough rapid, smooth rapid, hard cream and soft cream, and the same in white. In this great variety lies one of the principal advantages of bromide paper, for there is hardly a negative which is capable of being printed at all for which a paper which will give the best result cannot be found. Many printers use only one variety of paper, and trust to their skill in exposure and development to produce even results from all classes of negatives, but from experience I can assert that a very ordinary worker can produce a better result upon "hard" paper from a flat negative than an expert can upon the average kind. Therefore I advise every printer to have by him a small stock of special papers, so that he can at once select the quality necessary for exceptional densities of image. While not recommending this course to he carried too far and to encumber one self with too many kinds, I would point out the influence of colour and surface in certain cases. Suppose that we have a hard, chalky negative; we can use for this a "cream crayon soft" paper. This not only reduces the contrast of the image but tones down the glare of the whites, while the slightly rough texture gives further aid me direction. With a very soft negative we may choose a satin surface paper, that is, one with a semi-gloss, which gives a richness to the shadows. A full gloss paper would be even better, but for high-class -work a glossy surface is rarely acceptable. Further modification may be obtained by toning the image to a sepia colour, a course generally advisable with harsh contrasts, as brown and white usually gives a softer result than black and white when both print are of the tame quality. I strongly the practice of toning bromides irrespective of quality; every day thousands of prints which are of fatrly good quality in black and white are spoiled by being converted into poor, flat, rusty sepias. If I have the slightest doubt as to the resulting tone of a print I would- leave it in black and white, and if the order were for sepia prints I would ask permission to submit a black and white print when sending the proofs.
           Gaslight papers closely resemble bromide in the points I hare already mentioned, so that it is not necessary to deal with them at length. I should like, however, to say that besides the "contrasty" qualities which are most used, are special kinds which, though very slow in action, walls give splendid results from dense negatives. These papers require a very strong light for printing, several fifty-candle-power lamps being needed in the printing boxes.
           Gelatino-chloride or P.O.P. was not o long ago almost universally used for portrait work, but is now little in favour, especially among the cheaper class of studios. A few good class firms still find that the warm tones so easily obtained upon it are acceptable to their patrons, and wisely adhere to it. Certain warm browns and reddish tints closely approach the delicacy of carbon, and will always be popular, but the purple black tones are now quite out of fashion, P.O.P. requires much greater cart- and cleanliness in working than bromide, which may account for the latter superseding it.
           Self-toning papers, which are mostly collodio-chloride, possess many advantages, although they are the slowest of the printing out sort. This defect may be largely overcome by employing an enclosed arc for printing, when the time in much shortened. A great range of tones from warm sepia to a blue-grey may be obtained by variation of the strength of the hypo bath and for the grays a preliminary soaking in a solution of common salt. Matt and glossy surfaces and white and cream bases are available in this class of papers. A variation of tone may be obtained by using a platinum toning bath as employed in the doable toning of ordinary collodio-chloride paper. I hare used much of this paper, and find that the prints stand very well. Some, which are fifteen or sixteen years old, seem quite fresh. Self-toning gelatino-chloride is also made, but I have not found so good a range of colours with them as with the collodion. Moreover, they cannot be dried by heat, as the latter can. Some few photographers have used what is termed salted paper for large work. This has to be prepared at home by coating drawing paper with a solution of chloride of ammonium or even common salt, and floating upon a bath of nitrate of silver. The prints may be fixed without toning, or they may be toned in any of the gold baths used for P.O.P. Strong negatives are required, as the image is inclined to be rather dull as compared with that on an emulsion paper. The surface is very agreeable, and with suitable subjects the results are highly artistic. Platinum printing like carbon stands in a category of its own, and occupies the first place with those photographers who put quality before cost. It is, next to ferro-prussiate, the simplest of all printing processes, and is not only pleasing but permanent; it is actually a "thing of beauty and a joy for ever." Platinum papers can be obtained in rough and smooth surfaces, end on white and cream bases. As there is no practically useful method of toning, special papers and solutions are prepared for black and sepia prints respectively. One important quality of platinum prints is their absolute flatness when finished; as there is no coating either of gelatine or collodion there is no risk of curling, and if attached by one edge to a mount they will lie close to it no matter what the condition of the atmosphere may be. It should be clearly understood that the word "platino," when applied to bromide paper, refers to nothing but the appearance of the surface. There is no platinum in the coating, and the image is no more permanent than that on ordinary bromide papers. Carbon printing is unique as regards the great variety of colour and surface in which prints may be produced. Although in portraiture only two or three are commonly used, such as sepia, red chalk, and warm black, at least fifty varieties of colour, including reds, blues, greens, browns, grays, and many others, and a score of different weights and surfaces in the transfer papers are regularly supplied. So that it is possible to make carbon prints which closely resemble those by any other photographic process; and, needless to say, all are absolutely permanent. It is worth noting that, in spite of war restrictions, the price of carbon materials has shown but little increase in price. Many are deterred from attempting carbon printing by the idea that it is very difficult, but this is not the case if ready sensitized tissue be used, and if the work be carried out systematically it is little more troublesome than P.O.P., and the extra price obtainable will amply justify the additional work.
