DIRECT POSITIVES

Daguerreotype – 1839 – 1855 & heyday from 1847 - 1855
• Before 1842 – silver tone
• After 1841 – brown tone
• Simple & plain – 1840 – 1847
• 1850s – more decorative
• Sharply defined, highly reflective, one-of-a-kind photographs on silver-coated copper plates, packaged behind glass and kept in protective cases
• The first commercially successful photographic process
• Required exposures of several minutes
• Expensive and each picture was a once-only affair.

Ambrotype – 1854 – 1870
• Earliest have black velvet backing & later colored glass
• Sharply detailed one-of-a-kind photographs on glass, packaged in protective cases
• A colodion on glass negative this is intentionally underexposed so that the negative image appears as a positive image when viewed against a dark background
• Replaced the more expensive daguerreotypes for portrait photography
• Non-reflective and easier to view than daguerreotypes
• Short-lived

Tintype – 1854 – 1900
• Chocolate colored after 1870
• Non-reflective, one-of-a-kind photograph on a sheet of iron coated with a dark enamel
• Used commonly for portrait
• Less expensive and more durable, not requiring expensive cases
• First appeared in U.S. in 1856

NEGATIVES

Collodion on glass – 1855 – 1880
• Made by coating glass plates with collodion, a sticky substance to which light-sensitive silver salts could adhere using wet-plate negatives
• A smooth surface
• Universally used in U.S. by 1860

Gelatin on glass – 1880 – 1920 & still used occasionally today
• Made by coating glass plates with an emulsion of gelatin mixed with light-sensitive silver salts
• Gelatin negatives were more sensitive to light than colodion and could be made well in advance of actual use.
• Became the dominant negative process and helped create the large amateur photography market in the 1880s.

PRINTS

Salted paper print – 1830 – 1855
• Earliest photographic prints on paper
• Recognized by their lack of precise image details and matte surface
• Images embedded in the fibers of the paper instead of suspended on the surface
• Required long exposure times and went out with albumen prints

Albumen print – 1850 – 1895
• Most common type of photograph from the 19th century
• First photographic prints where the image was suspended on the surface of the paper instead on being imbedded in the fibers of the paper
• Process involved coating a sheet of paper with albumen (egg white), which gives the paper a glossy, smooth surface
• The paper is then sensitized with a solution of silver nitrate, and then exposed in contact with a negative.
• The image is print-out solely by the action of light on the sensitized paper without any chemical development.
• Requires long exposures and results in prints that are susceptible to fading
• Could capture fine detail and relatively easy to produce many prints from a single negative

Sizes of mounts:
• Carte-de-visite – 4 ¼ x 2 ½ - introduced in 1859
o popular to the turn of the century
o Early ones thin & flexible & later ones thicker
o 1860s double gold strip on the edge
o Late 1880s - 1890s beveled edges & shiner
• Cabinet – 4 ½ x 6 ½ - introduced in 1866
o Popular to the turn of the century
o Earlier cards are thin & flexible
o 1880s – 1890s a cartouche at the bottom embossed in gold
• Promenade – 4 x 7 – introduced in 1875
• Boudoir – 5 ¼ x 8 ½ - introduced unknown
• Imperial – 6 7/8 x 9 7/8 – introduced unknown
• Panel – 8 ¼ x 4 – introduced unknown
• Stereograph – smaller 1859; larger 1870
• Victoria – 3 ¼ x 5 – introduced in 1870

Platinotype – 1880 – 1930
• Uncoated with a pebbly surface
• Used by art photographers
Palladiotype – 1914 – 1930
• Salts of Palladiotype used
Cyanotype – 1885 – 1910
• Blue
• Uncoated
• Invented in 1840 but rarely used until 1885
Carbon – 1864 – 1900
• Widespread use after 1864
• Smooth on heavy paper

Gelatin silver print – 1895 –
• Produced on paper coated with a gelatin emulsion containing light-sensitive silver salts
• Developed by using a chemical bath
• Short exposure times and less susceptible to fading
• The dominant black-and-white photographic process of the 20th century.

Colodion on glass negatives

Albumen prints.