IMPROVEMENTS IN COLORING PHOTOGRAPHIC PICTURES
Year: 1858

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to George Baxter, of Northampton Square, in the
County of Middlesex, for the Invention of "IMPROVEMENTS IN COLORING
PHOTOGRAPHIC PICTURES."
Sealed the 12th April 1859, and dated the 14th October 1858.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said George Baxter at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 14th
October 1858.
I, GEORGE BAXTER, of Northampton Square, in the County of Middlesex,
do hereby declare the nature of the Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN COLORING
PHOTOGRAPHIC PICTURES," to be as follows:-
This Invention has for its object improvements in coloring photographic
pictures, and consists in combining with photographic pictures the processes of
intaglio, plate, and surface printing, and also the processes of lithographic and
zincographic printing as a means of coloring such photographic pictures. For
these purposes as many printing plates, blocks, or surfaces are prepared as
there are intended to be colors or shades of colors printed on a photographic
picture, each printing block, plate, or surface being prepared in a suitable
manner to print a portion of the picture with its particular colour or shade of
color, so that when impressions have been taken from all the printing blocks,
plates, or surfaces on to a photographic picture, the same will be colored all
over, or to the extent desired. The colors employed may be such as are now
ordinarily used in the above-mentioned processes of printing.

page_text: SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent, filed
by the said George Baxter in the Great Seal Patent Office on the 14th
April 1859.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, GEORGE
BAXTER, of Northampton Square, in the County of Middlesex, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her Letters
Patent, bearing date the Fourteenth day of October, in the year of our Lord
One thousand eight hundred and fifty-eight, in the twenty-second year
of Her reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and grant
unto me, the said George Baxter, Her special licence that I, the said
George Baxter, my executors, administrators, and assigns, or such others as
I, the said George Baxter, my executors, administrators, and assigns, should
at any time agree with, and no others, from time to time and at all times
thereafter during the term therein expressed, should and lawfully might make,
use, exercise, and vend, within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and
Ireland, the Channel Islands, and Isle of Man, an Invention for "IMPROVE-
MENTS IN COLORING PHOTOGRAPHIC PICTURES," upon the condition (amongst
others) that I, the said George Baxter, my executors or administrators, by an
instrument in writing under my, or their, or one of their hands and seals,
should particularly describe and ascertain the nature of the said Invention,
and in what manner the same was to be performed, and cause the same to
be filed in the Great Seal Patent Office within six calendar months next and
immediately after the date of the said Letters Patent.
NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said George Baxter, do hereby declare the
nature of the said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be per-
formed, to be particularly described and ascertained in and by the following
statement thereof, that is to say :-
This Invention has for its object improvements in coloring photographic
pictures, and consists in combining with photographic pictures the processes of
intaglio, plate, and surface printing, and also the processes of lithographic and
zincographic printing as a means of coloring such photographic pictures. For
these purposes as many printing plates, blocks, or surfaces are prepared as
there are intended to be colors or shades of colors printed on a photographic
picture, each printing block, plate, or surface being prepared in a suitable
manner to print a portion of the picture with its particular color or shade of
color, so that when impressions have been taken from all the printing blocks,
plates, or surfaces on to a photographic picture, the same will be colored all

page_text: over, or to the extent desired. The colors employed may be such as are now
ordinarily used in the above-mentioned processes of printing.
And in order that my said Invention may be most fully understood and
readily carried into effect, I will proceed to describe the method in which I
prefer to conduct the process.
If it be desired to color photographic pictures by means of wood blocks, I
first make a series of dots along each side of the negative picture, allowing at
least two dots for cach block to be employed in coloring the positive pictures.
I then take from the negative photograph on to ordinary lithographic transfer
paper as many positive pictures as it is desired to use blocks in coloring, and I
then mark or draw on each of these pictures the parts which are to be printed
by one of the blocks, and with one of the colors to be employed. This marking
or drawing I perform by applying to the pictures by means of a camel hair or
sable brush a composition of vermillion, mastic, varnish, and turpentine, reduced
to the consistency of oil paint. In some cases, in place of printing these pho-
tographs on transfer paper, I print them on the common photograph paper,
and give them a coating of gum before marking or drawing them, as above
described.
The surfaces of the wood blocks to be employed are prepared by coating
them by means of a printer's roller with a composition of flake white and
gold size; when this coating is perfectly dry and hard, a thin surface of
transfer varnish is applied to the block in a similar manner, and one of the
pictures marked or drawn, as before described, is laid on the block, and the
marking or drawing transferred to its surface by pressure in a common printing
press such as usually employed for printing woodcuts. The block is left with
the paper upon it until the transfer varnish hardens, and then the paper is
washed off with muriatic or other acid diluted with a little water applied by
means of a sponge, the marking or drawing remaining on the block.
The marked blocks obtained in this manner are engraved by hand in the
usual manner, the parts of the blocks which are not marked being cut away.
In employing the engraved blocks for coloring photographic pictures taken
from the original negative, they are worked in a press such as is usually.
employed in printing woodcuts, and each with its appropriate color, and the
photographic pictures to be printed are prepared for the purpose of obtaining
register by puncturing each edge with a series of boles made by means of
sharp point holes being made exactly at the points indicated on the picture by
the marks produced by the dots made on the negative. Two register points
are fixed in the tympan of the press at a suitable distance apart, and one of

