ABSTRACT
Silver-gelatin prints are more ‘trusted’ in the collector’s market than large-format inkjet prints for both quality and longevity. Large sheets of film for contact printing are expensive both to buy and to process. Acetate sheet, on the other hand, can be easily passed through an inkjet printer to produce a negative version of a digital image or a scanned film image. Digital negatives are convenient in allowing detailed retouching and careful contrast balancing to be done. There are two types: ones with physical density (inks block the light) and those with spectral density. Contact printing is a method of making positive copies from negatives without involving projection, enlargement, lenses or any other optical system. It relies on the negative being brought into close contact with the photosensitive emulsion layer of the printing paper. The image-bearing emulsion of the negative is in direct contact with the image-receiving photosensitive layer of the photographic paper.
