We only list the books on alternative photographic processes we truly recommend on the subject. If you buy through the links to Amazon, a small percentage of the price will go towards running this website. If however, you choose the options where it says “Buy directly from the author” most of the money goes to the author.
Experimental Photography: A Handbook of Techniques
Systematically details experimental photographic techniques.
The Experimental Darkroom: Contemporary Uses of Traditional Black & White Photographic Materials
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Learn about a variety of alternative photographic processes.
A technical book highly recommended both for beginners and pros.
Jill Enfield’s Guide to Photographic Alternative Processes: Popular Historical and Contemporary Techniques
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Covering several techniques and even printing on ceramics.
New Dimensions in Photo Processes
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Clear instructions in step-by-step to many of the processes.
Photo Imaging – A Complete Visual Guide to Alternative Techniques and Processes
A definite resource for mastering alternative photo-imaging techniques. Out of print.
Photographic Possibilities: The Expressive Use of Concepts, Ideas, Materials, and Processes
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A well researched reference book covering many alt. procs.
Spirits of Salts / Alternative Photographic Processes
A Working Guide to Old Photographic Processes.
The Book of Alternative Photographic Processes
Cyanotypes, kallitypes, ambrotypes, anthotypes and more in classroom format.
The Darkroom Cookbook (Alternative Process Photography)
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Description of 170 photographic processes.
Coming into Focus
by John Barnier
Practical instructions on 20 processes.
Breaking the Rules. A Photo Media Cookbook
Pinholes, cyanotypes, and more. Out of print.
The Art of Enhanced Photography. Beyond the Photoraphic Image
Centered around interviews with seventeen photographers.
Alternative Photographic Processes: A Working Guide for Image Makers
A classic and an overview of alternative processes.
A guide to early photographic processes
Detailing all the early photograhic processes. Out of print.
Historic Photographic Processes
Extensive research and resources.
Photography’s Antiquarian Avant-Garde: The New Wave in Old Processes
Information on many of the processes.
Alternative Photographic Processes: Crafting Handmade Images
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Manipulating photographs with techniques such as substrate manipulation, transfers and lifts and vaxing.
The Albumen Print: A Practical Guide
Rated 8,5 – based on 4 votes
An artist sharing knowledge of Albumen printing.
Anthotypes – Explore the darkroom in your garden and make photographs using plants
Rated 9,8 – based on 224 votes
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Make prints using plants – an environmentally safe process!
The most comprehensive resource on Anthotypes.
Anthotype Emulsions, Volume 1 – The collective research from photographers on World Anthotype Day 2022
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Anthotype research from over 100 artists from all over the globe on 60 different plants, powders and dyes for anthotypes!
Anthotype notes – Document your anthotype process
Rated 10 – based on 2 votes
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50 pre-defined pages for you to document your anthotype process.
The Art of Bromoil & Transfer
Rated 9,44 – based on 9 votes
A book on the bromoil and transfer process.
Carbon Transfer Printing: A Step-by-Step Manual, Featuring Contemporary Carbon Printers and Their Creative Practice
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Reviews the extensive history of carbon transfer and related pigment processes.
Chrysotype: A Contemporary Guide to Photographic Printing in Gold
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An affordable way to produce permanent prints in gold. By using film or digital negatives, striking hand-coated prints can be created.
The Chrysotype Manual: The Science and Practice of Photographic Printing in Gold
Rated 9,9 – based on 12 votes
Intended for advanced practitioners of the photographic arts.
Blueprint to cyanotypes – Exploring a historical alternative photographic process
Rated 9,46 – based on 182 votes
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All you need to get started with cyanotypes, full of information, tips and samples from artists.
An excellent beginners’ guide to cyanotypes!
Cyanotype: The Blueprint in Contemporary Practice
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Contemporary Practices in Alternative Process Photography
Cyanotype toning: Using Botanicals to Tone Blueprints Naturally
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A two-part book including a step-by-step how-to section to achieve a successfully toned print and a part devoted to artists who have explored toning.
Cyanotype: The History, Science and Art of Photographic Printing in Prussian Blue
From Mike Ware chemist and inventor of the Cyanotype II process.
