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from the group: Platinum

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Pre-photographic

Photomechanical

Photographic

Albumen
Ambrotype
Bromoil
Bromoil Transfer
Carbon
Carbro
Chromogenic
Collodion POP
Cyanotype
Daguerreotype
Direct Carbon (Fresson)
Dye Imbibition
Gelatin Dry Plate
Gelatin POP
Gum Dichromate
Instant (Diffusion Transfer)
Instant (Dye Diffusion Transfer)
Instant (Internal Dye Diffusion Transfer)
Matte Collodion
Platinum
Salted Paper
Screen Plate
Silver Dye Bleach
Silver Gelatin DOP
Tintype
Wet Plate Collodion

Digital

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Notes on this view:

This is an example of an amateur photograph taken ca. 1900. Notice this domestic scene lacks the sophistication of a studio portrait; there is motion blur and the subject is harshly lit from the right, but the light falls off in the upper right corner. These image characteristics point to an important transition in the popular use of photography and the advent of a new kind of amateur.

With the introduction of gelatin dry plate negatives and flexible film in the late nineteenth century, photography became much simpler and thus appealed to a wider populous. A wide variety of photographic printing papers were commercially available at the turn of the twentieth century, including several varieties of platinum papers. Platinum printing was fairly simple and was exalted as being more artistic and beautiful than other printing processes due to the softness and subtlety of tone it offered. Platinum was also about three times faster than silver chloride printing out papers, and could be printed in diffused light.