Scott Wittenburg proofing negatives.

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 photography / Scott Wittenburg I began my X-ray film experience after building a homemade 11×14 view camera from scratch several years ago. Having finished construction, I started looking for traditional 11×14 black and white sheet film online so I could … Read more

Registering a negative for the gum bicromate process step 4

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.

Grey gamma on digital negatives 6b

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.

Sarah van Keuren

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.

Sarah van Keuren

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”.

Sarah van Keuren

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”.

Christina Z Anderson

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.

Load a curve in photoshop

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.

photographic negative

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?

negatives

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.

Gimp Negatives

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.

Black represents developed silver. Grey represents undeveloped silver halide.

Less is More

Ed Buffaloe explains how to make an enlarged negative for contact printing by reversal.