The Art of projection and complete magic lantern ... - Yesterday Image

—139on an average far superior results than those who use the general lanternplate, take the thousands of slides produced on these plates, how manywill come up to the equal of G. W. W's views, or a good albumenpicture? yet, out of goodness of heart any amateur will offer to makeslides for a public exhibition. We were lather struck with the remarkmade recently by a friend when complaining to him of the mistake inshowing such poor results to a public audience. Why, they must be thebest, they were made on so and so (mentioning the plate-maker's name)plates, when informed that the best results were obtained by photographers,whose methods of working are only known to themselves, heappeared quite surprised ;all this is stated with good intent, not fromany motive to place professional slide makers against amateurs, becauseas before mentioned, some of the best pictures in competition have beenmade by amateurs, these are artists and men who make it their solehobby and study, and spare no expense; to the average amateur thiswould notapply.A Perfect Slide should be as soft and distinct as a proof engraving,with gradations and shadows, no part opaque or shadowless, when onthe screen it should stand out as a steel engraving, not black and whitelike so much soot and whitewash, but with gradation in the shadows,which are perfectly transparent, with the white portions perfectly clear,the tonesomething between a blue violet and a black.Choose a good brand of plates, and keep to them, remembering arolling stone gathers no moss, as a rule there is more in a plate than isgenerally got out of it by the average amateur, each make of plate hassome principal characteristic, it may be in the developer or elsewhere,of course, slides cannot be tried or tested without a lantern at hand, itis difficult to tell at first whether the correct density or detail have beenobtained without putting them through the lantern ;the density must beregulated to suit the luminosity of the light—be it oil or limelight,and under no conditions aim at getting a black and white picture, sothat when the slide is on the screen, it gives the idea of snow onaccount of the high lights being too transparent. Nothing is moremonotonous than to have a series of slides pass through a lantern withevery one black and white, as the uninitiated often exclaim : it looksall winter; there should be gradations and degrees of tone, a slideshould never be toned red or brown.Slides are made by two methods:By Contact, that is by placing the lantern plate in contact with