1174
quarter plate and half plate negatives with an exposure
of about forty-fi ve minutes. The camera used a mirror
and condenser lens to focus sunlight on to the negative,
the image being projected on to the paper via a copy
lens. Patented improvements to the solar enlarger, in the
1860s and 1870s saw it equipped with a heliostat—a
clockwork motor to rotate the mirror—thus ensuring that
the light beam remained concentrated on the condenser
lens throughout the exposure.
A modifi cation of Woodward’s design, introduced
in 1864 by Desiré Charles Emanuel van Monckhoven,
was the fi rst instrument to really look like an enlarger.
Fitted into the wall of the darkroom, it gathered light
in the same way as Woodward’s apparatus, but used a
more complex lens assembly to correct for spherical
aberration and thus produce a sharper more evenly il-
luminated print.
The enlarger, faster printing emulsions, improved
processing chemistry and brighter light sources revolu-
tionised the production of prints by the 1890s.
By that time, though, the higher and higher quality
and sharpness of the print had prompted some image-
makers to revisit the impressionistic quality of the pa-
per negative and salt print, and also to invent, explore
and develop alternative readings of the positive image
through ink, gum, platinum, carbon and other printing
processes. Together, they offered photographers a huge
diversity of means of expression by the century’s end.
John Hannavy
See also: Salted Paper Print; Albumen Print;
Developing; Enlarging and Reducing; and
Permanency and Impermanency.
Further Reading
Hunt, Robert, A Manual of Photography, London: Richard Griffi n
and Company, 1857.
Tissandier, Gaston (translated by John Thomson), History and
Handbook of Photography, London: Sampson, Low, Mar-
ston, Searle & Rivington, 1878, reprinted New York: Arno
Press, 1973.
Sparling, W. The Theory and Practice of the Photographic Art,
London: Houlston and Stoneman; Wm S. Orr and Co, 1856.
Van Monckhoven, Desiré, Photographic Optics, London: Robert
Hardwicke, 1867, reprinted New York, Arno Press, 1979.
Wall, E.J., Dictionary of Photography, London: Hazel, Watson
& Viney, 1897.
Blanquart-Évrard, Louis-Désiré, Procédés employés pour obtenir
les épreuves de photographie sur papier, présentés à l’Aca-
démie des sciences. Paris: C. Chevalier, 1847.
Crawford, William. The Keepers of Light, New York: Morgan
& Morgan, 1979.
Hardwich, T. Frederick. A Manual of Photographic Chemistry,
London: John Churchill, 1855.
Jones, Bernard E, Encyclopedia of Photography, London: Cassell,
- Reprinted New York: Arno Press, 1974.
Blanquart-Évrard, Louis-Désiré, Traité de photographie sur
papier. Paris: Librairie encyclopédique Roret, 1851.
Reilly, James M., The Albumen and Salted Paper Book: The
History and Practice of Photographic Printing, 1840–1895,
Rochester, NY: Light Impressions, 1980.PRINTING-OUT PAPER
While the idea of printing-out paper is as old as pho-
tography itself, such products remain available today,
meeting the needs of a small specialist market where
the unique characteristics of such papers are still sought
after. Today’s papers, based on gelatine-silver chloride
technology, can trace their lineage back to the 1880s,
but the fi rst printing-out papers were used by Fox Talbot
in the 1830s.
The term, ‘Printing-Out Paper,’ and its abbreviated
form P.O.P. date only from the early 1890s, when Ilford
Ltd in England coined the phrase and introduced it as
a trade name for their silver chloride paper, but it has
since been applied retrospectively to a large group of
printing materials.
The essential and defi ning characteristic of a print-
ing-out paper is that the image is produced by the action
of light alone. There is no chemical amplifi cation of
that image by development, the printing going through
the simple stages of exposure, fi xing and washing,
or exposure, toning, fi xing and washing, the latter
sequence resulting in a richer print colour and greater
permanence.
Generally speaking, the earliest printing papers were
of very limited sensitivity, requiring long exposures
in contact with a paper or glass negative. They could
be toned, fi xed and washed in relative well-lit spaces,
and certainly by candlelight. Thus, such prints were
not dependent upon a safe-lit darkroom. Their mod-
ern counterparts, however, require to be treated with
a greater deference if optimum print quality is to be
maintained.
Printing-out papers fall into three categories, two of
which are based on silver halide chemistry. The third
group comprises processes such as cyanotype (qv), us-
ing non-silver-based light sensitive chemistry, where
the exposed print is washed to remove soluble salts
after exposure.
The two major silver-based groups are salted papers
and those papers where the light sensitive chemistry is
held in an emulsion or carrier coated on to the surface
of the paper itself.
Fox Talbot’s salted paper—effectively the same mate-
rial used to make a negative in the photogenic drawing
process—was the fi rst printing process, achieving wide-
spread popularity and almost-universal dominance for
more than a dozen years. Although it could be used as
a developed paper—with exposure times reduced from
hours to seconds—many amateurs and professionals
alike continued to use it without development. There