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The term alternative process refers to any non-traditional or non-commercial photographic printing process. Currently the standard analog photographic printing process is the
gelatin silver process
The gelatin silver process is the most commonly used chemical process in black-and-white photography, and is the fundamental chemical process for modern analog color photography. As such, films and printing papers available for analog photography ...
, and standard digital processes include the pigment print, and digital laser exposures on traditional color photographic paper.
Alternative processes are often called historical, or non-silver processes. Most of these processes were invented over 100 years ago and were used by early photographers.
Many contemporary photographers are revisiting alternative processes and applying new technologies (the
digital negative
Digital Negative (DNG) is a patented, open, lossless raw image format developed by Adobe and used for digital photography. Adobe's license allows use without cost on the condition that the licensee prominently displays text saying it is licensed ...
) and practices to these techniques.
Examples
*
Caffenol
Caffenol is a photographic alternative process whereby phenols, sodium carbonate and optionally vitamin C are used in aqueous solution as a film and print photographic developer.
*
Daguerreotype
Daguerreotype (; french: daguerréotype) was the first publicly available photographic process; it was widely used during the 1840s and 1850s. "Daguerreotype" also refers to an image created through this process.
Invented by Louis Daguerre an ...
*
Gum bichromate
Gum bichromate is a 19th-century photographic printing process based on the light sensitivity of dichromates. It is capable of rendering painterly images from photographic negatives. Gum printing is traditionally a multi-layered printing process, ...
and other Pigmented Dichromated Colloids which are used to directly generate a photographic print
* Platinum Process and Palladium Process
* Carbon print and various similar processes which use a non-sensitive intermediate layer to generate a photographic image
* Van Dyke Brown,
Cyanotype
The cyanotype (from Ancient Greek κυάνεος - ''kuáneos'', “dark blue” + τύπος - ''túpos'', “mark, impression, type”) is a slow-reacting, economical photographic printing formulation sensitive to a limited near ultraviolet ...
and various other iron-based processes
* Wet and Dry Plate processes based in silver using a hand coated emulsion on a tin or aluminum (tintype) or glass (ambrotype) base
* Resinotype and several similar processes which rely upon unexposed dichromated colloids to accept an insoluble pigment
*
Inkodye
Lumi is a Los Angeles-based company founded by Jesse Genet and Stephan Ango that offers packaging and supply chain management software. The company got its start developing Inkodye, a photo-reactive vat dye that develops its color through exposure ...
, a light-oxidized
vat dye
Vat dyes are a class of dyes that are classified as such because of the method by which they are applied. Vat dyeing is a process that refers to dyeing that takes place in a bucket or vat. The original vat dye is indigo, once obtained only from p ...
.
*Oil pigment processes, such as bromoil process
*Other processes which use silver halide but in various different ways other than the typical silver-gelatin formula, such as
Salt Print
The salt print was the dominant paper-based photographic process for producing positive prints (from negatives) from 1839 until approximately 1860.
The salted paper technique was created in the mid-1830s by English scientist and inventor Henry ...
*Any number of processes which use more exotic materials, such as uranium chloride,
, and any number of other salts to directly or indirectly generate a photographic print
*Non
standard Standard may refer to:
Symbols
* Colours, standards and guidons, kinds of military signs
* Standard (emblem), a type of a large symbol or emblem used for identification
Norms, conventions or requirements
* Standard (metrology), an object th ...
Photographic processes
A list of photographic processing techniques.
Color
*Agfacolor
** Ap-41 process (pre-1978 Agfa color slides; 1978-1983 was a transition period when Agfa slowly changed their color slide films from AP-41 to E6)
*Anthotype
*Autochrome Lumière, 190 ...