Cyanotypes on Fabric: A blueprint on how to produce … blueprints!
Rated 9,51 – based on 17 votes
Print cyanotypes on fabrics and textiles.
From the expert fabric printer comes a practical and well researched how-to book on cyanotypes.
Cyanotype on glass and ceramics
Information on how to create cyanotypes on glass or ceramics.
The Daguerreotype: Nineteenth-Century Technology and Modern Science
What’s wrong with Daguerre?: Reconsidering old and new views on the invention of photography.
Explores the reasons why daguerre and the daguerreotype are often devalued.
Gum Printing and Other Amazing Contact Printing Processes
Rated 9,89 – based on 234 votes
- Currently not available new. Can be found second hand on Amazon:
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A Manual of Gum Dichromate and Other Contact Printing Processes.
Packed full of information.
Gum Printing: A Step-by-Step Manual, Highlighting Artists and Their Creative Practice
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A step-by-step description of the gum printing process and showcases of artists’ works ranging from monochrome to colorful and from subtle to bold.
The Gum Bichromate Book: Non-silver Methods for Photographic Printmaking
Step-by-step guide to gum bichromates.
Gumoil Photographic Printing
Step-by-step guide to gumoils.
Alchemist’s Guide To The Kallitype Print: Printing In Silver
A step-by-step guide to printing kallitypes.
Kallitype: The Processes and the History
An extensive encyclopedia of history and various kallitype processes.
Photographers’ Formulary 07-0080 Van Dyke Printing Kit
This kit will produce 100 4×5-inch or 25 8×10-inch prints.
Vandyke Brown Printing Kit
Makes 100 4″ x 5″ prints or 25 8″ x 10″ prints – great for beginners.
The Master Photographer’s Lith Printing Course: A Definitive Guide to Creating Lith Printing
A step-by-step book on lith printing by an acknowledged master.
The World of Lith Printing: The Best of Traditional Darkroom and Digital Lith Printing Techniques
World-wide collection of lith printing works.
Silver Gelatin: A User’s Guide to Liquid Photographic Emulsions
A practical art book illustrating the use of liquid photographic emulsion.
The Handmade Silver Gelatin Emulsion Print: Creating Your Own Liquid Emulsions for Black & White Paper
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A cookbook of simple, basic recipes for making black and white printing paper and paper negatives.
Calibration for Alternative Photographic Processes
A 4-part series on getting your alt. proc. prints right.
Become an expert calibrator.
Digital Negatives with QuadToneRIP: Demystifying QTR for Photographers and Printmakers
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Fully explores how the QuadToneRIP printer driver can be used to make expert digital negatives.
Precision Digital Negatives for Silver & Other Alternative Photographic Processes
An eBook describing Color Density Range Control.
The Negative (Ansel Adams Photography, Book 2)
Devoted to a discussion of light, film and exposure.
Polymer Photogravure: A Step-by-Step Manual, Highlighting Artists and Their Creative Practice
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Clear and easy to understand instructions.
Printmaking in the Sun
Covering the solarprint, or the photopolymer process, an inspiring read!
Copper Plate Photogravure – Demystifying the Process
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Step-by-step basic printing procedures for a photogravure plate, complete with trouble shooting information.
The Complete Printmaker
Step by step through the history and techniques of over forty-five print-making methods.
Built From Scratch: Adventures in X-ray film photography with a homemade 11×14 view camera
Rated 9 – based on 3 votes
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Learn to build a large format camera.
Exploring simple lenses – An in-depth practical guide to creative image-making
Rated 9,18 – 78 votes
A very practical book.
Excellent value.
From pinhole to print – Inspiration, instructions and insights in less than an hour
Rated 9,46 – based on 182 votes
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Learn how to build and use a pinhole camera.
Step by step to a quick and easy way to learn pinholing.
Pinhole Photography, Fourth Edition: From Historic Technique to Digital Application
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An inspiring book including ideas and techniques. Not for beginners.
The Pinhole Camera – A Practical How-To Book for Making Pinhole Cameras and Images
The benefits of pinholing, making cameras, material and darkroom skills.
Primitive Photography: A Guide to Making Cameras, Lenses, and Calotypes
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The entire process from the beginning to end, at advanced level.
