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'Forgotten' processes

These are some of the 'forgotten' processes. By that we mean that no one is working and producing new images in this process - at least we haven't found anyone. But we would be very happy to be proven wrong!

If you are an artist working in these processes, or an historian itching to tell us more about one of these, or about one not listed here, please email us:

We are very interested in more information about this - titbits or thesises, anything you want to share!

Abration tone

William Mortensen's abrasion tone has much in common with other forgotten processes in that the materials needed are no longer as common as they once were, especially projection papers such as the former Eastman Kodak Projection Proof. This had a surface that accepted razor blade etching, pencil work and pumice work. It was also great for oils, I worked out a simple version of mediobrome that I was pleased with.

- comment from Norm

Ambrotype

Another name (used mainly in USA) for the wet collodion process or the same process as tintype and ferro type but on different supports (glass instead of tinplate). We have some artists in the gallery working in this process, and a collodion recipe.

Amphitype

Part of the Siderotype family. Siderotypes are processes using iron.

Argentotype

Invented by Sir John Herschel, like many other processes. Iron salts (ferric citrate) are used to precipitate silver under the influence of UV-light. The print is developed in silver nitrate. This process was later modified to become what is now the more known Kallitype and Vandyke process.

Atrephograph

The Atrephograph was invented by James M. Letts.

Aurotype

Part of the Siderotype family. Siderotypes are processes using iron.

Autochrome

1904 in France. Auguste and Louis Luminere inveted the Autochrome process. A glass plate was dusted with microscopic grains of potato startch that had been dyed red-orange, green and blue-violet. Any spaces were then filled in with a powder of black carbon. A panchromatic emulsion was then applied to the plate. The plate then exposed and developed, exposed, developed, exposed and re-developed again, forming a postitive transparency. In the 30s more sophisticated film became available and the Autochrome process died out.

Breath print

Part of the Siderotype family. Siderotypes are processes using iron.

Brown line

Part of the Siderotype family. Siderotypes are processes using iron.

Calotype

Introduced in 1841 by Fox Talbot and used for about 10 years after. A weak salt solution was used, the paper dried, then brushed with a weak silver nitrate solution. This made a silver chloride on the paper and was light sensitive. The final image was fixed using a salt solution called potassium iodide of hypo.

Casein pigment

This is quite different from caseine bichromate, which is like gum. There is a reference to "Caseine Pigment Printing" in Cassell's Cyclopaedia of Photography. Here is the text of the entry:
"A process patented by the Neue Photographische Gesellschaft, in 1908, for obtaining prints in caseine and pigment from bromide or other silver prints.
The caseine is employed either in the form of "curd," or in an acid or alkaline solution. In a typical formula, 2,200 grs. of pressed-out curds and 440 to 520 grs. of water-colour are ground together, the mixture being brushed over the bromide print and allowed to dry. The print is then immersed for ten to fifteen minutes in:

• Potassium bichromate - 9 g.
• Potassium ferricyanide - 9 g.
• Potassium bromide - 9 g.
• water to make 1,000 ccs.

This has the effect of rendering the pigment-incorporated caseine insoluble at those parts where the silver image is present, the action varying in degree according to the depth or gradation of the latter. The picture may therefore be developed in water at from 105? to 125? F. (41? to 51? C.), after the fashion of a carbon print, a little potassium oxalate or sodium bicarbonate being added to ensure clearness of the lights. The original black silver image fades to a faint brown during treatment, and is practically invisible under the final pigmented picture."
I have been trying to make this process work, with only minimal success thus far, but I think it may have useful applications for giving a pigment finish to salted paper or Vandyke prints.

- a contribution by Ed Buffaloe

Catalisotype

This process used hydrochloric acid, syrup of ioduret of iron, iodine and nitrate of silver.

