PhotoHistory

From: THE PRACTICAL PRINTER
A COMPLETE MANUAL PHOTOGRAPHIC PRINTING

By Charles W Hearn, 1874

PORCELAIN PRINTING

TONING THE PORCELAIN

Make up, while your porcelain is printing, a toning solution as recommended below, so that it will have a chance to ripen before it is required.

The toning solution for porcelains, as well as for prints, should have a chance to get ripe before it is used, and it should therefore be made up at least fifteen or twenty minutes before it is wanted. Take a clean six-ounce wide-mouth vial and let fall about fifteen drops of a stock solution of chloride of gold into it, said stock solution being one grain of gold to the ounce of water. Place in it a piece of litmus-paper, which will turn red, and add drop by drop of a saturated solution of bicarbonate of soda to it until the paper will turn a little blue, shaking the bottle in the meantime. Now add about four ounces of filtered rain-water, and shake well.

Cover it up with a piece of glass, and let it stand for about five minutes in the sunlight, and then place it in the toning-room until ready for use. In winter, and often in the summer, it is an excellent plan to slightly warm the toning solution, and allow it to cool to a lukewarm state. The object of this is to make it tone more quickly, and also better than it would with a cold toning solution.

I have advised to make the toning solution in a bottle for the purpose of “toning by hand,” but I should advise the beginner to make up the solution in a dish, for instance, a quarter size, and tone in that.

If you tone by hand never pour the solution twice on the same place, but at different places, and these places should be in the shadows, and not in the face, for uneven toning will often be the result, the high-lights and half-tints toning a little quicker where it is poured on a number of times than it does elsewhere; on the whole, it is better not to pour it on the printed picture at all, but on various parts of the margin of the porcelain, providing it can be so done.

In toning the porcelain in a dish, keep it constantly under the surface of the solution, and keep a slight motion to the toning solution constantly.

The light for toning is a matter of considerable importance, for this, and this alone, is in by far the majority of cases the sole cause of overtoning, because we tone our porcelains to what we think to be the right tint, toning in a strong light, and consequently when the porcelain is fixed we find that “it is overtoned.”

You should tone in a weak light, and only until the high-lights and half-tints of the face commence to look a trifle blue, at which time the porcelain is toned, and the solution is to be washed immediately off.

If you were to examine a porcelain, as toned in a weak light, in a very much stronger one, it will appear to be undertoned, but it is not, and the beginner will do well to remember that a porcelain cannot be toned as much as you would a paper print, for it would be very much overtoned.

Considerable experience is required to tone them properly, and “to keep your hand in” you should make them frequently.

FIXING THE PORCELAIN

The porcelain, when toned, and the toning washed off the plate, is then to be fixed as you would do with a paper print, viz., with a weak solution of hyposulphite of soda.

The strength of the hypo is generally weaker than is used for fixing paper prints, and a little thinking by the beginner will enable him at once to see that it is not required to be as strong.

In the case of the paper print, the silver often sinks far into the albumen, and when the paper has been floated too long a time, say four or five minutes, as has been recommended by some, the silver often sinks through, and into the bibulous paper beneath the albumen.

When a paper print is placed in the fixing bath, a stronger solution is required than what would suffice for the fixing of a porcelain, because it has got to penetrate through the mere surface of the albumen, and far into it on one side; and through the back of the paper to the albumen, and also a little into that on the other, and there do its work, which it will thoroughly do if the prints are moved about sufficiently, and are permitted to remain in the bath long enough. It is not an easy thing for the hypo solution to penetrate into the albumen anyhow, but it is done much better with a weak solution and a longer time of fixing, than it is with a strong solution and a shorter time for fixing. The albumen is a substance that is not the easiest thing in the world to wet with water, yet if the temperature of the water is blood-warm it will, in a short time, penetrate quite a way into the paper, at least as far as the silver solution penetrated during the sensitizing of it,

Now, in the case of the porcelain print, all of the penetrating of the solution is done on one side of the porcelain, and through something that is more easily penetrated through than what albumen is, and a considerably weaker solution is used in this case, as has before been said; and as regards the tone, it is much better than it would be if a stronger solution than what is recommended below were to be used.

You might say that we can use a stronger solution and fix quicker, but as sure as you do it the tone will be spoiled, and bleaching will be the result.

Make up the bath as follows :

Saturated Solution Hyposulphite of Soda 1 ounce
Clean Rain-water, 12 ounces
Saturated Solution Bicarbonate of Soda, 1/2 ounce
Fix in a weak light, but not quite so weak as was recommended in the toning; fix five minutes, or until the face of the porcelain turns clear in tone, after the hypo has once turned it cloudy, which it will do the moment the print is placed in the bath.

The porcelain print undergoes a variety of changes in the fixing bath, often immediately turning a peculiar green, as disagreeable in looks as it is peculiar, and the longer the plate is kept in the bath the worse it seems to look.

Then again it turns yellow, and stays so too, which is often a sure sign of undertoning, and if it turns slate-blue or a forced brown color, then this is often a sure sign of overtoning. There are, however, a number of things to take into consideration, which will be treated of below.

To tell when a porcelain is fixed you should permit it to remain in the fixing bath until the tone to which you have toned it returns, and then if, on close examination, the face is seen to be clear, then the plate is fixed; if it is not clear, let it remain in the bath until it is.

FINAL WASHING OF THE PORCELAIN

The porcelain when fixed is then to receive the final washing, which will render the plate free from any destroying agent that will cause the print to fade, at least so far as anything besides the plate itself is concerned.

For the first few minutes the plate is carefully washed on both sides under the tap. Rub the back of the plate with one hand, holding it with the other, and permitting the water from the tap to fall not too heavy on the face of it.

