dark room photo editing history
Darkroom Image Manipulation before Photoshop – A Walk into the History
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The person after the invention of Photoshop
might know the techniques of image manipulation or retouching. He is doing such
a retouching work within a short time in Photoshop. But, if you think about how
the older generation did the work before Photoshop in the dark room, you will
be amazed. At present time, you may not think photo manipulation work without
Photoshop, but earlier our ancestors did the works well and even the present
Photoshop copies many tools and technique from their works. In the modern photo
editing sector, many techniques and strategies may bring revolution, but yet
the role of the old darkroom is not less.
Though the ‘Photo Manipulation’ and ‘Photoshopping’
are considered as synonym, in the past, the manipulation was related to film and
negative manipulation, darkroom manipulation, chemical manipulation, and more. Even,
the word Retouching also has come before than photography with the painting. It
means reworking on a painting to enhance it.Photo Manipulation in History
Image Manipulation is anything to do on an
image for correcting the imperfection areas and for enhancing it. It was started
with the invention of the camera & photograph in the early 18th
century. An old remaining instance of image manipulation was in the 1860s when
a photo of Abraham Lincoln’s head was attached to the body of John C. Calhoun.
It is considered as the first image manipulation in history.
At the early stage, the photographers retouched
and manipulated photos in the studio darkroom. In that time, they edited images
applying traditional tools and technologies. Currently, photo editing sounds
very cool, but before Photoshop software, it needed a whole box of tools, a
lonely environment, very sharp eyes, extremely steady hands, and creativity as
well.
Methods and Tools of the Darkroom:
Pre-Photoshop age, there were a large number
of photo editing techniques viz dodging & burning, vibrating during
exposing, scratching the negatives, blurring & airbrushing, painting on the
negatives, coloring, etc. The photographers used photo-montage, or the combination
of printing to manipulate records of the historical events or to create
painting-like imagery, banner, wall art, etc. All such of the works, they performed
in the darkroom of the studio spending a lot of time. They always did not get
the expected result. There was the chance of many errors. For this reason, most
of the Dark Room experts used to work on a copy of the master negative so that
can get back the original copy again.
The darkroom experts edited & manipulated
negatives using a double-exposure process or by piecing photos or negatives
together. They do many things for this. They apply chemicals like bleaching to
lighten or totally wash-out parts of the photograph or the full photograph.
They also used hand coloring for fine art painting. All of these works are very
laborious and time consuming as well as very manual.
The darkroom specialists applied many tools for photo
editing and manipulation such as big & small magnifying glasses, pastes, varies
types of inks, cotton, light, cutter, palettes, and opaque paints, various kind
brushes, erasers, charcoals, scale, etc. Many tools of the present Adobe Photoshop
have come with the same shape and function as these were before.
How did the Photographers work in the Darkroom
before?
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Before the invention of the digital camera and
micro SD memory cards, the photographers shot photograph by the camera with the
film, but there were many limitations. After finishing a whole film capturing
photos, the shutterbugs had to develop the negative in the traditional
darkroom.
Let’s have a look how the
photographers worked in the traditional darkroom photoshop step by step
- The darkroom experts opened the rolled film or negative out of the camera for developing.
- Then, they bring out the negative from the rolled box
for developing and in this time, the negative looks completely dark as it
was you can find anything captured here. After developing, the captured photos
become visible in the negative as like a white-gray shadow.
- They cut out the beginning part and the ending part of
the long lace like negative by scissors.
- They loaded that negative with another large developing
wheel for rolling and put it into a tank and finally set the cap. They
performed the whole process with the clean and dry hand.
- Now, they poured chemical mixture water into the tank
and shakes the tank few time to remove the air bubbles. The water must be
hot and its temperature should be 60 to 70 degree Celsius. It took at
least six minutes for developing.
- Then, they removed the water and filled with Stop Bath
chemical mixing water again and again shake in the same way.
- Next, they filled the tank with Fixture which is another
chemical mixture vey necessary for film developing and shake again. It
took usually 5-10 minutes.
- Now, the photos became visible on the negative and this
time they could print and wash the photos.
- The developers placed the negative under a projector
with a frame for printing. Here, they printed the photos with the
projector-light on a photographic paper in the darkroom that take much
time.
- They took the printed paper on a tray & drowned
into chemical water.
- At this stage, they shook the paper very slowly. They
did Develop 1 minute, then Stop 1 minute, and finally Fixer 1 minute.
Then, water rinses at least 5 minutes for washing. All these process they
had to do very carefully because there is a chance to be destroyed the
image.
- Finally, they dried the image with dry wind blowing or keeping under hot light and in this way, the image became ready for use.
Photo Editing and Manipulation In The Darkroom
Image editing or manipulation activities in
the darkroom were not as easy & cool as the modern photo editing in Adobe
Photoshop. It was very hard working task and time consuming also. It was then
almost like drawing a painting from a scratch.
Spot Removing: In the
darkroom, the image developer removed spots from photos by maintaining analog
process, such as-
- Firstly, they placed an image with spots on a table.
- They taped the image on the table to stop the unwanted
moving at the time of retouching.
- They applied thin but long brushes according to their
requirements.