           I have carefully abstained from giving working details of any process, us this has been done over and over again, out in case of any difficulty, any desired information will be given through the usual "Answers to Correspondents" column. My object has been to point out what materials photographers have to hand for the production of such prints as may be needed for any claw of business.

PRACTICUS.

Practicus In The Studio: Studio Exposures.

            Correct exposure is one of the most important of the factors in making perfect photographs, yet the majority of portra approach it in the most casual manner, and apparently trust to a sort of sixth sense to tell them how long to keep the shutter open, or as one Mid to me, "It is like taking a dire into water; when I press the bulb, I do not know when I am coming to the surface.” With long practice it is possible to work successfully in this sab-conscious way, but most people will find it desirable to have some definite idea of the number of seconds necessary to give the exact quality of negative which is aimed at. I want you to take particular notice of those last words. There can be no fixed standard of exposure or density in portrait work, or we should all arrive at one monotonous style, without that touch of individualism which now distinguishes our best photographers from one another. Twenty or thirty years ago there was an established ideal of a clear, sparkling negative ranging from clear glass to opacity, and a high-class operator who did not conform to it had little chance of employment. Many negatives which would be appreciated to-day were then thrown aside as failures, because they were too soft or too hard to print in the limited range of media then available, but now we are more free to choose our methods, and can produce negatives to satisfy our own artistic instincts. Therefore it is necessary if we are to be consistently good in our work we must not trust to "flukes" for our successes, but to study the conditions under which our particular class of negatives can be obtained.
            On asking one of our best known outdoor photographers bow he secured such uniformly perfect negatives. I was told that they were obtained by "exposing to suit the developer.” This was in the pre-Watkins days, when no attempt had been made to systematize development and most people believed that the clever worker owed his success to modifying the developer according to the appearance of the imago, often beginning with plain pyro solution, and working up the negative by adding alkali and bromide drop by drop. This idea is now exploded, proving that my friend was a true prophet when he asserted that the prime factor in producing the negative was correct exposure Hurter and Driffield, to whom photographers owe so much, have taught us that the amount of silver affected by light when a plate is exposed is in definite proportion to the length of exposure given, bat this assumes that all the so affected is reduced by the developer, or, in other words, the plate is “developed right out," which is rarely the case in studio work, most portraitists finding that such a procedure produces too much contrast. This fact has been recognized by both plate and developer makers who prescribe different times of development for portrait, landscape and copy negative, the former always being much shorter than the latter two.
            To establish a correct method of exposure we must make a few experiments, working with a standard developer, and a fixed time of development, which may be obtained by the factorial system, the only variation being made in the exposure. It is convenient and economical, besides assuring uniformity of rapidity in the emulsion, to make several exposures on one plate, and this can easily be done in most studio cameras by fixing a small mask in the camera back and marking the slide so as to show when the plate is in position. The easiest size is to work three upon a half-plate, cutting a mask with opening two inches by four and fixing this in the existing carte or cabinet mask. If the slide has notches for single exposures, and also for repeating two C.D.V. on half-plate, the centre notch may be used, but new marks s little farther from the centre must be made for the two end exposures. For my own use I have made a repeating back which allows of four exposures, each three inches by two clear, from the rebate upon a half-plate, and this I find handy for many other purposes.
