Some Process Clarification, Please

[William Whitaker]

Could someone please enlighten me as to the difference between kallitype and Calotype? In normal speech I think these qualify as homophones. And as such it's very confusing to those of us trying to distinguish between historic processes. I think kallitype is the process I want to pursue, judging from Sandy's excellent article at Unblinking Eye.

Thanks in advance!

[Mark Sampson]

Cot sure what Kallitype is beyond being a contact printing process.
Calotype is the paper negative-to-paper print method, invented by Fox Talbot and used by Southworth and Hawes, among others.

[sanking]

Cot sure what Kallitype is beyond being a contact printing process.
Calotype is the paper negative-to-paper print method, invented by Fox Talbot and used by Southworth and Hawes, among others.


Kallitype is a contact printing process in the iron family that uses, like pt/pd, ferric oxalate as the light sensitive component. As with pt/pd you have various means of contrast control with kallitype, which means that you can print with negatives that have a different density range.

Kallitype is sometimes confused with vandyke. They are different in that vandyke uses ferric ammonium citrate as the light sensitive component, and there is virtually no control of contrast so your negative must be exposed and developed perfectly for the process if you want to optimize tonal values.

Both Kallitype and Vandyke used silver nitrate to produce the metal image, and this can be toned with gold, platinum or palladium, which replaces in part the silver and makes the print far more stable.

As Mark mentioned, Calotype is the paper negative to print process popularized by Talbot. The printing process itself is called "salted paper" and is of much earlier origin than Kallitype and Vandyke.

Sandy

[IanG]

Calotypes were negatives made on paper coatd with Silver Iodide, contact printed on the same. Also known as Talbot types after Fox Talbot.

Kallitypes are a Silver/Iron process for making contact prints, quite different.

Ian

[William Whitaker]

Thank you Sandy, et al.