The digital negative is the collective name for methods used by photographers to create negatives on transparency film for the contact printing of alternative photographic techniques. The negatives can also be enlarged using traditional gelatin silver processes, though this is usually reserved for negatives of 4x5" or larger due to quality limitations imposed by printer technology.[citation needed] This set of techniques is separate from the Digital negative (DNG) file format, although this format may be used to create digital negative transparencies.
Digital negatives are typically used with one of the alternative processes such as gum bichromate, cyanotype, or Inkodye. In these cases, digital negatives are most commonly printed full size to create contact prints. The negative is sandwiched printer ink-to-emulsion in a contact printing frame and exposed under a UV light source. They can also be used to create positives (where the initial digital file is not inverted) to make positives on emulsions such as collodion processes.[citation needed]
They can also be used to create gelatin silver-based prints from digital files. However, since printers cannot spray small enough drops of ink to ensure detail in the smaller traditional sizes such as 35 mm, a larger format such as 4x5" is normally used.[citation needed]
Advantages and disadvantages
Digital negatives offer many advantages, such as the ability to shoot with a digital camera and edit digitally while still working with alternative or traditional photographic processes. Small, analog negatives can be scanned and enlarged digitally to create new negatives instead of using the traditional enlarging film that must be processed in a darkroom. Another advantage lies in their reproducibility: a damaged negative can be recreated from the original digital file.
Generally, digital negatives are made using an inkjet printer using black ink only, adjusted to the proper density to suit the process. This can be achieved simply with curves or other adjustments in an image editing program or using special printer drivers or raster image processors.[1]
It is also possible to use different colors in selected areas of an image to create contrast differences selectively when printing a negative, similar to using colored filters on black and white film. An example of this technique would be using a red filter only on the sky, and a green filter on just the grass, all at once red filter would darken the sky and the green filter would lighten the grass).[2]
Disadvantages to using digital negatives are driven mainly by printer limitations. Very small negatives tend to be blurry and grainy due to large ink droplets. Also, some inks can create banding not evident in the negative but obvious in the final print. Epson K3 Ultrachrome inks have shown to work very well in the creation of digital negatives.[citation needed]
Some types of transparency film work better than others: it is important to ensure that the film does not have any agents in it that block UV since this will allow only a very small amount of necessary UV to expose the print. Some films do not respond well to inks and even after drying, will smudge and smear.[citation needed]
Creation of digital negatives
For optimum results, digital negatives must be matched in terms of density and contrast to the process to which they will be applied. Since contemporary inks and printers cannot offer a density range as wide as traditional silver negatives, each printing process is usually associated with a separate tonal curve, so that the photographer can take full advantage of its gamut. Also, different processes react to colors differently; sometimes photographers print out a monochromatic negative in a specific color to get a specific contrast range. For example, some use purple inks and low contrast curves for the small gamut of cyanotype printing, while the platinum/palladium process necessitates a high contrast curve that works best with green ink. [3]
Photographers have a number of options in creating digital negatives. Usually, the process involves a lot of testing and reprinting. Chemical procedures must be standardized to allow for repeatable results. First, a tonal scale is printed out on the transparency film and this is used to create a print using whatever process is being tested. Next, the print is scanned and the resulting tones are examined either visually or using a specialized computer program, and a new contrast curve is generated to compensate for any perceived inadequacies. The photographer may also decide here to use a different ink color. The new negative is printed and again is tested. This process may be repeated until desired results are achieved. Often, the goal is to produce negatives that result in prints with clear shadows and highlights, and a smooth tonal transition between them.[4]
↑ Reeder, Ron; Anderson, Christina Z. (2013). "How to Make Digital Negatives". Freestyle Photographic. Archived from the original on 23 August 2017. Retrieved 22 August 2017.
Photographic paper is a paper coated with a light-sensitive chemical, used for making photographic prints. When photographic paper is exposed to light, it captures a latent image that is then developed to form a visible image; with most papers the image density from exposure can be sufficient to not require further development, aside from fixing and clearing, though latent exposure is also usually present. The light-sensitive layer of the paper is called the emulsion, and functions similarly to photographic film. The most common chemistry used is gelatin silver, but other alternatives have also been used.
