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The Daguerreotype

Louis-Jacques-Mand Daguerre invented the daguerreotype process in France. The

invention was announced to the public on August 19, 1839 at a meeting of the FrenchAcademy of Sciences in Paris. American photographers quickly capitalized on this new

invention, which was capable of capturing a "truthful likeness." Daguerreotypists in major

cities invited celebrities and political figures to their studios in the hopes of obtaining a

likeness for display in their windows and reception areas.

The Process

The daguerreotype is a direct-positive process, creating a highly detailed image on

a sheet of copper plated with a thin coat of silver without the use of a negative. The

process required great care. The silver-plated copper plate had first to be cleaned

and polished until the surface looked like a mirror. Next, the plate was sensitized in

a closed box over iodine until it took on a yellow-rose appearance. The plate, held

in a lightproof holder, was then transferred to the camera. After exposure to light,

the plate was developed over hot mercury until an image appeared. To fix the

image, the plate was immersed in a solution of sodium thiosulfate or salt and thentoned with gold chloride.

Exposure times for the earliest daguerreotypes ranged from three to fifteen

minutes, making the process nearly impractical for portraiture. Modifications to the

sensitization process coupled with the improvement of photographic lenses soon

reduced the exposure time to less than a minute.

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Open photoshop and drag your image to it. SAVE AS tiff file. Never work from jpeg

FILE FORMAT in a nutshell

Jpeg (.jpg) > compresses > opening it = changing it, saving it = degrading image.

TiFF (.tif) > universal format > high quality good for printing LOSSLESS

PSD (.psd) > Can opened & edit only in photoshop

Camera Raw (.nef, .crw, .pef & more) = the most direct representation, no data lost

DNG (.dng) just like camera raw but universal

GIF (.gif) > small web file, good for flat color, drawing

EPS (eps) > good for photo & text, use in publishing

BMP (.bmp) windows & PICT (.pct) mac > these are platform specific.

PNG (.png) = adobe fireworks > lossless, use for web

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Convert a background into a layer. 1. Double-click Background in the Layers panel,

or choose Layer > New > Layer From Background. 2. Set layer options. 3. Click

OK.

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There are many ways to change to B&W. You can choose

Image >adjustment>b&W or Hue & Saturation and move

The bar to the left.

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You can adjust the B&W too by changing the intensity of

Each color

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If you like sepia tone. You can go to image>adjustment>

Photo filter> sepia

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Here I took an image of an old frying pan. I drag the fie into

photoshop

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Drag the textured pan image to it and adjust the intensity of

The layer. Play around with different intensity and tone.

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Vignette can be produced naturally if youre using a

lens intended for a smaller medium (like using a

dSLR lens on a film SLR), because parts of the lensactually block out some of the light from hitting the

sensor or film. There are a few other methods of

getting the vignette effect, but the simplest of them

is with Photoshop. Also, using Photoshop will allow

you a wider range of control since it can beadjusted many times without destroying pixels.

The following Photoshop techniques are non-

destructive (destroying pixels is a bad thing)

3. Fill the layer with pure white. Shift + Backspace4. Set the blend mode to Multiply. Alt + Shift + M

5. Apply the vignette filter to the new layer.

Filter >> Distort >> Lens Correction

6. Mess with the Amount and Midpoint sliders

in the Vignette section.

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1. DO THIS AS YOUR LAST STEP IN PHOTOSHOP!!!

2. Create a new empty layer on top of the stack. Ctrl + Alt +

Shift + N

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3. Fill the layer with pure white. Shift + Backspace

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4. Set the blend mode to Multiply. Alt + Shift + M

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Apply the vignette filter to the new layer.

Filter >> Distort >> Lens Correction

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Mess with the Amount and Midpoint

sliders in the Vignette section.

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Press OK! Youre done!!!

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Here I also got the frame image from the web. I erase

everything inside using magic wand and eraser tool

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Edit > free transform and then drag it out to match the image.

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Now just erase the leftover part outside the frame!!