There is an art to making digital and analogue negatives, working with negatives, and curves for alternative photographic processes. Learn and get inspired by different techniques.
Digital negatives and positives: Film, printers and tools – all the links you need
What is the best tool for digital negatives? Digital negatives make it possible to print photographs taken with a camera or our phone for alternative photographic processes. It is something…
Solving the Digital Negative Problem
Advanced negatives: According to John Riches, developer of TruNeg, creating an accurate digital negative is more complex than simply inverting an image in editing software. Standard photo programs invert pixel…
Exposure Time Calculator for Alternative Processes using a Stouffer Step Wedge
Constanza Isaza Martínez introduces the Lux Darkroom Exposure Time & Exposure Scale Calculator, a visual tool designed to simplify the often intimidating task of determining correct exposure times when working…
Making Negatives in Lightroom Classic – Step by Step
Step-by-step guide to making negatives in Lightroom. When printing alternative photographic processes, the image is typically created either as a photogram (using physical objects) or from a negative (a film)…
Tri-Color Cyanotypes: Advancing the Techniques from Duotone
Building on the foundation of duotone cyanotype, Matthew Bary guides us through the next step – creating tri-colour cyanotypes, including a detailed step-by-step for preparing negatives. Drawing from earlier failed…
Duotone cyanotypes #4 – Print the negatives
Part 4 in Matthew Bary’s series on duotone cyanotype provides instructions for printing negatives using various Canon printers and transparency film. It includes details on printer settings, ink choices, and…
Duotone cyanotypes #3 – Make negatives using GIMP
Part 3 in Matthew Bary’s series Duotone cyanotype is a detailed guide for creating cyanotype negatives using Gimp software. It covers steps for flipping images, adjusting colors, adding registration marks,…
The True Inverted Digital Negative
John Riches at TruNeg has a method using mathematics to fix the failure of the inverted image to make a workable negative. If nothing else, a great lesson in how…
Spikes in development – Problem and Solution
Removing the spikes in development is important, in order to work with better data and get more precise correction curves for the best linearization of our photographs. Paolo Saccheri has…
Digital negative printer settings
Paolo Saccheri shares settings used for making digital negatives and highlights the difference the software can make. Writer and graphics / Paolo Saccheri What printer settings should be used for…
Making large format negatives with X-ray film
Scott Wittenburg shares his experience of working with large format x-ray film photography and how he uses them as an inexpensive and fun way to create large-format negatives. Writer and…
F-SAP 1.33 Table f-stop exposure times
Writer and photography / Gerard Smeets Gerard Smeets shares with us a table with f-stop related exposure times between 1 and 64 minutes plus the manual for this table. The…
Using oiled tracing paper as positive for heliogravure
Looking for texture in negatives Jose Garcia Fuertes finds out that tracing paper does the job.
A simple negative registration method
A simple, but effective OHP negative registration technique for gum printing. The method can be used for multiple pass single negative prints as well as CMYK negative prints.
When to use gray gamma 1.8 or 2.2 for digital negatives
Regardless of the workflow you use to make digital negatives, consistency is the key to achieving repeatable results. It’s worth questioning whether or not the original step wedge was made in gray gamma 1.8 or gray gamma 2.2.
Digital negatives
A three step method for making digital negatives by Ron Reeder and Christina Z. Anderson, an excerpt from Gum Printing and Other Amazing Contact Printing Processes.
Is what you see what you get? Sometimes.
Elizabeth Graves remarks on the perils of digital reproduction of analog media in a un-color-calibrated age.
A Non-Silver Manual: Desktop negatives
The chapter called “Desktop negatives” of Sarah Van Keuren’s book “A Non-Silver Manual: Cyanotype, Vandyke Brown, Palladium & Gum Bichromate with instructions for making light-resists including pinhole photography”, written by Sandra C. Davis.
A Non-Silver Manual: Enlarged negatives
The chapter called “Enlarged negatives” of Sarah Van Keuren’s book “A Non-Silver Manual: Cyanotype, Vandyke Brown, Palladium & Gum Bichromate with instructions for making light-resists including pinhole photography”.
A Non-Silver Manual: Light-Resists without camera or computer
The chapter called “Light-Resists without camera or computer” of Sarah Van Keuren’s book “A Non-Silver Manual: Cyanotype, Vandyke Brown, Palladium & Gum Bichromate with instructions for making light-resists including pinhole photography”.
Digital hybrids: A new twist on an old process
Melissa Jolley tells us how she combines digital artwork with historic photographic processes.
Glossary and explanations for Digital Negatives
Starting out with making digital negatives you may come across some terms you’ve never seen before, like "gamut", "ppi" and "random dots". This glossary may make a little more sense of it all.
Digital Negatives: The Color Ratio Method
There are several different ways of making a digital negative, but all seem to involve a Photoshop curve at some point. In this article geologist Clay Harmon applies his skills to photography and has developed his own curve for a Pyro-like digital negative – to be used with an Epson 2200, but, it can also be tweaked for other printers. All free to download here.
Distressing Negatives
Excerpt from The Experimental Photography Workbook, 4th Edition.
Christina Z. Anderson describes four ways to creatively destroy your negatives, giving them a little extra bite.
Curve corner – Photoshop and Gimp curves for making digital negatives
A curve could be described as the representation of all the tones in an image, from highlights to shadows. Photoshop curves are a great tool for creating a balanced digital negative. They help you control the tonal values and contrast of an image or a negative. Now you can download ready-made curves here – or upload yours to share with others.
Negatives – Techniques for alternative processes
There are many different routes to the final negative. Here, Lloyd Godman gives an overview of the different techniques.
How to make a paper negative from a photograph
You have a photographic negative on paper, from, let’s say a pinhole camera. You want to use it to make cyanotype or other alt. procs, so it needs to be made more transparent… how do you do this?
Wet Contact Printing for Paper Negatives
If you’re in the darkroom and have just developed a negative image, from say a pinhole camera. You wonder how to turn it into a positive image. This an easy step-by-step to how.
How to make digital negatives
An easy way to make interesting negatives with the help of a computer. If you think Photoshop is too expensive – The Gimp is a cheaper program – it’s actually free.
Less is More
Ed Buffaloe explains how to make an enlarged negative for contact printing by reversal.
World Anthotype Day
World Cyanotype Day
