Abstract
THE last two or three years will certainly mark an era in Photography, for not only have several novel and important printing methods been discovered during that period, but other processes of less recent origin have of late been so elaborated and improved as to have become at the present moment practical and easy of manipulation. All of these are, without exception, based upon the action of light upon the bichromates of potash and ammonia; in no single case is the use of a silver salt involved—the agent employed for securing the photographic image in ordinary paper printing—and this is, in truth, a point whose value cannot be too greatly insisted on; for the silver print, be it washed and freed as thoroughly as possible from any deleterious bodies, will always suffer, more or less, from attacks of an impure atmosphere, the delicate metallic film of which the image consists being peculiarly liable to change, from the sulphur compounds and other impurities not unfrequently contained in the air we breathe. And even those silver pictures which do not at first show actual traces of fading or discoloration, will very soon be found, on careful examination, to have parted with some of their original brilliancy, and to lack the pristine freshness which always characterises newly-produced albumenised prints.
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P., H. Photographic Processes of the Present Day . Nature 3, 187–188 (1871). https://doi.org/10.1038/003187b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/003187b0