AMATEUR PHOTOGRAPHY. 



271 



proportion of slides which necessitate the 

 introduction of clouds from other negatives, 

 so it is essential for the slide maker to be 

 proficient in the methods whereby clouds are 

 introduced into slides that show no trace 

 of them. 



Two methods are generally available. 

 The clouds may be printed on a separate 

 lantern plate from a specially made cloud 

 negative, and this cloud slide used as a 

 cover glass ; or they may be printed on the 

 same plate as the landscape portion in the 

 camera by double printing. 



It is essential that the slide maker who 

 has the prospect of much landscape work 

 before him, should be well stocked with 

 cloud negatives of every description, spe- 

 cially taken and developed, so that he can 

 at any time select a suitable cloud effect 

 for any particular landscape. Prints from 

 these cloud negatives should be mounted in 

 a rough album, and the time of the day 

 when the negative was taken, with the com- 

 pass direction of lighting, should be written 

 underneath. There will then be no danger 

 of bizarre and contradictory cloud effects 

 being shown on the screen. In these cloud 

 negatives no portion of the landscape should 

 show. If it is impossible to avoid obtaining 

 some portion when taking the negatives, the 

 landscape should be blocked out by gum- 

 ming some non-actinic paper on the reverse 

 side of the negative. 



The separate plate method is as follows : 



Having obtained a lantern slide of the 

 landscape portion see that the sky part of 

 the slide is represented by absolutely bare 

 glass. If the negative has its sky portion 

 blocked out this will secure perfectly pure 

 glass in the lantern slide, but should any 

 deposit be apparent in the slide it must be 

 cleared away by the application of the ferri- 

 cyanide reducer applied with a small tuft of 

 cotton wool. Wash the slide and dry it in 

 the usual manner. 



To make the cloud portion, take another 

 lantern plate, and having selected a suitable 

 cloud negative make a lantern slide of it. 

 Adjust the cloud negative in the camera 

 so it will show a portion of the land- 

 scape. All that js necessary is to hold 

 the landscape slide over the image of 

 the cloud negative shown on the focusing 

 screen, when it will be seen at once if the 

 2 correspond. Expose and develop, taking 

 care to work under the same conditions as 

 when making the landscape, so that the 

 colors of both may be the same. 



On removing the plate from the fixing 

 bath and comparing it with the landscape 

 portion it will at once be seen how 

 nearly they correspond with each 

 other. Perhaps the sky slide requires in- 

 tensification to bring it up to the landscape 

 portion, or it may be denser and require a 

 brief application of ferricyanide reducer. 



Having made the 2 slides of equal opa- 



city, place them back to back, with the 

 edges of the slides even. It will at once be 

 apparent whether the 2 dovetail into each 

 other, or whether the sky slide overlaps the 

 landscape slide and gives a bad effect. 

 Should the sky slide encroach on the land- 

 scape anywhere, take a tuft of cotton wool, 

 dip it in the ferricyanide reducer, and, still 

 holding the slides back to back, carefully 

 remove the portion of the sky slide that 

 overlaps the landscape. Do not use the 

 reducer too strong, and see that none of 

 the reducer reaches the landscape by capil- 

 lary attraction. 



When the slides are dry and bound film 

 to film the sky and landscape portions 

 should fit and form a perfect slide. This is 

 the best method of obtaining clouds in lan- 

 tern slides ; but it has one drawback. When 

 developing for warm colors it is not always 

 easy to match the 2 slides. For this rea- 

 son it is best, whenever possible, to expose 

 the sky and landscape plates one after the 

 other and develop them together. Another 

 means of ameliorating the difficulty is to 

 prepare a stock of sky slides during leisure 

 moments, so that some variety may enable 

 the slide maker to effect a match. 



The method of printing the clouds on the 

 same plate as the landscape, is not so cer- 

 tain as the foregoing method. Having se- 

 lected the cloud negative it is desired to in- 

 corporate with the landscape, a mask must 

 be prepared with which to screen the land- 

 scape portion during the exposure of the 

 cloud negative. To prepare this mask, take 

 a piece of non-actinic paper, lay it over the 

 landscape negative, and, holding the nega- 

 tive up to a strong light, roughly trace with 

 a pencil on the paper the outline of the 

 landscape where it comes against the sky. 

 Cut out the landscape portion along this line 

 so that 2 masks result, one for the sky and 

 the other for the landscape. For conven- 

 ience the landscape mask may be gummed 

 on a piece of cardboard, leaving the outline 

 of the landscape projecting beyond the stiff 

 edge of the cardboard. The stiffening is an 

 advantage, as it enables the mask to be held 

 more securely. 



Place the landscape negative in the corn- 

 era and expose on the lantern plate in the 

 usual manner. Then remove the landscape 

 negative and insert the cloud negative, tak- 

 ing care that it is placed in the same rela- 

 tive position that the landscape negative 

 occupied. Hold the cardboard mask in 

 front of the cloud negative so it will 

 cover that portion of the negative corre- 

 sponding to the landscape negative. The 

 mask requires holding about an inch away 

 from the negative, and should be kept mov- 

 ing slightly above and below what would 

 be considered the line of injunction of 

 the landscape and sky portions. It will thus 

 be seen that the sky negative is vignetted 

 into the landscape portion in the camera, 



