Fig. 1.
While then it is not considered wise for the photographer to be his own retoucher any more than it is for every man to be his own lawyer or doctor, yet every photographer should know enough about the art and practice of retouching to appreciate good work and to detect the bad. And for that reason he should make a study of it both from the artistic and the mechanical points of view.
By such a course of study he will learn to produce that quality of negative that will require the least amount of improvement at the hands of the retoucher. p65
The work of retouching requires certain appliances to facilitate it, and its own special room or atelier. A small well-ventilated room having a window with a northern exposure is the best adapted for this work. This room should be supplied with the necessary conveniences, such as the retouching stand or frame, which in its earlier form is as represented in Fig 1, but which, after a time, became much improved upon; one form of improvement is shown in Fig. 2, but neither of these forms became universally used, as many artists fashioned their stands or frames to suit their individual p66 taste or the requirements of their room or light. The march of improvement, however, is never delayed by such a condition of affairs, and was not in this case.
Fig. 2.
Fig. 3.
It became necessary on the part of those interested in the manufacture of such apparatus to produce something that should meet all requirements, and this has indeed been accomplished by the production of the desk represented in Fig 3, which is called the Novel Retouching Desk and is suitable for any size of negative under 25×30; it has a false top which can be pulled down to darken the space in front of the ground glass cut out.
The bed on which the negative is laid can be set at any inclination to suit the convenience of the artist.