Set the plate under the tap (say, for instance, on one end of an empty salt-box), and let a steady stream of water fall upon it, moving it at times, so that the water will fall at a different place every five minutes.

After the plate has washed half an hour or so, then soaking the plate in a salt-water bath, made as below given, is an excellent thing.

Lukewarm Water, 1 gallon
Chloride of Sodium (table salt) in weight, 2 ounces
This warm salt-water bath will enter right into the film, and displace within five minutes all of the hypo that is left in the film, after the washing just described.

Let the plate remain in this bath five or ten minutes, and then soak it in two more lukewarm water baths, but let these baths be of fresh water. Give the plate a quick final washing under the tap, and rinse well.

During the first washing of the plate, the tone of the print often changes, which will be fully entered into below.

DRYING AND TINTING THE PORCELAIN

DRYING

The plate can either be dried spontaneously, or by artificial heat, as the printer chooses. Each of these is best at times, as any one who has ever printed porcelain pictures knows.

Drying by heat makes the tone bluer than it would be if it were allowed to dry without. Then, again, if the porcelain is to be dried by heat, place it in the negative oven, permitting it to dry gently. Before placing it in, however, wipe out the oven with a damp cloth; and in drying spontaneously, hang up the plate upon two nails away from draughts, which may cause dust to settle upon it.

TINTING

In tinting the cheeks and lips, you can either do it with a flesh wash, or by dry color. The latter is sometimes applied to the cheeks and lips of the porcelain print after the plate is varnished, because in varnishing the plate, after the dry color is applied to it, it sometimes comes off during the flowing of the varnish back into the bottle.

If the plate is not warmed before you flow the varnish on it, and is dried up quickly, the color will not disappear; but if it is warmed before varnishing, it will surely disappear.

Proof: Experience in varnishing by both methods.

The object in first warming the plate before varnishing is to prevent it from getting chilled in drying, but unless it is very cold indeed, the varnishing and drying quickly in a hot oven will place a splendid gloss on the plate.

In spotting, mix the color to the proper tone, being sure that you also have gum arabic in it in abundance.

A most excellent hit is to color the hair of the porcelain print if the print is that of a blond either before or after varnishing, as may suit the printer with a little of dry yellow color, and the effect will be splendid.

VARNISHING THE PORCELAIN

The porcelain when tinted, spotted, and the high-lights placed in the eyes if necessary, is then to receive a coat of varnish, which will in a great measure protect the film from injury.

White shellac varnish is necessary for this, because the common yellow lac will spoil the pure white of the porcelain. (This varnish can very nicely be used in the varnishing of intense negatives.)

To make this varnish, first obtain three-quarters of a pound of good white shellac, and place it in a large wide-mouth bottle, in which there has been placed two quarts of the best alcohol. If you are in a hurry for this varnish, you should, previous to placing it in the bottle, break up the shellac in small pieces, placing it, say in a clean rag, and pounding it with a hammer, or break it in a mortar with a pestle. Shake the bottle until the shellac is dissolved, and if you should see a sediment on the bottom that will not dissolve, you need not be apprehensive of bad results, because it does not all dissolve, for this- is only the impurities in the shellac, and can be filtered out.

As the beginner can probably flow better from a small bottle than he can from a large one, I should advise the use of a common collodion vial, which will hold about six ounces, and which should be cleaned thoroughly both on the outside and inside. Into this vial, filter through a couple of filtering-papers sufficient of the varnish to fill it up, and you will find the liquid to be of a pale golden color.

In selecting the bottle, choose one that has a good lip to it, so that when you varnish the plate you can do so without “daubing up” the bottle.

Keep the outside of your bottle perfectly free from varnish, and try to keep your varnish-bottle clean, so that it will look well, and always keep it covered when not in use, by laying a piece of glass over it, or better still, a ground-glass stopper if the bottle has a neck made for it, but do not stop up the bottle with a cork, as it will in a short time leave bits of it in the varnish. Use a cometless collodion vial if you can.

When about to varnish, hold the plate for a second or so near the fire, for no other purpose than to take the chill from the plate, which you can do without really warming it, for if you were to do that, the varnishing, as before said, would remove the tinting of the porcelain, but if it were only kept near enough to the stove to prevent the plate from being so cold as to chill the varnish the moment it is poured on, it will not then remove the tinting at all.

Avoid getting the plate hot before you varnish it, for you will almost inevitably make a “botch” of it, unless you have had years of experience in varnishing. The varnish, at this time, will also totally remove the tinting and coloring of the hair, although it will not affect the spotting, &c.

Before you commence to varnish, shut the oven door and turn up the gas flame, thus allowing the oven to heat up while you are flowing the plate, so that you can place the plate in it, and dry it quickly, which will prevent the varnish from chilling on the plate, before you have obtained heat enough to dry it. Pour the varnish on the plate in the same manner as I have twice before described, once in the albumenizing, and the other in the collodionizing. Pour the varnish back from the plate into another bottle, and before using it again always filter it.

Pour on the varnish so that you can permit it to run off that corner which is furthest away from the print, because the varnish forms a slight ridge on the two sides, whose vortex is that corner from which your varnish was poured from the plate.

Place the freshly varnished plate in the hot oven, resting it on one corner, and that corner invariably the one at which the varnish was poured off.

Too much varnish on the plate will cause a much larger ridge on the sides than if there was only about the right quantity poured on it in the first place, unless you are very careful in pouring it from the plate.

Wipe out the oven every time you are about ready to varnish a plate, and just as soon as the plate is dry, remove it, and place it in a cool (not too cool) place, which place should be perfectly free from all traces of dust.