If one knows and has mastered the properties of the tanned image produced by the bromoil print, one may easily obtain the same effects as with oil printing; one can, on the other hand, obtain incomparably more than with the latter. No limitation is imposed on artistic aims by the imperfection of the tanned image.
The following shows the practical comparison of the two methods: if we have before us prints with gelatine films which contain tanned images, of which one has been produced by the oil process, the other by bromoil, they behave absolutely alike in the inking-up, for the bromoil print receives, by soaking in cold water, a gradation which is just as short as that of the oil print. The two prints absolutely cannot be differentiated in practice, and are indistinguishable, if the paper, on which the gelatine film is supported, or the structure of the gelatine, does not give one a hint.
In such cases it is impossible to determine from the finished print whether the picture was made by oil or bromoil printing. The portfolios of some of my friends furnish striking proof of this; the authors themselves can no longer recall by which of the two processes some of their earlier pictures were made.
Nevertheless the opinion is often held that one can obtain pictures of much finer artistic quality by means of oil printing, because the prints thus made have a characteristic tonality and better treatment of masses. This opinion may be explained by the fact that oil printing has been used longer and is better known than bromoil, and that first class bromoil prints have not often been exhibited in public until recently. Especially, it has not been widely known how manifold are the effects that can be produced by the different methods of working described in this book.
There is also another explanation. Whoever has completely mastered any process and has kept in view a definite artistic purpose, will as a rule find that the process will give him the results which he desires. It is now an indisputable fact that even such an imperfect process as oil printing has many times, because of this very imperfection, led to results which have been proclaimed as artistic. If for instance, an oil print is made from a contrasty negative, the process cannot correctly reproduce the tone values of the negative. The short gradation sets a limit to the inking-up, before the tone values of the negative are fully developed. The result is then certain to be a gloomy print with heavy masses. Technically, however, this means nothing more than that the high lights are not clean and the shadows lack detail. This does not imply that the resultant picture may not have an artistic effect. The question is only whether this effect was actually tried for or whether necessity was not made a virtue and the imperfections of the process called an advantage. Without question, the worker who intentionally strives for a given artistic effect can attain this easily and certainly by means of bromoil. If, however, he has no definite aim, but allows himself to be blindly driven on, as it were, by the idiosyncrasies of the process, it may happen that he will obtain quite another result. The greater gradation of the bromide print may induce him to keep on working on the picture until he finally obtains a print, which exactly corresponds in tone values with the gradation of his contrasty negative, which could not happen with the oil print. In such cases one often hears the opinion expressed that the special quality of the oil print cannot be attained in bromoil, and that a similar result could be obtained by any process, even printing-out paper. But the fault does not lie in the bromoil process, but in the fact that the worker has not mastered it, and has been carried beyond his aim by its greater possibilities. Oil printing is satisfactory when one desires a shorter gradation than is present in the negative; beyond this, however, it fails. Bromoil printing, on the contrary, permits on the one hand the shortening of the tone gradations of the negative to any desired extent, on the other hand, however, the extension of the gradation beyond that of the negative. It offers, therefore, to the artistic aspirant a far greater liberty and in every respect a technically more perfect and therefore more effective instrument. By bromoil printing, therefore, one can prepare at will from a given negative, either a low-toned picture without detail, or one richly modeled and full of detail and vigor. Oil printing does not offer this alternative.
If, in spite of all this, erroneous ideas as to assumed fundamental differences between oil and bromoil printing, and particularly as the special suitability of oil printing for certain effects are still disseminated, the reason usually lies in the fact that many who have previously worked in oil have drawn erroneous general conclusions from their first and naturally imperfect results in bromoil printing. They overlook the fact that even the worker experienced in oil printing must first learn bromoil printing and then practice it thoroughly in order to master it. The oil printer does not bring to it anything beyond a brush technique, which is not sufficient for every bromoil print. Everything else must be newly acquired; especially an actual mastery of the technique of bromide printing, which many lack, though they believe they possess it. Conservative thought easily overvalues its own possessions and is likely to show itself somewhat antagonistic to new accomplishments which cost new efforts. The worker who spares no trouble to make himself a thorough master of bromoil printing will be in possession of a technique which renders feasible, by its extraordinary many-sidedness and capacity of expression, the solution of the most difficult problems of artistic photography.
CHAPTER VII
BROMOIL TRANSFER
By Eugen Guttmann
The idea of transferring a bromoil print to an ordinary, uncoated paper was first introduced by the English and later further worked out by the French. The Germans turned to this new process comparatively late, but obtained fine results. Yet the practice of this beautiful form of artistic photography was limited to a small circle of adherents, and even to-day, when bromoil printing, thanks to the instruction of some excellent textbooks, has become known to almost all artistic workers, one cannot state that it enjoys wide popularity. This may well come from the fact that not everyone has the absolutely necessary printing machine, and that the substitutes for this machine, such as burnishers and washing mangles, cannot bring out all that lies in the process. In addition, when the process was first introduced, the transfers were never strong enough, and were mostly muddy and flat. This happened because, in the first years of the process, strong and vigorous shadows were not produced on the paper. The English and French improved this by pigmenting the shadows of the bromoil print much more strongly than was needed for this process. They stated that the chromated film took the ink very readily in the shadows, but parted with it again very unwillingly. Thence they concluded that, in order to be able to transfer much ink to the paper, a surplus of ink must be imparted to the shadows; they thus corrected the tone values by deepening the shadows, and contended that they produced their beautiful transfers in this way. I have never seen an English transfer, but plenty of the French, which were said to have been prepared in this way. From my own experiments extending over a long period, I doubt whether the depth in the shadows could be attained in this way, and can only assume that very important particulars have not been made known in the excellent publications on this process. A simple reasoning, without any trial, also leads to the same conclusion. If, for instance, I overink the shadows by imparting to them more ink than the tone values require, then I smother all the details in them and in the transfer I shall obtain a black, absolutely detailless patch. The English and French contend, however, that all details, which are made invisible by overinking the bromoil print, become visible again in the transfer. They thus explain the matter approximately as if we were dealing with a carbon print, in which the whole film is “reversed” during the development. This is absurd. A moderate overinking will obviously give better shadows, but this limitation is of no advantage.