In Hungarian public collections there are ten millions of photographs from the beginnings of photography up to the present, still, there is not one collector, museologist, photographer who is fully aware of the photographic techniques and the demands of the special treatments required mainly by different techniques, though the exsistence of the photographs depends on the appropriate storage, display and use. At the same time, there has not been a manual / handbook available in Hungarian so far on this subject.
The book attempts to set up a valid system of photo- typology, to summerize the principles of photographic conservation. Besides, it deals with the direct positive, the negative and the positive processes in three main units. The book presents the photographic techniques whithin this classification in their interrelaton, in succession. It gives full details of the the history of the invention of the processes, defines the time of their application in Hungary, describes the processes and gives advice on their empirical and chemical identification, lists the most significant Hungarian representatives/masters of the different techniques, presents the value of the photographs produced by these processes and their occurence in Hungarian public collections and outlines the most important elements of the treatments required by the different techniques as well as the tasks of conservation.