Now, let us bear this in mind when using such a negative for the printing of a transparency, for, as I have said before, it is only a process of printing, after all. Although we cannot, when using a sensitive plate, employ the same means of dodging as in the case of a silver print, still we are not left without a means of obtaining the same results in a different way, and this just brings me to what I have already hinted at previously, that a deal more depends on the manipulative skill of the operator than in the adoption of any particular make plate or formula; and not only does this manipulative skill show itself in the exposure, development, etc., but likewise comes into play in a marked manner even in the preparation of the negative for transparency printing. Let me deal with the latter point first. You will at once understand that a negative whose size bears a proportion similar to 3¼ by 3¼ will lend itself more easily to reduction; thus whole plate or half plate negatives are easy of manipulation in this respect, and require but little doing up. But as other sizes have at times to be copied into a disk¼ by 3¼, recourse must be had to a sort of squaring of the negative. Now, here I have a negative 7¼ by 4½, which is perhaps the worst of all sizes to compress into the lantern shape, so I have, as it were, to square this negative, and this I do by simply adding to sky. I take a piece of card-board and gum it on to the glass side of the negative, and this addition gives me a size that lends itself easily to reduction to the lantern disk, and in no way detracts from the picture. Having said so much about making up the size, let me add a few words as to other preparations that are sometimes necessary. In a good lantern transparency, it is, of all things, indispensable that the high lights be represented by pure glass, absolutely clean in the sense of its being free from any fog or deposit, to even the slightest degree; it is also necessary that it be free from everything of heaviness of smudginess in the details. To obtain these results, I generally have recourse to the strengthening of the high lights of my negatives, and this I do with a camel's hair brush and India ink, working on the glass side. I nearly always block out my skies, and so strengthen the other parts of my negatives, that I can rely on a full exposure without fear of heaviness or smudginess. This blocking out is easily done.