01/08/2023
The process of developing and printing photos
The captured film began a difficult and long journey to becoming a photo. In order to make a visible image from a black plate, it was necessary to develop it. The whole process of developing the photo took place in complete darkness. From the cassette, the film was rewound onto a reel, so that all the turns were washed with specially prepared solutions. First, it was necessary to process it with a developer, which had silver bromide in its composition. It was prepared by mixing water, metol, sodium sulfite, hydroquinone and crystalline borax. This process took only a few minutes. After developing, the entire film had to be thoroughly rinsed with running water.
Subsequently, fixation was carried out. He washed out substances from the film that were not exposed to light. A fixer was prepared by mixing sodium thiosulfate with water, and if necessary, the finished composition was further diluted with water. After this procedure, the film became non-photosensitive. Such plates were called negatives; some of the captured frames could already be seen from them. When all these difficult processes were left behind, a photographic enlarger was connected to the work. This apparatus was considered the most important in the process of developing photographs. With the help of negatives and this apparatus, the images were transferred to photographic paper, after which the resulting photographs were carefully lowered into the developer and waited for the image to appear. Next, the resulting photograph had to be fixed in a fixing solution. The further fate of the photograph was decided by bringing it into the light. If the photo turned out to be of poor quality, it was thrown out. Well, if the photo was of good quality, it was sent to a photo gloss, which dried the finished photos. Sometimes photographs were hung on a thread and the edge was fixed with a clothespin, or simply glued to the tile, after drying they peeled off themselves.
