Term - Salted Paper Printing

Salted Paper Printing

SWPP Photographic Glossary

Saturday 17th April 2021

Image Competition
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Salted Paper Printing

Invented in 1834, Salted Paper Printing was Fox Talbot's original printing technique. It's a simple idea. Paper is soaked with weak salt solution, then silver nitrate is brushed on, and the result is silver chloride. Finished prints have a beautiful delicacy in the lighter tones, but slightly lack in detail overall. Images are contact printed onto art paper sized with starch and then rinsed and given a final wash in several changes of water. The final colour is normally reddish-brown, but by toning with gold a wider range of hues can be created, from reddish-brown to blue- or purple-brown. This also makes the image more permanent.

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