The Art and Practice of Silver Printing by H. P. Robinson educates the reader in the theory and practice of silver printing, where a photograph is printed on a surface sensitized with silver salts or on albumen printing-out paper.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1881.

Reproduction of the original: The Art and Practice of Silver Printing by H.P. Robinson, Capt. Abney

The volume presents the results of a four-year inter-institutional, interdisciplinary research initiative led and organized by the National Gallery of Art. Contributions by 47 leading photograph conservators, scientists, and historians provide detailed examinations of the chemical, material, and aesthetic qualities of this important class of rare, beautiful, and technically complex photographs. The volume will help those who care for photograph collections gain a thorough appreciation of the technical and aesthetic characteristics of platinum and palladium prints and scientific basis for their preservation.

Relief printing : woodcut, metal type, and wood engraving -- Intaglio and planographic printing : engraving, etching, mezzotint, and lithography -- Color printing : hand coloring and multiple-impression color -- Bits and pieces : modern art prints, oddities, and photographic precursors -- Early photography in silver : daguerreotypes, early silver paper processes and tintypes -- Non-silver processes : carbon, blueprint, platinum, and a couple of others -- Modern photography : developing-out gelatin silver printing -- Color notes : primary colors and neutrality -- Color photography : separation-based processes and chromogenic prints -- Photography in ink : relief and intaglio printing : the letterpress halftone and gravure printing -- Photography in ink : planographic printing : collotype and photo offset lithography -- Digital processes : binary issues, inkjet, dye sublimation, and digital C-prints -- Where do we go from here? : some questions about the future