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Digital negatives are used in making contact prints with an inkjet printer. How can I do this with a Canon 9500 II printer?

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    \$\begingroup\$ What do you mean by "digital negatives"? Do you mean prints? \$\endgroup\$
    – mattdm
    Commented Feb 16, 2011 at 0:58
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    \$\begingroup\$ I imagine he means digital negatives, its a step in an alternative process: alternativephotography.com/wp/tag/digital-negatives \$\endgroup\$
    – Shizam
    Commented Feb 16, 2011 at 3:53
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    \$\begingroup\$ Huh. It seems to come from here danburkholder.com/Pages/main_pages/book_info_main_page1.htm — it's a process for using an inkjet printer to produce actual physical (i.e., not digital) negatives for contact printing. \$\endgroup\$
    – mattdm
    Commented Feb 16, 2011 at 15:32
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    \$\begingroup\$ Do you mean the processing stages before the print or the printing stage? From what I've seen, there's nothing special about the printer setup once the negative is ready to be printed, you just need the correct media to print to. \$\endgroup\$
    – Joanne C
    Commented Mar 18, 2011 at 18:16
  • \$\begingroup\$ The key, it seems to me, would be in getting the film base plus fog density right, then you could let the extreme shadows go white (Zone 0) in the transparency print. (Or you could use paper if you want to try to emulate the Fox Talbot process for artistic effect -- the paper grain can be an interesting effect.) I'd expect that a separate sheet of unexposed, developed film would be exactly the ticket here, and you can probably find a print house that does traditional photoliths that would be willing to supply you with one for less than the price of buying a box of film and going DIY. \$\endgroup\$
    – user2719
    Commented Mar 31, 2011 at 22:49

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A good tutorial on making digital negatives using The Gimp. A free image editing software platform.

http://www.alternativephotography.com/wp/negatives/digital-negatives-gimp

You can make them on your computer and then print using any printer you have. Not sure why you mention your printer? Maybe some printers have this option built in?

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You mention using a Canon printer - Canon uses dye-based inks and Epson generally pigment. Pigment prints are better than dye-based for blocking light, and depending on the process that will be important (e.g. pt/pd printing or albumen)

The best solution is to experiment with what prints work best for you once you've got your image files made. It will come down to tweaking to suit your printer and aesthetic tastes.

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