Adventures With Pinhole and Home-Made Cameras: From Tin Cans to Precision Engineering
A variety of approaches to pinhole with lots of examples of camera building and technical aspects of building your own.
The Beginner’s Guide to Pinhole Photography
Back to basics, recommended for beginners.
Platinotype: Making Photographs in Platinum and Palladium with the Contemporary Printing-out Process
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Describes the mechanisms and chemistry of platinum/palladium printing in safe and practical ways.
The Old Made New: Richard Eugene Puckett’s Dry Print-Out Processes with Gold, Palladium, and Platinum
Rated 9 – based on 2 votes
More about the book.
Recommended.
The Platinum Printing Workshop: Platinum/Palladium Printing Made Easy
Workshop guide and walk-through of the process.
Salted Paper Printing: A Step-by-Step Manual Highlighting Contemporary Artists
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The history and the process: from beginner to intermediate level, with step-by-step instructions and troubleshooting.
The Salt Print Manual
Rated 9 – based on 2 votes
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Learn how to make salt prints.
A practical manual in clear and jargon-free language.
Creative Sunprinting; Early Photographic Printing Processes Rediscovered
A cookbook of various processes. Out of print.
Making Monotypes Using a Gelatin Plate
Includes a section on temperaprints.
Chemical Pictures The Wet Plate Collodion Book: Making Ambrotypes, Tintypes & Alumitypes
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Covers everything you need to know about wet-plate collodion photography.
Making the Sliding Box Camera: For Wet Plate Collodion or Daguerreotype Photography
Learn how to construct a camera in wood, dating back to the daguerreotype era.
Making the Traditional Wet Plate Camera: Suitable for Wet Plate Collodion, Dry Plate, or Daguerreotype Photography
From the basics to more advanced techniques on building a historically-correct bellows camera for plate photography.
The Ambrotype: A Practical Guide
Rated 8,0 – based on 6 votes
A step-by-step practical guide to ambrotypes.
The Wet Collodion Plate: 16 Steps To Making The Plates
Rated 9,2 – based on 26 votes
- Will sadly passed away in April 2021 so this book is no longer for sale. His widow very kindy donated the book for everyone to read for free in his memory.
The veteran of collodion demonstrates in easy steps how to make plates.
Toning and Handcoloring Photographs
More inspirational than technical.
Framing Photography (Library of Professional Picture Framing, Volume 6)
For the professional framer.
Mechanisms of Image Deterioration in Early Photographs: The Sensitivity to Light of W.H.F. Talbot’s Halide-fixed Images 1834-1844
Very well researched.
Alternate Processes in Photography: Technique, History, and Creative Potential
A practitioner’s perspective on the history and practice of photographic processes. Out of print.
Gold in Photography: The History and Art of Chrysotype
Rated 9,83 – based on 6 votes
An indispensable insight into early photography
Seizing the Light: A Social & Aesthetic History of Photography
Sun Gardens: Victorian Photograms
A replica of the first photographic book published with cyanotypes, expensive and hard to get hold of.
Sun Gardens: Cyanotypes by Anna Atkins
Out of print, and very expensive, at over 400 dollars(!). If you find a copy in an antiquarian store, be sure to pick it up!
The Bluest of Blues: Anna Atkins and the first book of photographs
Despite being published for “Young Readers” we highly recommend it for adults as well. Anna Atkins’ life is described in an accessible and intriguing manner and the book is beautifully illustrated throughout.
Anna Atkins: Blue Prints
A detailed work of history that starts with a history of illustrated systematic works of botany. It gives an account of Anna Atkins’ life, the invention of photography and the people around her.
Alternative Photography: Art and Artists, Edition I
Rated 9,97 – based on 257 votes
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115 artists working with alternative photographic processes.
Get inspired!
The Story Behind The Images
Rated 9,5 – based on 2 votes
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Art and instructions by Scott Wittenburg.
Transformational Imagemaking: Handmade Photography Since 1960
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The art of experimental photographers.
Hi Judi! You can find it on Amazon for example: https://amzn.to/3s1konl
Where can I find the book “Beautiful Image Transfers” by Nitsa Malik ?