Digital Prints

Photographic Prints
Photographers have been making prints of their images ever since the pioneering days of
the medium in the 19th century. While Louis Daguerre (1839) and before him Nicéphore
Niépce (1829) were able to produce the first, fixed photographs, it was William Henry
Fox Talbot’s 1840 invention of the Calotype process that allowed photographers to make
an unlimited number of positive paper prints from the same negative.
I roughly categorize traditional photographic prints into three technology groups: blackand-white,
color, and alternative process.
Black-and-White Prints
Normal black-and-white photography
is metallic-silver based. The
chemical processing of a silverhalide
emulsion that has been
exposed to light via an enlarger creates
a lasting image made up of tiny
bits of silver that absorb, rather than
reflect, light. Correctly processed
black-and-white prints on fiberbased
paper are essentially permanent;
they will last for hundreds of
years without image deterioration.
“Silver-gelatin print” is the art-world
description for a normal black-andwhite
print.
Chapter 1 ■ Navigating the Digital Landscape 15
Jackson Lake by William Henry
Jackson, albumen print, c. 1892.
Library of Congress, Prints and
Photographs Division, Detroit Publishing
Company Collection
Traditional black-and-white developing
in a chemical darkroom.
Courtesy of Seth Rossman
www.msrphoto.com