Photographic Reproduction Processes

by Peter C. Duchochois

Printing.—The process we describe yields negative impressions, that is a positive image from a negative cliché, and a negative image from a positive cliché, exactly as the silver printing-out process ordinarily employed in photography. Consequently, for the production of non-reversed proofs from plans, etc., the original drawing should be placed face downwards on the glass plate of the printing frame, and, upon the back, the sensitive paper is laid and pressed into perfect contact by means of a pad, felt or thick cloth.

The printing frame is that used by photographers. The lid is divided, according to the side, in two, three and even four sections, held by hinges and fastened for printing by as many cross-bars, in order that by opening one section, from time to time, the operator can follow the progressive changes resulting from the action of light on the iron salts. To print, the frame should be placed in the light in such a manner as the luminous rays fall perpendicularly upon the drawing or cliché. The reason of this is obvious, since the sensitive paper is not in direct [pg 33] contact with the design, but separated by the material upon which it is drawn.

During the insolation—whose time depends necessarily from the more or less transparency of the cliché, and, also, from the intensity of the light[7]—the paper assumes first a violet tint, which gradually intensifies to a dark shade; then this tint fades, becomes brownish, then pale lilac, while the parts under the lines—that is, the design—upon which the light has, therefore, no action, are visible by keeping the original yellow-green tint of the prepared paper. It is when the lilac color is produced that the exposure is sufficient.

To ascertain when the exposure is correct, a few black lines can be traced on one of the edges of the margin of the design, and strips of the sensitive paper placed upon them to serve as tests in operating, as it will be explained in the description of the Cyanofer process. When one of them is taken out and show, by being washed in water, a clear white line on a deep blue ground, the exposure is at an end. One understands that the blue color of the ground is more or less intense according to time of insolation, for the chemical actions between the reduced and the non-reduced iron salts is so much more complete as the salts acted on are more or less deoxidized, that is, reduced to ferrous salts; and that to obtain the maximum of effect, which, therefore, depends on the allowable time of exposure, the drawing ink should be opaque and non-actinic as far as possible, because when, on testing, the lines are tinted the exposure should be discontinued. However, a slight coloration of the lines is not very objectionable, for it disappears by a longer washing after the development.

The image is developed and fixed by washing in water two or three times renewed. The water must be free from calcareous salts; these salts converting the iron into carbonates which impart an ochrey tinge to the proof. Rain water—any water in which no precipitate is thrown down by the addition of a few drops of a weak solution of silver nitrate—may be used with safety.

During the development the ground takes a blue color which rapidly intensifies, while the iron compound, not acted on and imparting a yellow green tint to the design, is washed out from the white paper. If the print has not been sufficiently exposed the ground remains pale blue, more or less; the reason has been explained. In this case the development should be done quickly, as the blue is always discharged by washing. On the other hand, whenever the whites are tinted by excess of exposure, they can be cleared partly or entirely by a prolonged immersion in water, but the ground is also to some extent lightened.

When the proof is well developed and fixed, that is, when the soluble iron salts are eliminated, the blue color can be brightened by adding to the last but one washing water a small quantity of citric acid, or of potassium bisulphate, or a little of a solution of hypochlorite of lime (bleaching powder).

The action of light in this, as well as in the other photographic processes with metallic salts described in this work, is one of deoxidation, as shown by Herschel. The chemical changes which produce the blue precipitate is quite complicated. It is evident that both the ferric citrate and the ferric cyanate are partly reduced to ferrous salts under the luminous influence, and react in presence of water with the unreduced part of each of these compounds, the ferric citrate with the ferrous cyanate forming Prussian blue (ferric-ferrocyanate), and the ferric cyanate with the ferrous citrate giving rise to Turnbull's blue (ferrous ferricyanate). The blue of the print is consequently a mixture in a certain proportion of the two compounds; and as the color of Prussian blue is quite different from that of Turnbull's, it follows that by varying in a certain measure the percentage of the two ferric salts forming the sensitizing solution, the color of the blue may be varied thereby. Hence the difference in the formulas given by different authors.[8]

The blue color of the image can be changed into black or dark green. But to that purpose the paper should be, although [pg 35] not exactly necessary, well sized as before directed, and sensitized with extra care to prevent the imbibition of the iron solution into the paper. After exposure the proof should necessarily be thoroughly washed to eliminate the soluble iron salts, then immersed for a moment in water acidified with nitric acid, 1:100, and this done and without washing treated by a solution of aqueous ammonia at 2 per 100 of water. In this the blue color disappears, being changed into a red brownish tint, which indicates that the Turnbull's and Prussian blues are transformed, the former into ferroso-ferric hydrate, with formation of ferrocyanate, and the latter into ferric hydrate. It is by the action of tannin (gallotannic acid) on the ferric oxides thus formed that the black is produced, and by that of catechu-tannic acid contained in the extract of catechu that one obtains a dark green, almost black color.

To obtain the black tone it suffices to immerse the proof on its removal from the ammoniacal in a solution of tannin at 5 per 100 of water, and when toned, to wash it in a few changes of water.