The University of Sydney - Sydney University Museums

2.2 The Albumen Print

By 1851 it had become possible to apply a photographic emulsion mixed with either collodion (gun cotton and ether) or albumen (egg white) to a glass plate. The resulting glass negatives were much clearer than the paper negatives used previously. Collodion became the most common emulsion used to make glass negatives because its exposure times were relatively short. Negatives coated in albumen first appeared in 1847. They were highly detailed but slower exposure times limited their appeal.

Instead albumen found its niche in the treatment of the paper used to make positive prints, and from 1855 to 1895 the albumen print on paper predominated. This applied to stereoscopic photographs although occasionally albumen was used to print positive stereo photographs on to glass, producing finely detailed images such as the stereo view of the Hôtel de Ville in Paris. The yellow look which we associate with old photographs, sometimes wrongly referred to as sepia toning, is in fact the staining of the highlights due to the chemical decomposition and fading of albumen