            The exposures, which must, of course, be upon the same subject, may be varied in any proportion which the operator desires. Usually double at each step will be found as good as any for portrait work, as our negative will then show us the effect of one, two, four, and eight seconds' exposure. The result will be rather surprising to those who try it for the first time; for, supposing that the one-second exposure gives a thin but printable negative, it will be found that the eight-seconds section, although thick and slow to print, will also yield a passable result. That, however, is not my point, which is that the operator should now select the exposure which gives him the quality of imam- he wants, or if none quite pleases him should give an exposure between the two which he judges to be nearest correct. So far so good. Now all depends upon correctly estimating the value of the light, and this can better be done with an exposure meter than by the exercise of personal judgment. If we use an ordinary Bee meter and note the time taken to match the tint at the. time of making our exposures we shall be able to establish a ratio between meter time and exposure for any light or lighting. For example, if we find that our selected exposure is four seconds, and that it took right minutes to get the tint, we haw the proportion of half a second for each meter minute. Naturally I do not propose that anyone should make meter tests while sitter waits, but an occasional test between whiles can easily be managed. The plate speed and lens aperture must be unchanged, or due allowance must be made, or this system will be worse than useless.
            It is often found that when strong effects of light and shade are being tried for that the negatives turn out hard and chalky and do not at all represent the model as seen by the artist. There are two causes of this, both closely connected, under-exposure and over-development, the latter being due to an attempted to force out shadow detail. Now, if development had been done by time without regard to the appearance of the image, we should have retained the detail in the high lights, but the shadow detail would still have been wanting. Longer exposure would remedy this without giving flatness, unless-unite an unreasonable time were given. This class of subject affords an excellent field for the progressive series of exposures already recommended; or if it be thought that the effect cannot be judged from so small s plate two full-sized exposures may be made, one receiving three times as long as the other, both being developed for the same time in the same dish.
            It is important when making experiments in exposure to keep not only to one make of plate, but to the same grade. Emulsions vary in character, and two grades which are, perhaps, marked 200 and 240 H and D, cannot be relied upon to give the same quality of image, even if the difference in speed be accurately allowed for; much more is this the case if two makes of plate he mixed up. For the same reason one developer should be adhered to, and for printing quality land adaptability to various subjects and lightings there is nothing to beat the old-established pyro-sods. Remember that a negative is only a means to an end, and that "pretty" negatives do not always give the best of prints. Although not strictly within my subject, I feed that at the present time of year it is not amiss to on that pyro is less affected in its action by variations of temperature than most other developing agents. I have only recently found the slow action of another developer mistaken for under exposure, with the result that the exposures were increased and flatness resulted.
            A point which mart not be missed is the effect of the distance between lens and sitter upon exposure. This is always allowed for in copying, but is often overlooked in portraiture. Most operators know that a large head requires more exposure than a full length, other things being equal, but perhaps could not toll you why. There are two reasons, one being the increase in the focal length of the lens a the sitter approaches the camera, and the other the flattening of the lighting by the greater amount of atmosphere which intervenes as the sitter is placed further from the camera. Let us consider the former case, assuming that a head measures 9 inches in height and we are making a 3 in. image of it: this adds one-third to the camera extension, supposing we are using an 18 in. lens working at F/6 for infinity; one-third added to the focal length gives us 24 ins - in other words, we are working at F/8, which requires practically double the exposure. When taking a full-length cabinet the reduction would be l/12th, which would only add an inch and a half to the original focal length, and this we could safely ignore so far as exposure is concerned. In the second case the increase in exposure is only apparent, not real. If there is a certain amount of fog over the shadows it covers the bare glass, but there is no more detail in the shadows than there would be if the atmosphere were perfectly clear. In London, where the atmosphere is as thick in winter as it is in most places, many photographers use a lens of shorter focal length than they would otherwise, in order to avoid this flattening.
            In conclusion, let me impress upon the notice that correct exposure is the key to satisfactory results. Leaving colour effects out of the question, any arrangement of light and shade can be correctly reproduced if the proper exposure be given. We can flatten the scale by over-exposure, we can sharpen it by under-exposure, so that if we hit the happy mean we shall get upon our negative what we saw when looking at the sitter. Surely such a consummation is worth taking pains to attain, instead of following the usual "hit or miss" way.

PRACTICUS.