Early Photographic Processes

Woodburytype

1864- c.1900

Discovery

Walter Bentley Woodbury (1834-85) patented his Woodburytype process in 1864, as a means of mass producing prints that would not fade.

This was a photo-mechanical process.  Just like the carbon process, the Woodburytype process produced prints that did not fade because the images did not rely on light-sensitive materials. 

The images were, in fact, made up entirely of stable pigment suspended in gelatine.

Process

Steps in the Woodburytype process were:

-   Spread light sensitized gelatine mixed with carbon pigment thickly onto a glass sheet.

-   Expose under a strong light through a negative.

-   The result (presumably after washing away the unhardened gelatine) is a film of gelatine thickest in the darkest areas of the picture.

-   Create a mould by pressing the gelatino onto a sheet of lead under great pressure.

-   Pour into the mould a mixture of water, pigment and ordinary gelatine.

-   Allow this mixture to dry, so creating a Woodburytype photo.

[Printmaking]

The collotype process was based on the same principles as the Woodburytype.

Result

The Woodburytype process produced a very high quality of final image, but it was not an easy process to use. 

Woodburytypes were often pasted into books as illustrations.

In Edinburgh 

Horatio Ross

From the early days of photography, photographers searched for a means of producing permanent images.

Horatio Ross, an early member of the Photographic Society of Scotland in the 1850s wrote, twenty years later, to the British Journal of Photography. 

His letter began:

"There are three processes which are supposed to be permanent, namely the heliotype, the Woodbury and the autotype. The two former are quite out of the question:  they require expensive and bulky machinery,  attended with an amount of difficult manipulations which amateurs are not likely to encounter"

"The autotype is more hopeful, but until it is made cheaper and a good deal easier to work, I do not think it will be generally adopted."

"For the present amateurs must be satisfied with silver printing; and, speaking from a very long experience, I take a much more cheerful view of the permanence of silver prints than most people do.  These pictures have got a bad name; but it has arisen from a cause which is not difficult to explain."

"We live in times when, owing to competition, cheapness is much more thought of than good quality;  and this has forced professional photographers to send out prints which they know are not half washed, and which they equally well know must fade in a few years."

" ... ... I am satisfied that if amateurs (I address this communication entirely to them) are content to print a small number of pictures at a time  -  say half-a dozen  -  to put some carbonate of ammonia in the hypo fixing bath (for which there is a good chemical reason), and then expose them for three or four hours to a continuous stream of water, always changed by means of a syphon, most of their prints will be blooming long after the greater number of my amateur friends have faded away for ever."

[BJP:14 July 1876; p.330]

John Thomson

The Edinburgh geographer and photographer, John Thomson (1837-1921) illustrated his book "Street Life of London" with Woodburytype photographs.

For further details on Woodburytype equipment, please see the Woodburytype Resource Site web site