page_text: the photographic pictures is placed on the tympan, the register points entering
two of the holes in the picture one on each side; the block is then adjusted in
its position on the bed, so that it may print on to the picture just in the
required position.
When this adjustment is effected, as many pictures as it is desired to color
are printed by the block, care being taken in laying them on the press to cause
the register points to pass through the holes in each picture corresponding
with those through which the register points pass in the trial picture, or
picture by which the register was obtained.
Other methods of obtaining register may be adopted, but the system above
described is that which I prefer more especially for the best description of
work. In a similar manner the pictures are printed in succession from all the
other blocks until the pictures are completely colored, but I avoid using the
register holes more than once, as they are liable to become enlarged by the
first use, and if again used inaccuracy of register might result. In some cases
I employ metal in place of wood blocks, the metal which I prefer being that
ordinarily used in casting stereotype plates.
To color photographic pictures by means of intaglio engraved plates, I
proceed in the following manner :-I take one of the photographic pictures
such as it is desired to color, and I make from it a series of tracings, one for
each color; these tracings are made usually with a black lead pencil, and each
tracing has marked on it all the parts which are to receive the tint with
which the tracing corresponds. Each tracing also has two dots made on
it corresponding with two of the dots on the sides of the photographic picture.
The tracings being thus prepared, they are transferred on to a series of copper
or other plates covered in the ordinary manner with etching grounds or other-
wise, the transferring being effected by passing the plate and tracing together
between rollers in the usual manner of transferring on to metal plates in
copper-plate printing. The plates are then engraved at the parts marked by
the transfer tracing with fine lines or dots which in printing serve to hold the
color, or such portions of the surface of the plate are covered by any other
description of work usually employed by copper or other plate engravers
according to the taste of the artist, and the register dots are by the graving
tool marked on the surface of the plates. Afterwards where these dots appear
points are let into the surfaces of the plates, and they are arranged to come
flush with the general surface of the plate, and to be surrounded with
indentations extending a short distance around them. In printing, the pictures
are laid on the plates by causing the points to enter the corresponding holes in

page_text: the edges of the picture, and the points in the successive plates are so
arranged that the register holes are each used but once only. The printing is
conducted in the ordinary manner of copper-plate printing.
In order to color photographic pictures by means of lithographic stones or
zinc plates, I proceed by marking or drawing in transfer ink by means of a
brush on a series of photographic pictures printed on lithographic transfer
paper the parts to be colored with each tint, and from such marked pictures I
transfer, in the manner usually adopted by lithographers and zincographers, on
to stones or zinc plates (one for each tint, and with these stones or plates the
pictures are printed in succession until they are completely colored. The
register is obtained by laying on the sheet according to marks or dots made on
the stones or plates, or by other means usually employed in lithographic and
zincographic printing. Or, in place of marking or drawing the tints on to a
series of pictures, and transferring them from these pictures on to a series of
stones or plates, as herein-before described, I make tracings of the photographic
picture, and transfer these on to stones or plates. I then make my drawing
for the different tints on the stones or plates themselves, by which a better
effect can be produced than is attainable by transferring the tints on to the
stone or plates.
In witness whereof, I, the said George Baxter, have hereunto set my
hand and seal, this Fourteenth day of April, in the year of our Lord
One thousand eight hundred and fifty-nine.
Witness,
JNO. ALCOCK.
GEORGE BAXTER. (L.S.)