Orotone

Following exposure and development, the back of the plate is coated with banana oil impregnated with gold-colored pigment, to yield a gold-toned image.

Being printed on glass, orotone images are extremely fragile and often require specialized frames in order to prevent breakage.

[3] Curtis promoted his process as follows: "The ordinary photographic print, however good, lacks depth and transparency, or more strictly speaking, translucency.

We all know how beautiful are the stones and pebbles in the limpid brook of the forest where the water absorbs the blue of the sky and the green of the foliage, yet when we take the same iridescent pebbles from the water and dry them they are dull and lifeless, so it is with the ordinary photographic print, but in the Curt-Tones all the transparency is retained and they are as full of life and sparkle as an opal.

"[4]Sally Larsen (who gold-leafs each developed plate by hand)[5] and Ryan Zoghlin are modern practitioners of orotone photography.