Chlorophyll prints

Binh Dahns photosynthesis process. Binh says:
One summer, I was motivated to experiment with photosynthesis and its pigments after watching the lawn change color due to a water hose that was placed on it. Soon after that observation, I was making chlorophyll prints. Photosynthesis takes place in plants as carbon dioxide, water, and light energy is converted to sugars and oxygen. Photosynthesis is the main route by which free energy in the environment is made available to the living world. In my work, photosynthesis is used to record images onto leaves. The leaves are then cast in resin, like biological samples for scientific studies. The images were made into negatives. Then exposed onto living leaves, by placing the negatives onto the leaf, and placing that into a contact printing frame. The image formation was all due to chlorophyll, light, carbon dioxide, and water: the life source of plants and, consequently the Earth. This process deals with the idea of elemental transmigration: the decomposition and composition of matter into other forms.

Chromotype

Coat paper with a sulphate of copper and bichromate of potash solution and expse it to sunshine, then apply a solution of silver nitrate.

Cyanotype Rex

Terry King and Michael Maunder have done some experiments with Cyanotypes, going back to it's source. Reading the original paper Writer / Sir John Herschel in 1842 - available at the Royal Society in London - lead to a "retro-invention" of the cyanotype process. King calls this invention "Cyanotype Rex" and Maunder's take on the process is called "Herschelotype". According to an article in View Camera, November 2005, the Cyanotype Rex has much shorter exposure times than the other recipes and tones well.

Daguerrotype

A complex and demanding process, taking about an hour to complete. Timing was essential.

• A copper plate with silver was cleaned.
• The plate was sensitised in a box with iodine, where the vapour of the chemical reacted with the surface of the plate and formed silver iodine, which is light sensitive.
• The plate was exposed in sunlight for about 20 minutes.
• The image was developed using mercury vapour.
• The image was fixed with sodium thiosulphate, or more commonly 'hypo'.

Dry plates

Invented by Richard Leach Maddox, in 1871. We have a recipe for this, but no artists yet.

Ferro-gallic process

1861 Alphonse Louis Poitevin, french chemist. Found the reduction and conversion of ferric salts to a ferrous state when exposed to UV-light. A graphic technique, producing very black images. Gum arabic + water + ferric chloride + ferric sulphate + tartaric acid. The mix is applied, dried and contact printed in UV-light, then developed in gallic acid, potash alum and hydrochroric acid, washed and dried.

Ferro-tannic process

Iron salts (ferrous sulfate) turn black when exposed to tannic acid, potassium dichromate and water mixed, paper was coated and dried, then exposed in contact frame and washed. Toned in tannic acid to create a black print.

Ferrotype

Originally called Energiatype. The process uses proto-sulphate of iron as a reducing agent. Same as Tintype. See wetplate collodion gallery and recipe.

Fluorotype

Paper is washed with bromide of potassium and with fluate of soda.

Herschelotype

A variation on Cyanotype Rex by Michael Maunder.

Ivorytype / Hellenotype

A picture produced by superposing a very light print, rendered translucent by varnish, and tinted upon the back, upon a stronger print, so as to give the effect of a photograph in natural colors.

Kelaenotype

Part of the Siderotype family. Siderotypes are processes using iron.

Kwik-Print

Kwik-Print was a late-'70s technique involving coating a plastic
receptor sheet with light-sensitive dyes. You washed off the unexposed areas and could re-coat the sheet with another color. Bea Nettles was its most renowned practitioner and she has published Breaking the Rules: A Photo Media Cookbook. Tom says: "I'm sure Kwik-Print is long gone but I had fun with it".

- contributed by Tom Nelson

Nakahara's process

Part of the Siderotype family. Siderotypes are processes using iron.

Orotones

Traditionally called orotones, goldtones, or Curt-tones, the images would have been made by printing a positive image onto a sheet of glass coated with a photosensitive emulsion. The image on the glass was then backed with a mixture of banana oils and gold bronzing powder.
23.5K gold powder is what I’ve added in exchange of the bronzing powder. The process of coating glass sheets with photographic emulsion, printing and processing the image and coating it with gold, is all done by hand.
Edward Curtis, photographer of the American Indians and one who perfected the orotone (he called them Curt-Tones), is quoted as saying this of the process:
"The Ordinary Photographic print, however good, lacks depth and transparency, or more strictly speaking, Translucency. We all know how beautiful are the stones and pebbles in the limpid brook of the forest. Where the water absorbs the blue of the sky and the green of the foliage, yet when we take the same iridescent pebbles from the water and dry them they are dull and lifeless, so it is with the ordinary photographic print, but in the Curt-Tones (orotone) all the transparency is retained and they are full of life and sparkle as an opal."

