20 NATURE AND THE CAMERA 



RETOUCHING AND SPOTTING. Both negatives and 

 prints may frequently be improved by a little judi- 

 cious retouching: an outline accentuated, a little 

 detail worked up, or a high light strengthened will 

 often do much to enhance the beauty of a photo- 

 graph and render it more suitable for reproduction. 

 This retouching may be done on either the negative 

 or the print, or both. 



For the negative a balsam preparation known as 

 retouching-fluid is rubbed softly over the film. This 

 gives it a " tooth/' so that a lead-pencil will mark it. 

 When fine work is needed, such as in working up 

 the hair on an animal, a very hard and finely pointed 

 pencil should be used, HHHH being none too hard. 

 For softening shadows H is hard enough. Occa- 

 sionally, where broad masses of shadow are to be 

 held back, a very thin and light wash of pale aniline 

 yellow, applied with a brush, will answer. 



In working up a negative, if one has not a regular 

 retouching-frame, lay the plate in a printing-frame, 

 prop it up so as to face a window, and place a piece 

 of white paper in such a way as to throw a reflected 

 light against the plate. 



Spotting a negative is simply filling in the small 

 clear spots that are caused either by dust or by bub- 

 bles in the developer. The medium used for this is 

 either a preparation known as " opaque," or water- 

 colour paint, or even Indian ink. The density of 



