Graphics Atlas: Guided Tour

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from the group: Platinum

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Pre-photographic

Intaglio

Planographic

Relief

Photomechanical

Collotype

Letterpress

Offset Lithography

Offset Lithograph (Halftone Postcard)

Photogravure

Rotogravure

Woodburytype

Photographic

Albumen

Ambrotype

Bromoil

Bromoil

Bromoil Transfer

Carbon

Carbro

Chromogenic

Collodion POP

Cyanotype

Daguerreotype

Direct Carbon (Fresson)

Dye Imbibition

Gelatin Dry Plate

Gelatin POP

Gum Dichromate

Instant (Diffusion Transfer)

Instant (Dye Diffusion Transfer)

Instant (Internal Dye Diffusion Transfer)

Matte Collodion

Platinum

Salted Paper

Screen Plate

Silver Dye Bleach

Silver Gelatin DOP

Tintype

Wet Plate Collodion

Digital

Electrophotography

Inkjet

Thermal

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Notes on this view:

This is an example of an amateur photograph taken ca. 1900. Notice this domestic scene lacks the sophistication of a studio portrait; there is motion blur and the subject is harshly lit from the right, but the light falls off in the upper right corner. These image characteristics point to an important transition in the popular use of photography and the advent of a new kind of amateur.

With the introduction of gelatin dry plate negatives and flexible film in the late nineteenth century, photography became much simpler and thus appealed to a wider populous. A wide variety of photographic printing papers were commercially available at the turn of the twentieth century, including several varieties of platinum papers. Platinum printing was fairly simple and was exalted as being more artistic and beautiful than other printing processes due to the softness and subtlety of tone it offered. Platinum was also about three times faster than silver chloride printing out papers, and could be printed in diffused light.