The Art and Practice of Silver Printing

Transcriber's Note:
Inconsistent numbering of figures and references to figures have been retained as in the original publication.

A Specimen of Woodburytype Printing.
THE ART AND PRACTICE OF SILVER PRINTING. BY H. P. ROBINSON & CAPT. ABNEY, R.E., F.R.S. THE AMERICAN EDITION,
NEW YORK: E. & H. T. ANTHONY & CO., NO. 591 BROADWAY.
1881.
Silver printing has been often doomed, but it still survives. Other processes of photographic printing have been introduced, nearly all of them having their individual merits, especially that of permanency, but all lacking in two essential qualities—ease of production and beauty of result. In these particulars no process has ever approached the one to the working of which this little book is devoted. The one defect of silver printing is the possibility of its results fading; but surely it is better to be beautiful, if fading, than permanent and ugly. It is better to be charmed with a beautiful thing for a few years, than be bored by an ugly one for ever. But is silver printing necessarily a fading process? We have in our possession a large number of silver photographs produced from twenty to twenty-five years ago, which are as perfect in tone and colour as when they were produced. Carefully prepared, and properly kept, a silver print should be as permanent as any other. That silver prints should be permanent as well as beautiful, has been the object of
THE AUTHORS.
Perhaps it may be wise, first of all, to give the reader some account of the manner in which the subject of silver printing is to be treated, before entering into very minute details, so that it may be followed as a whole, instead of being studied in fragments, a course which is sure to lead to failure, from a want of comprehending what may have been skipped. To understand the why and the wherefore of every detail is an essential in most occupations, and it is wonderful that photographers are satisfied with the results of rule-of-thumb formulæ, instead of reasoning out their utility. In the following pages most of the theoretical considerations will be brought out in such a manner that everyone will be able to understand them, provided only that there is a slight acquaintance with the name and properties of the chemicals which are dealt with.