- contributed by Ryan Zoghlin, photograph by Ryan Zoghlin

Pellet print

Part of the Siderotype family. Siderotypes are processes using iron.

Phipson's process

Part of the Siderotype family. Siderotypes are processes using iron.

Photoceramics

From Harry L Burnett Jr:
I have been working with photoceramics since mid 1950s. My first efforts were with toned wet collodion positives. Later I worked with light sensitive diazo compounds for a while. After retirement, I began to work with the dichromate dust-on process. This was productive and very informative. Images could be produced that held exqusite detail and were probably as permanent as any continous tone print process ever discovered, very time consuming and difficult to achieve consistant results. About 2-3 years ago I began an odyssey with digital printing hoping to make film positives that would give me better control of the dust-on process. I mixed digital inks that were useful and it evolved into a simple useful photoceramic process.

I am now able to digitally fuse metallic oxide images onto ceramic substraits at 1250 degrees F. with a resolution of 2880x720 spots per inch in monochrome colors.

Pizzitype

Captain Giuseppe Pizzighelli's (1849-1912) Pizzitype paper (similar to Ziatype) was manufactured a short time and a commercial success until technical problems stopped the production.

Platinograph

Another name for, and the same as, the Kallitype process.

Polychrome

Another name for, and the same as, the Kallitype process.

Pontontype

Mongo Ponton (1801-1880), Scottish inventor. 1839 discovered that postassium bichromate was sensitive to light. He called his discovery Pontontype. A handome print that unfortunately faded with few months. But, this discovery was the beginning of gum bichromates! Thank you Ponton!

Rawlins process

From Philippe Berger:

G.E.H. Rawlins invented in 1904 a process by which a layer of bichromated gelatine was exposed to light under a negative.
The tanning of the gelatine is in direct proportion to the transparency of the negative. Shadow areas are strongly tanned, mid-tones less so and highlights are not tanned at all.

After development it is washed to produce an image with a very subtle relief. Using oily pigments, either in monochrome or colour, the original image is then restored by hand. The ink is absorbed by the tanned part of the image but is repelled by the water held in the soft, untanned areas.

This inking process with a brush is the adaptation of Rawlins at this process.

Philippe has also written a book on the process Le Procédé Rawlins à l’Huile, in french. More details of this book can be found on Philippe's website.

Satista

Another name for, and the same as, the Kallitype process.

Satista is an economical hybrid of platinum and silver. This process was created when the price of platinum was high.
It's an economic way to produce images which look like platinum and are in between silver and platinum.Some people think that some of Stieglitz prints named platinum were Satista prints. We currently have some artists working in this process.

- comment from Ayral Philippe

Sensitol

Another name for, and the same as, the Kallitype process.

Sepiatype

Part of the Siderotype family. Siderotypes are processes using iron.

Siderotype

Siderotype covers all the iron-based processes - cyanotype, platinotype, chrysotype, etc. - it was used first by Herschel and comes from the Greek root word 'sideros', meaning 'iron'. Siderotype therefor means any 'iron-type' print.

Soline

Another name for, and the same as, the Kallitype process.

Sphereotypes

Sphereotypes is a process patented (US patent #14,696 I believe) by Albert Bisbee in 1856. It was essentially a positive collodion image on glass that was exposed through a spherical mask - hence the name sphereotype - which was the same size as the mount that was to enclose it or case it was to be put into.

Talbotype

See 'Calotype'.

Woodburytype

WB Woodbury (1834-85) invented this process, claiming it would not fade. Successfully. The do not fade, because the images do not rely on light-sensitive materials, but are made up of a stable pigment suspended in gelatine.