The cyanotype is a slow-reacting, photographic printing formulation sensitive to a limited near ultraviolet and blue light spectrum, the range 300 nm to 400 nm known as UVA radiation. It produces a monochrome, blue coloured print on a range of supports, often used for art, and for reprography in the form of blueprints. For any purpose, the process usually uses two chemicals: ferric ammonium citrate or ferric ammonium oxalate, and potassium ferricyanide, and only water to develop and fix. Announced in 1842, it is still in use.
In photography, a negative is an image, usually on a strip or sheet of transparent plastic film, in which the lightest areas of the photographed subject appear darkest and the darkest areas appear lightest. This reversed order occurs because the extremely light-sensitive chemicals a camera film must use to capture an image quickly enough for ordinary picture-taking are darkened, rather than bleached, by exposure to light and subsequent photographic processing.
A darkroom is used to process photographic film, make prints and carry out other associated tasks. It is a room that can be made completely dark to allow the processing of light-sensitive photographic materials, including film and photographic paper. Various equipment is used in the darkroom, including an enlarger, baths containing chemicals, and running water.
Color photography is photography that uses media capable of capturing and reproducing colors. By contrast, black-and-white or gray-monochrome photography records only a single channel of luminance (brightness) and uses media capable only of showing shades of gray.
An enlarger is a specialized transparency projector used to produce photographic prints from film or glass negatives, or from transparencies.
A contact print is a photographic image produced from film; sometimes from a film negative, and sometimes from a film positive or paper negative. In a darkroom an exposed and developed piece of film or photographic paper is placed emulsion side down, in contact with a piece of photographic paper, light is briefly shone through the negative or paper and then the paper is developed to reveal the final print.
Photographic printing is the process of producing a final image on paper for viewing, using chemically sensitized paper. The paper is exposed to a photographic negative, a positive transparency , or a digital image file projected using an enlarger or digital exposure unit such as a LightJet or Minilab printer. Alternatively, the negative or transparency may be placed atop the paper and directly exposed, creating a contact print. Digital photographs are commonly printed on plain paper, for example by a color printer, but this is not considered "photographic printing".
Photogravure is a process for printing photographs, also sometimes used for reproductive intaglio printmaking. It is a photo-mechanical process whereby a copper plate is grained and then coated with a light-sensitive gelatin tissue which had been exposed to a film positive, and then etched, resulting in a high quality intaglio plate that can reproduce detailed continuous tones of a photograph.
Platinum prints, also called platinotypes, are photographic prints made by a monochrome printing process involving platinum.
Sun printing may refer to various printing techniques which use sunlight as a developing or fixative agent.
Gum printing is a way of making photographic reproductions without the use of silver halides. The process uses salts of dichromate in common with a number of other related processes such as sun printing.
Polaroid Type 55 film is a black-and-white peel-apart Polaroid film that yields both a positive print and a negative image that can be used to create enlargements.
A chromogenic print, also known as a C-print or C-type print, a silver halide print, or a dye coupler print, is a photographic print made from a color negative, transparency or digital image, and developed using a chromogenic process. They are composed of three layers of gelatin, each containing an emulsion of silver halide, which is used as a light-sensitive material, and a different dye coupler of subtractive color which together, when developed, form a full-color image.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to photography:
Inkjet paper is a special fine paper designed for inkjet printers, typically classified by its weight, brightness and smoothness, and sometimes by its opacity.
Dye transfer is a continuous-tone color photographic printing process. It was used to print Technicolor films, as well as to produce paper colour prints used in advertising, or large transparencies for display.
Photographic film is a strip or sheet of transparent film base coated on one side with a gelatin emulsion containing microscopically small light-sensitive silver halide crystals. The sizes and other characteristics of the crystals determine the sensitivity, contrast, and resolution of the film. Film is typically segmented in frames, that give rise to separate photographs.
Art photography print types refers to the process and paper of how the photograph is printed and developed.
A contact copier is a device used to copy an image by illuminating a film negative with the image in direct contact with a photosensitive surface. The more common processes are negative, where clear areas in the original produce an opaque or hardened photosensitive surface, but positive processes are available. The light source is usually an actinic bulb internal or external to the device
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