502 HANDBOOK OF PHOTOGRAPHY 



Inking. — When the print has been swelled to the proper point, three or four lintless 

 blotters, somewhat larger than the print, are dipped into water, drained, and laid on a 

 sheet of glass or other smooth, approximately level surface. The print is then taken 

 from the soaking water, drained, and laid face up on them. The purpose of this blot- 

 ter pad is not, as most workers believe, to keep the print from drying out during inking; 

 it has, indeed, little or no effect on the rate of drying of the gelatin, being used simply 

 to furnish a soft support, so that the gelatin is less likelj^ to be torn by the repeated 

 impact of the brush. 



The print is then surface-dried. This may be done by dabbing with a piece of 

 chamois skin (or the soft-tanned leather which is sold under this name in the 5-and- 

 10-cent stores) or with a wadded-up piece of soft well-washed linen or cotton cloth. 

 Some writers on the subject say that it is imperative to surface-dry the print by dab- 

 bing and that it must never be wiped, but this is by no means true. A perfectly 

 satisfactory way to dry it, which is much quicker than dabbing, is to wipe it lightly but 

 firmly with a soft automobile windshield-wiper blade. 



A small amount of the ink is then squeezed from the tube to a sheet of glass or other 

 nonabsorbent surface (a dinner plate or the back of an old 8- by 10-in. glass negative is 

 excellent) and is spread out thin with a palette knife. A quantity the size of a small 

 pea will ink several 8- by 10-in. prints. The brush is pressed rather firmly into this 

 film and is dabbed several times on a clean area of the glass to spread the ink evenly 

 among the hairs. It is then applied to the print. If the preliminarj^ work has been 

 correctly done, it will be found that the ink adheres to the gelatin in proportion to the 

 degree of tanning of the film, i.e., it takes most freely in the shadows, less freely in the 

 half tones, and least of all in the lights, thus with repeated application gradually build- 

 ing up the picture. But this building up must be slow and gradual; an attempt to 

 work the print up rapidly is almost certain to defeat itself, except when done by a very 

 experienced worker. 



Up to this point the operations have been more or less mechanical, but this is 

 where the fun begins. 



There are almost as manj^ different techniques of inking as there are bromoil work- 

 ers. One man prefers to use a thin ink and to work rapidlj^; another uses a stiff ink, 

 working slowly. One man inks the print all over, building up contrast by going over 

 and over the entire surface; another inks up a small area to its final point, then passes 

 on to another. The writer generally spends from 39 to 1 hr. in inking a e^- by 8>2-in. 

 print, but he knows a man who habitually inks a 10- by 12-in. print in 10 min. It 

 depends on the worker's preference and on the results that he desires. In general, the 

 writer feels that the best results are obtained throiigh relatively slow inking, and he 

 prefers to ink a landscape or similar subject all over at first, gradually building up 

 the contrasts, but to ink the face of a portrait fully, working up the background and 

 surroundings afterward. This, though, is a matter for each worker to decide for 

 himself. 



There are certain fundamental points to be remembered, as follows: 



If the ink. at first application, shows a tendency to take on the clear margin of the 

 print, the print has not been swelled enough for that particular ink, though a stiffer 

 one may work all right. 



If, later, the ink shows a marked tendency to take on the margin before the inking 

 is completed, the print is drying out too rapidly. 



The brush should not be held vertically over the print but at an angle of about 60°. 



A slow, dabbing, legato brush action puts ink on the print. A staccato motion 

 (called "hopping") takes ink off the print. This hopping is a trick of the hand which 

 must be acquired by practice, but it can best be described as throwing the brush lightly 

 at the print and catching it on the rebound. 



