Old photo on cloth?

[discinque]

A friend of mine described to me an old photo she had found of her grandparents. It is a large photo image - in the 20x30 range - and as she was examining it she found that it was printed on cloth. She had asked me what process was used to do that kind of work - and I was embarrassed to find I had no clue.

I did a quick search on the internet but don't have a clue as to the terminology to use for search parameters. Looked through the threads here but didn't find anything for cloth.

She thinks it was from around 1920. Any thoughts?

Thanks!
David

[Mike]

As in printed on canvess? It is still done today for large portraits.

Mike

[Doug Nelson]

If it's really that old, they probably coated the fabric themselves (although photo-sensitive fabric was commercially available later on). You can still coat your own fabric today with Liquid Light (although an inkjet with canvas "paper" is easier nowadays).

[discinque]

Is it done today the way it was in 1920's? Do they simply treat the canvass with the same chemistry that they use on paper?

[Mike]

Canvess printing is an older art that has also undergone the "digital revolution". I am not sure how it would have been done in the 1920's, but I do know that they used to make a "liqud emulsion" back in the black and white days, that you could just paint on almost any surface and then just print onto and develop like you would a sheet of paper. I have seen a photo that was printed onto a piece of wood that was done this way.

In the 1960's (?) someone developed a way of pressing an image printed on paper into a sheet of canvess. I do not know very much about this process, but I think I remember someone telling me that the process involved the printing of the image on the paper, then sliding the emulsion off the paper base onto the canvess base, then pressing the emulsion into the canvess or something like that. If all that is true, then I can understand why the cost was so high.

In todays world of inkjet type printers, one can buy canvess material and just run it through the printer.

I have not had too much experiance with all this, so keep in mind that some of the above my contain huge errors. I would be happy to be corrected if any one can do that.....

Mike

[Kraellin]

all photography prior to digital worked on the same basic principle. you apply an emulsion to a surface in the dark, expose it to light and then develop it further if necessary. it doesnt matter if you're talking about cloth or steel (as in tintypes), paper or pinpoint photography or a chunk of cheese. you have to have something there that the light can 'burn' to create the image.

and doug, thank you for that link. i see all sorts of possibilities with something like that.

Craig