When the biting is finished rapidly place the plate under the tap and rinse thoroughly, breaking away the film with your fingers; it seems to have rotted under the action of the acid and is easily removed.

Remove the walling wax, clean off the varnish with chloroform or turpentine, or alcohol first, and chloroform last. This leaves a dim picture on the plate, with a kind of scum over it; wet the plate with turpentine and start heavily with rouge, rubbing to and fro equally all over the plate with a ball of absorbent cotton; continue this treatment, using less and less rouge and more turpentine until you give the final polish to the high lights with a clean dry piece of cotton. Be very careful not to overdo in rouging; the scum (if the biting of the plate is of medium strength) should clear from the plate with hardly a touch, and with very little rouging. Some plates require a great deal of rouging; it then generally means that you must look to your sensitizer. I again draw your attention to the rouging; here is where any artistic feeling you may possess will come into play with taste and patience.

After the plate is rouged sufficiently, an engraver's burnisher is used to clean up the highest lights and to modify others. Two or three roulettes of different fineness are valuable to touch up any darks that need deepening; it matches very well with the grain, but I am always trying to dispense with the use of the roulettes; one ought to get it with the acid alone. A No. 6 sewing needle in a holder (dentist's pin-holder, screw end) is necessary to touch out occasional white specks. You will have plenty of them at first unless you look out carefully for dust on the film; keep all your solutions constantly attended to by occasional filtering, and don't use your sensitizing solution more than half a dozen times; keep it well corked; if it gets old it scums the plate too much.