IMPROVEMENTS IN THE PRODUCTION or PHOTOGRAPHIC PICTURES PROM NEGATIVES, AND IN THE MEANS EMPLOYED THEREFOR
Year: 1872

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Robert Faulkner at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 5th
June 1872.
I, ROBERT FAULKNER, of No. 46, Kensington Gardens Square, in the
County of Middlesex, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention
for. "IMPROVEMENTS IN THE PRODUCTION or PHOTOGRAPHIC PICTURES PROM
NEGATIVES, AND IN THE MEANS EMPLOYED THEREFOR," to be as follows:-
The object of my Invention is to improve the effect of photographs
produced by light printing from negatives by giving them a lined, dotted,
stippled, or any similarly varied ground. For this purpose, according
to one method of proceeding I draw, paint, or photograph on paper,
canvas, or other surface a ground work such as will give the desired
effect on the picture. This may be done in lines, dots, or washes of any
design, from this design a negative is prepared on glass, paper, or other sur-
face by any known photographic process. When this negative is produced
on glass it is transferred to any thin substance, such as paper, gelatine,
collodion, or talc, which may be done in the following manner :-I pour
over the negative a solution of gum, gelatine, india-rubber, or any.
substance suitable for producing a film which protects the negative..

page_text: When this solution is dry a tough special collodion, ordinarily called
"transfer collodion," is poured over it, and when this is thoroughly dry
the whole is soaked in water. A strong leathery but transparent film
consisting of the original collodion negative, the protecting substance,
and the transfer collodion can then be removed from the glass to be
used as hereafter described. As this mode of producing such a film
has been used for other processes I do not consider it part of my present
Invention, but describe it only in order that my process may be
understood. This film containing the negative of the groundwork is
interposed between the negative of the picture and the surface on which
it is to be printed by light. If the negative of the picture is on collodion
film, paper, talc, gelatine, or any such substance then the groundwork
film produced as above described can be used either in front or at the
back of the principal negative according to the effect desired to be
produced. When it is desired that the picture should present the effect
of a line engraving the groundwork negative may be produced from wire
gauze or fabric of suitable pattern. Should it be desired that one part of
the picture should show the lines more strongly than another a part
of the object may be shaded or thrown a little out of focus by inclining
it more or less to the plane of the picture, or a lens may be employed
which focuses part but not the whole of the object. By these or similar
means a great variety of effects can be produced on the groundwork.
Also the negative of the groundwork can be made of various thicknesses
so as to produce a softening effect in printing.
The gauze or fabric employed may be of very fine mesh when minute
lining is required, or may be of large mesh or magnified when bold lines
are desired. Also two or more thicknesses of gauze may be photographed,
in which case one being well focussed would give definite lines while the
others being out of focus would give a shaded effect.
Instead of wire gauze natural objects may be employed, in some cases
with the aid of the microscope, as for instance animal or vegetable
tissues, wings or eyes of insects, or such like objects. A dotted effect
can also be produced from a pigment held in mechanical suspension in
liquid which may either be contained in a glass trough or spread as a
film on glass so that a negative may be taken from it, which applied as
above described will give the effect of a stippled engraving. By com-
bining such a negative with that taken from gauze a combination of the
stippled and lined effect will be produced. And thus it will be readily.

page_text: understood that a great variety of effects such as those of a line engraving,
aquatint, mezzotint, or stippled drawing, or a combination of any of
these may be attained by these means, and that these are applicable to
ordinary photographs or to enlargements or to the various preparations
ordinarily employed for printing mechanically or otherwise from photo-
graphs. The groundwork films produced as above described may be
employed in the printing of many successive pictures. When desirable
such a film can be permanently mounted on the negative of a picture so
as to be always printed along with it and form part of it.
It may be readily understood that negative films might be used as I
have described not only for producing backgrounds but also for shewing
objects superposed with more or less faintness over the objects of the
principal picture, and such superposed objects or films containing them
may be used in combination with the groundwork.