The gelatin silver process is the photographic process used with currently available black-and-white films and printing papers. A suspension of silver salts in gelatin is coated onto a support such as glass, flexible plastic or film, baryta paper, or resin-coated paper. These light-sensitive materials are stable under normal keeping conditions and are able to be exposed and processed even many years after their manufacture. This is in contrast to the collodion wet-plate process dominant from the 1850s–1880s, which had to be exposed and developed immediately after coating.
The gelatin silver process was introduced by Richard Leach Maddox in 1871 with subsequent considerable improvements in sensitivity obtained by Charles Harper Bennet in 1878. Research over the last 125 years has led to current materials that exhibit low grain and high sensitivity to light.
When small crystals (called grains) of silver salts such as silver bromide and silver chloride are exposed to light, a few atoms of free metallic silver are liberated. These free silver atoms form the latent image. This latent image is relatively stable and will persist for some months without degradation provided the film is kept dark and cool. Films are developed using solutions that reduce silver halides in the presence of free silver atoms. An 'amplification' of the latent image occurs as the silver halides near the free silver atom are reduced to metallic silver. The strength, temperature and time for which the developer is allowed to act allow the photographer to control the contrast of the final image. The development is then stopped by neutralizing the developer in a second bath.
Once development is complete, the undeveloped silver salts must be removed by fixing in sodium thiosulphate or ammonium thiosulphate, and then the negative or print must be washed in clean water. The final image consists of metallic silver embedded in the gelatin coating.
All gelatin silver photographic materials are subject to deterioration. The silver particles that comprise the image are susceptible to oxidation, leading to yellowing and fading of the image. Poor processing can also result in various forms of image degradation, due to residual silver-thiosulfate complexes. Toning increases the stability of the silver image by coating the silver image with a less easily oxidized metal such as gold, or by converting portions of the silver image particles into more stable compounds such as silver selenide or silver sulfide.[1]
An essentially identical procedure called "silver staining" is utilized in molecular biology to visualize DNA or proteins after gel electrophoresis, usually SDS-PAGE. The latent image is formed by the DNA or protein molecules (i.e. the reduced silver selectively precipitates onto those molecules). It is known for being nearly as sensitive as autoradiography, the "gold standard" technique, but one not widely used due to the use of radioactive materials. [2]