Books on Colour.
Assistants who mean to make photography their profession should look into the question of colour, as pictorial art of the future will be intimately concerned in the study; some authorities-particularly those connected with the vast textile industry declare the future is bound up with it. Students of painting are bidden to study nature secrets, but students of photography will find the scientific side profitable and to their liking. Since 1835 over sixty books have been written, a fourth of that number being published in London, a fifth in New York. The Americans, by their productions of the last ten years, promise to surpass us on all points – by numbers, high prices they command, complete range of subject, interest, and research. As all books of recent yean seem to be written round Rood's "Modern Chromatics,” students will do well to commence with that treatise, as it contains valuable information, clearly written, well illustrated with woodcuts and diagrams, but unfortunately has no colour plates to assist the text. This book having passed through many editions, a clean secondhand copy is more often seen than any other, and is worth looking out for.- BURLINGTON
A Reliable and Permanent Method of Intensification
Many photographers would be glad to banish mercury from their dark-rooms if they could find a satisfactory substitute for it. Those who use the mercury intensifier know that they cannot depend upon the negative being any use in a year or so, and, although they have tried the chromium method, the danger of yellow stains has caused them to go back to the old process again.
With papers of the "Cyko" class it is essential that the negative should be free from all stain, or the time of printing will be unduly prolonged. The following method of intensification has been in use in a well-known North-Country studio for some considerable time, and may, be depended upon to be stainless action and to give an absolutely permanent result.
Make up lour solutions: - Water
A. Potass. bichromate ………………………150 grains 10 ozs.
B. Potass. bromide ……………………………400 grains 10 ozs.
C. Hydrochloric acid (pure) ………………200 drops 10 ozs.
D. Potass. metabisulphite …………………2 ozs. 10 ozs.
For use, take equal parts of A, B, and C. Blench and immerse (after a brief rinse under the Up) in D solution until the yellow lain is completely destroyed. The negative is then re-developed in any non-staining developer without bromide, Azol or a paramidophenol mixture being especially suitable.
The method is equal to mercury in every way, with the additional advantages of being permanent, and that it is not necessary to eliminate all the hypo in the film previous to bleaching.
Bay pure chemicals, mix in the proper proportions, and use as directed above, and you cannot fail to get good results. - J. M.
Advertising by Airbrush.
As American soldier, by trade a sign-writer, was recently making comparisons between this country and his own on questions of advertising, and. although we pointed out that the war had stopped experts here as well, he pointed out the difference between the stylish window tickets of City tailors, shaded in colours by the air-brash, with the old-fashioned printed silver letters on black in a studio showcase, and he could see no evidence that we had ever made nee of striking designs and methods as are tried in America. He criticized photographers, and guessed that the majority tad an artist and an airbrush on the premises, and yet they do not make use of the instrument at all for stenciling through and shading round a design, or even a little ground tint to letters calling attention to the studio's particular style, or inventing an attractive price-list panel for the window. American schools, such as the Detroit School of Lettering, use the airbrush largely for advertisement purposes, believing in colour and design as u means of arresting the eye. - BURLINGTON
