A STRING OF OLD BEADS.
He is a rash man who announces “something new” in these days. I believe there is nothing new under the sun, and in photography especially. If any man be rash enough to rush into print with what he considers a new idea, some other man rushes into print also and says the idea is old, exploded, useless, worthless, or worse.
I lay no claim to originality. I have lived so long in the atmosphere of photography, I don’t know where or how I picked up my knowledge—such as it is. Some of it I may have stumbled on, some of it I may have found, and some of it I may have stolen. If the latter, I forget from whom, when, or where, and in all such cases a bad memory is a good and convenient thing. But I will endeavour to atone for such sins by publicly restoring all I may have filched from other men’s brains for the benefit of all whom it may concern. I shall not count the beads; that would be like running over a rosary, and I object to sub rosa revelations; neither shall I attend to the order of stringing the beads, but will put them on record just as they come to hand; and the first is—
How to Make Vignette Papers.—Take a piece of sensitised paper, lay it under a piece of glass and let it blacken. Then take a camels’-hair pencil dipped in a weak solution of cyanide of potassium, and paint the extreme size and shape of the desired aperture. Let it dry, and with a little stronger solution of cyanide paint within the size and shape, and then with a stronger solution paint the centre, which will be perfectly white and semi-transparent. The object of using the three strengths of solution and painting three separate times is to obtain gradation, and the edges will be yellow and softened like a vignette glass. These vignette papers can be attached to the back of the negative or to the outside of the printing-press, and can be used either in shade or sunshine without materially prolonging the time of printing. The cost of production is trifling, as any waste piece of paper and spare time can be employed in making them, and they do not occupy much time in making; in fact, one can be made in less time than will be spent in reading this description. I need not expatiate on the advantages of being able to make a special vignette quickly. Every photographer must have experienced the difficulty of purchasing a special size and shape to suit a particular subject.
How to Point a Pencil.—Rub the pencil to a point in the groove of a corundum file. This is a better and cheaper pointer than a Yankee pencil-sharpener, and it puts a finer point to a blacklead pencil than anything else I know. Retouchers, try it.
How to Ease a Tight Stopper.—There is nothing more annoying in the practice of photography than to take up a bottle and find the stopper fixed. In many instances the bottle is broken and time wasted in trying to remove the fixed stopper. When such an obstinate stopper gets into your hands, run a little glycerine round the top of the bottle. Set the bottle down, and in a few minutes the stopper will be free. Prevention is better than cure. Keep a little glycerine on all your stoppers. Glycerine agrees with every chemical in photographic use, and prevents stoppers and bottles coming to grief. In a thousand and one ways a little glycerine is beyond all price.
How to Prepare Albumenized Prints for Colouring.—Pour over them a little matt varnish. This removes the greasiness, and gives a fine tooth and ivory-like surface for the artist to work upon.
How to Remove Silver Stains from the White Ground of a Vignette.—Touch it with a solution of cyanide of potassium, and wash off immediately. The other parts of the picture will not be injured.
How to Stipple a Window White or Yellow.—For white, mix a little dextrine and kaolin in water. Dab the mixture on the glass with a piece of cotton. For the purpose of obscuration that is quite enough; but if sightliness be essential, finish by stippling with the ends of a hog’s-hair brush. For yellow, mix a little dextrine and deep orange chrome in powder together in water, and apply it to the window in the same manner. Dabbing once or twice with a piece of cotton will exclude white light and make a luminous dark room. The same mixture makes an excellent backing for dry plates to prevent halation.