Such parts of the print, resistant while it is wet, can, however, be inked up without difficulty after the print has been allowed to dry. Then they are inked up with a brush, using an ink of the same tint and consistency as was used in making the bromoil print itself. The dry gelatine takes the ink quite evenly, and in this way any desired tone from the most delicate to the darkest may be obtained. By omitting to ink in suitable places, clouds may be imitated, and if necessary these may be worked up by retouching.
With polychrome bromoils, when the skies are too swollen, one should carefully remove all areas of ink which project from the landscape into the sky, and this is also advisable in monochrome work. The best thing to use for this, especially with complicated outlines, is a water-color brush dipped in two per cent solution of ammonia, which easily removes the obtrusive ink from the gelatine. Larger areas should be carefully rubbed with a point of wet linen or with the finger tip wrapped in a wet cloth. In this way the highly swollen parts of the gelatine are completely freed from ink; then the print should be dried and the sky inked up as desired in the manner described above.
The method of applying the ink to the dry film is valuable for obtaining other effects, as is more fully described in the next chapter, on bromoil transfer.
In bromoil, photographic printing has been enriched by a process that can fulfil every wish of the photographer who is striving for artistic results. It combines in itself all the advantages of previously known processes, but surpasses them all in the possibility of general and local control, and especially in the fact that control can be effected at will at any desired step of the process from the beginning to the end, that it need not extend over the whole print but may be limited to particular parts, and that the results of the control are visible immediately, during the work. Not the least important, however, is the fact that the flexibility of the process enables one to immediately repair any error without impairment of the print. When it is further considered that the bromoil process is independent of the size of the negative, that it permits the operator to use any support, any structure, any grain and any color, we should be warranted in saying that the bromoil process is the process of the future for amateurs striving for artistic results.
CHAPTER V
TRANSFER METHODS
Simple transfer.—Bromoil prints, which have been inked up but not defatted, can be effectively used as print-plates, from which pulls on any desired plain paper can be taken. The process of making such transfers is simple and certain and opens a whole series of new possibilities to the amateur. Briefly the method is as follows:
The greasy ink on a finished bromoil print lies on a gelatine film. If the inked print is brought into contact with any uncoated paper and passed between two rolls under pressure, the ink transfers from the bromoil print to the paper. Obviously the picture thus produced is laterally reversed, which must be kept in view in preparing bromoil prints for transfer. Bromide enlargements to be used for transfer should, therefore, be made reversed.
The bromoil print can again be inked up after this process and again used for transfer; with bromide papers with resistant gelatine films this process may be repeated many times.
The advantages which bromoil transfer offers are as follows: in the first place we attain the end so often sought of being able to use any suitable paper for making photographic prints, which opens a new field for artistic endeavor. Obviously, also, any desirable oil-printing ink can be used, so that the whole gamut of colors is at the command of the operator.