Popular Photographic Print Processes: Gelatin Silver Prints

[African American boy seated on porch of house, another African American boy standing with bicycle on porch of another house, with two young African American women on steps, Georgia.] Gelatin silver print. ca. 1899-1900. LC-DIG-ppmsca-08755

Description: Gelatin silver prints are a general term describing the most common process for making black and white photographs since the 1890s. A variety of photographic print papers were introduced in the 1880s.  They included various developing-out and printing-out papers. Developing out prints are cool black and white images. Printing out prints usually have warm tones.

Further information and examples

• Prints & Photographs Online Catalog:
  • view online examples
  • Thesaurus for Graphic Materials term: Gelatin silver prints [view term - includes related terms]
• Graphics Atlas, Image Permanence Institute
  http://www.graphicsatlas.org/identification/?process_id=266

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