Early Work In Photography
A Text-book For Beginners

12 Early Work in Photography. of prints in it. Using an old fixing bath is a fruitful cause of stains and yellowness in photographic prints. It is advisable-to give the prints at least ten changes ot water, wasliing them for about six minutes after each change; they may then be mounted on cardboard or laid, face up- wards, on blotting paper to dry. On no account attempt to dry them by heat, or the gelatine surface will melt and the picture be spoilt. If prints are to be mounted it is best to trim* them before ____________________________ wetting them at all. There A/AML) are many devices for this 2purpose, and some of them are very ingenious, but the Trömming Knife,____________simplest plan is to put the print, face up, on a piece of glass, apply a straight-edge firmly along the part of the ma gin to be removed and then cut it off by means of an ordinary pocket knife. If any difficulty exists in securing true angles—and bad trimming is very objectionable—there are several trimming boards in the market that render untrue trimming almost impossible. One of these is a sheet of plate glass ruled with lines at right angles, and another is an arrangement with a plate glass bed and two graduated edges, at right angles, which lock over the print and hold it firmly while it is being trimmed. Both of these appliances are very useful to a photographer, but are not absolutely essential. Mounting the photograms is an easy operation when pro- perly understood, but very messy if not done in the right manner. The best way is to take the prints from the last washing water and put them face down on a piece of clean wet glass —first one, and then another on the top of it, and then another, and so on, until all are in a neat pile on the glass. Then rest the glass on a perfectly flat table, cover the heap of prints with four or five folds of clean blotting paper and then roll a round ruler (or a glass bottle) firmly over the top so as to press out the superfluous moisture. Quite a decided pressure is necessary to do this, if there are more than a dozen prints in the pile, and that is the reason why the glass must be laid upon a perfectly flat surface to avoid breakage. There are several other methods for driving out the water, one of which is the squeegee—a narrow strip of rubber mounted in wood. It is used thus: The prints are covered with a sheet of tough writing, or cartridge, paper, instead of blotting paper; a squeegee is then grasped in the right hand See Glossary.