- Considering the type spots, they selected different types
of inks, water, chemicals, and more.
- They took different colors with the various brushes,
tried outside the negative to match with the color of the other portions
of the image. They did it so that they could a flawless photo without any
distortion.
- When they got the best match, they applied the color on
the spot they wanted to remove and let it dry under sun or in the darkroom
under hot light.
- Finally, by maintaining this ways, they completed the
small amount of spot fixing works in the darkroom.
Negative Retouching:
Negative Retouching was (and still is) an
important task in the photographer’s darkroom. The guy who retouch in the darkroom,
used to edit the negative before photoshop for color correction manually,
lighting, shadowing, painting, spot reducing, etc. They maintain a process for
a small negative retouching work. What they did for applying lighting effect on
a portion of a photo is the following:
- They took a black & white negative for applying
lighting effect on a table and taped it tightly to stop moving. If it
moved, they could do the task well.
- For getting a clear view, they used sharp pen and
magnifying glass. It provided a zoomed in advantage to the retoucher.
- Then they made numerous white dots on the spot by
hitting with the sharp pen where it was needed white light.
- As a result, when they developed & washed out the
negative, they got a white light on the dark portion of the photo. This
process provided a lighting feel on the image.
History of Photoshop
Adobe Photoshop is the most powerful and
widely used photo editing and manipulation software globally that has a wide
range of powerful tools and options. It was invented first time by Thomas Knoll
and John Knoll. Later, when they sold out the license to the Adobe systems in
1988, they launched this software first. This very software has brought out a
revolution in the field of image editing industry.
At the beginning, the very word ‘photoshop’
aroused a laughter, but as time goes, its necessity and usefulness has
revealed. Day by day, this editing software has become very popular and unavoidable
part to the graphic designers and photographers and even to the people who are
not related to commercial photography. Its application arena has been widen
with the good crowd of tools and options, and has become beneficiary for the
various designs, graphic design, image manipulation, image retouching, and more.
Many graphic design companies have grown relying on the very software with the progression
of the digital photography, ecommerce business, and many more.
How Did the Photoshop
Tool’s Icon Originate?
From time to time, the icons of Photoshop has
been changed or developed. There is a great variety in the shape and appearance
of the photoshop icons which are available now. There are some icons that are looking exactly
as you think it should be, but there are some tools, seeing those you cannot
but laugh at their appearance. However, know how they have originated from the
old darkroom studio.
Crop Tool:
The crop tool is a very useful tool and it
mostly used for cutting any individual portion of any photo. Its appearance is something
funny. This tool is mostly looked like the original darkroom cropping tool. Its
sliding gizmo let the darkroom experts to crop and to resize any image
maintaining the same aspect ratio. This photoshop tool has originated from this
tool as it is shown in the image above.
Brush Tool:
In the Adobe Photoshop software, there are
various types of brush tools viz Brush tool, History brush tool, Healing brush
tool, many creative brush tool, etc. These tools are being widely used in the
image editing sectors for image retouching. The brush tools are also originated
from the darkroom brushes as these were. Look over the darkroom brushes in the
above image.
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Dodge and Burn Tool:
The dodge and the burn tool of photoshop have
come from the darkroom’s original lollipop shaped tools which are shown in the
above image.
Ethics and Aesthetics of photo editing and manipulation:
In case of Photo editing, there is a crowed
who shows their opposite opinion regarding ethics and aesthetics. Actually,
ethics is a set of rules and aesthetic is related to nature and beauty. But,
yet there are some guys who mix the two terms together.
In image editing, ethics is a decent issue. If
the editing on a photo is excessive and make fake the true message in the image,
it’ll destroy the main purpose of the image manipulation. There are some images
that you should not edit such as: politics or politicians, war photos, natural
calamities, and more. Because, the manipulation of this type of image ruins the
real message. The visitors and the readers always like to see or know the
realistic photos with the actual news. There is no place for the fake images. Any
kind of image editing in the print media, can also mean yellow journalism that
is not expected. There are some magazines such as National Geographic,
Discovery, and etc. use a little bit of image retouching methods to enhance the
aesthetics. In these kinds of fields, reality matters most than the glittering
appearance.
However, the themes, aesthetics and ethics are
two different opinions. It’s actually all about how true message you are giving
to your followers. If the image editing is too much that provides totally
alternative message to the readers and viewers, then that is not ethical. But,
if the editing is enough to maintain the real message, then there is nothing
unethical issue.
According to the aesthetic opinion, image
editing is almost limitless since it is related to the beauty. But, yet as long
as it seems natural, you can edit for beautification. There are some sectors
which take high end photo editing. These sectors are related to fashion and
model photos, fashion magazines, fine art photography, paintings, and more. The
main purpose of the image editing is to make the photos more beautiful and
appealing than before.
Image manipulation for beautification has an old
history. Earlier than Adobe Photoshop, it was very laborious and time consuming
as well, but just after the invention of the Photoshop software, it has become
easier and more accurate. The Photoshop has increased the scope of image
manipulation. This tool will provide you the photos in the way as you desired
to have and this feature has made the Photoshop, its various tools and options
popular.
