Develop slowly, and do not let an ounce of water flow over the film without a definite intention calculated to produce a definite effect. If hot water does not reduce the heaviest shadows use a very soft, flat sable brush, but not until the print is completely developed in other parts—then work care fully, and bear in mind that the deepest blacks are the foundation of your picture, and that should they be over-reduced the whole balance of the composition will be upset. Do not imagine that after having successfully (from a technical point of view) developed a gum-bichromate print you have got all that you can get out of the negative; print another proof and yet another—try different exposures, modify the temperature of your bath, change the scheme of tone, use another batch of paper coated with a mix ture of different proportions, and you will be astonished at the variety of effects thus obtained—each one, though quite different from the others, being able to give a true and pleasing impression if the relative values have been kept in harmony in the various schemes of tones adopted.
Failures may be divided into four classes : 1. The coating is completely washed away in a few minutes or after being successfully developed, seems to lose all cohesion and instead of drying, melts and spreads, ruining the print absolutely—cause, under exposure.
2. The coating is absolutely insoluble or only a trace of image is visible—over-exposure.
3. Development proceeds normally hut the whites are stained or marked with granular spots of color.—(1st case) color-stained whites, cause: excess of liquid, Bichromate or water in the sensitive mixture. (2nd case), granular deposit, cause: excess of pigment.
4. The coating, on developing, breaks into scales. Cause: extra thick film to which extra exposure has not been given. We must not forget
that the time of exposure is regulated not only by the color and the density of the negative and the amount of actinic light, but also by the degree of thickness of the coating. A thick coating will always produce scaly devel opment when the same exposure has been given as if the coating was of normal thickness.
Gum-bichromate prints may be dried before a fire or over a gas stove, if the color does not exhibit any symptoms of spreading. If it is in the least tender, accelerate evaporation by fanning. As a rule, however, I prefer to let the print dry naturally, for many successful alterations in value can be made when the coating has thickened somewhat and is less delicate under the brush.
The prints when quite dry must be passed for a few minutes in a clearing bath of water and bi-sulphite of soda (t to eliminate the last traces of Bichromate.
Is it useless to add, before finishing, that we do not consider a photo graphic print to be beautiful simply because it is printed by the gum bichromate method. We like the process and we are doing our utmost to popularize it, only because it allows of p.-,reat control over tones and values and because in the hands of men who have acquired and cultivated artistic vision it can give an astonishing range of varied effects. The opening paragraph of this article may have seemed paradoxical to the reader at first sight; if he has gone through the whole of it he will acknowledge that success in the technical part of the process lies solely in the manu facturing of a sheet of coated paper, the coating of which is able to disappear in certain parts only under the action of washing or friction, while other parts retain their color. This paper will give us an image, but it is the artist who will "do the rest". He will make the picture.