How to Make Digital Negatives for Cyanotypes

This article is a written companion to my Cyanotype Alpha Omega II YouTube video course. Use this guide to follow along with the video on making digital negatives or to revisit details while you work.

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Any digital image can be turned into a digital negative.

You’ve mixed the chemistry. You’ve chosen a paper and coated it. Now you need something to put between that paper and the light.

If you’re making photograms with flowers, leaves, or whatever interesting debris you’ve found lying around, you can skip the digital negative altogether. But if you want to turn a photograph into a cyanotype, a printed transparency gives you a straightforward way to do it. A picture from your phone, a digital camera, or a scan of film can all be starting points.

The basic job is simple: turn the photograph into a negative, size it for the print you want, and print it onto a transparency. The dense areas hold back light and become the lighter areas of the cyanotype. The clearer areas let more light through and become blue.

There are considerably more elaborate ways to make digital negatives. This is the practical approach I use. We’re getting a usable negative onto a sheet so we can make a print.

What you need

You need a finished digital photograph, an inkjet printer, and transparency film made for inkjet printing. You’ll also need one of the three tools below to convert the picture. Handling the sheets by their edges helps; cotton archival gloves are another option.

Make sure the transparency is intended for your type of printer. A clear sheet is not automatically an inkjet-printable sheet. The coating is what gives the ink somewhere to stay.

I use these inexpensive 8½ × 11 inch inkjet transparencies. They fit my printer and have worked well for my cyanotypes. You can buy other sizes and more specialized negative films, but there’s no need to make the supply list an obstacle to your first print. Jacquard’s transparency sheets are another option. You can also compare these alternatives: option one, option two, and option three. Check the sheet size and inkjet compatibility before ordering.

Find the side that accepts the ink

The sheets I use have two noticeably different surfaces. One is a smooth, glossy base. The other is slightly duller and has a little more texture. That coated surface is where the ink belongs. I refer to it as the emulsion side in the video, although it’s an ink-receiving coating rather than a light-sensitive film emulsion.

Follow the film manufacturer’s instructions for identifying that side. Try to keep your fingers off the image area while you’re figuring it out.

My Canon feeds the transparency with the coated side facing down, then prints onto that surface as the sheet passes through. Your printer may load differently. Check its paper-feed instructions rather than assuming coated-side-down applies to every machine.

If ink beads into little droplets and refuses to stick, you may have printed onto the uncoated side. I still manage to do that occasionally. The printer is usually quite efficient at announcing my mistake.

You can start with an inexpensive printer

My printer is a Canon PIXMA TR4722 from the TR4700 series. Its name is James. James was inexpensive when I bought it, and it has been doing this job perfectly happily.

That doesn’t mean every printer and ink combination behaves identically. It means you can try the printer you already own before deciding you need a more expensive one. Especially on textured papers, I’d rather make a print and look at it than buy equipment to solve a problem I haven’t encountered yet.

Method 1: Photoshop

Photoshop is my usual choice. I like having the conversion, orientation, and sizing in front of me before the file reaches the printer.

Start with the photograph edited the way you want it. If you’re sending it from Lightroom Classic, choose Edit In Photoshop and, when appropriate, Edit a Copy with Lightroom Adjustments. Keep your original positive image intact.

1. Invert the image. Use Image → Adjustments → Invert, or press Command + I on a Mac or Ctrl + I on Windows. The light and dark values reverse.
2. Make it black and white. Use a Black & White adjustment. This keeps the document flexible if you want to experiment with colored negatives later.
3. Mirror it horizontally. Use Image → Image Rotation → Flip Canvas Horizontal. When the ink side faces the cyanotype paper during contact printing, the photograph will come out in its intended orientation.
4. Set the size. Open Image → Image Size, keep the width and height linked, and choose the physical dimensions you want within your sheet and printer’s printable area.

You can also mirror the image during printing if your software offers that option. Do it once. Mirroring the file and then selecting another mirror option in the print dialog cancels the first flip.

For this basic workflow, I’m not adding a calibrated correction curve or building a step-wedge test. Those tools can help refine tonal reproduction, but you can start by printing a straightforward negative and evaluating the resulting cyanotype. An image looking good on the screen gives you a starting point; the physical print tells you what needs adjusting.

A brief word about resolution

PPI and DPI describe different things. PPI is the number of image pixels assigned to each inch at the chosen print size. DPI describes the printer’s dots of ink. They aren’t interchangeable numbers, and the printer can use multiple ink dots to reproduce an image pixel.

For this approach, 300 PPI at the intended negative size is a sensible starting point. Higher settings can be worth testing, but I wouldn’t make them a requirement before trying a print.

In Photoshop, Resample determines whether resizing changes the number of pixels. With it off, changing PPI changes the physical print dimensions while retaining the existing pixels. With it on, Photoshop can add or remove pixels to reach your selected size and resolution. Adding pixels doesn’t recover detail that wasn’t in the photograph.

Choose your physical dimensions first and check that the whole picture fits. An 8½ × 11 inch sheet may have a smaller printable area because of the printer’s margins. You don’t have to fill every inch of it.

Method 2: Lightroom Classic

You can make the negative without leaving Lightroom Classic.

Work on a virtual copy so your finished positive edit remains available. In the Develop module, open the Tone Curve and use the point-curve controls. Reverse the endpoints: move the black endpoint from the lower-left corner to the upper-left, and move the white endpoint from the upper-right to the lower-right. For a simple inversion, the line slopes down across the graph.

Switch the image to black and white. Now you have a negative.

In the Print module, choose your layout and size, and check whether fitting or cropping options are cutting off anything you want to keep. My starting approach is 300 PPI, print sharpening off, and color managed by the printer. If your setup supports 16-bit output, you can use it, though it isn’t a requirement for this process.

You can print from Lightroom or select JPEG File under Print To to save the layout for printing elsewhere. Remember to mirror the image once, either before printing or with a supported printer setting.

If you add a border to the negative, think about what it needs to do on the cyanotype. A dense black border blocks light and can leave a pale border on the finished print. A clear border allows exposure and can become blue. For a separate walkthrough, see my easy borders tutorial for Photoshop and Lightroom.

Method 3: Jacquard’s Negative Generator

If you want a simple place to begin without Photoshop or Lightroom, try Jacquard’s Cyanotype Negative Generator.

Open your photograph in the tool, adjust its rotation and scale as needed, and choose the negative option. The tool also offers brightness and contrast adjustments. Use its output controls to prepare the image for printing, then check the size and orientation in your print preview.

This is the least customizable of the three approaches, but it is a wonderfully uncomplicated way to get started. You still need to print onto the correct side of your transparency and check whether mirroring is needed. An easy conversion doesn’t make the printer behave itself.

Printer settings that matter

The exact wording depends on your printer, driver, and operating system. Here’s what I use as a starting point:

• Check the print preview. Confirm the orientation, image size, and printable margins. Use a fit option if the image is being clipped, and check the resulting size.
• Let the printer manage color for this workflow. That is the approach demonstrated in the episode. Keep it consistent while testing.
• Use the film maker’s recommended media setting. Glossy photo paper and the highest quality setting have worked with my printer and film. Another combination may need different settings.
• For my monochrome negatives, select black-and-white printing. Colored negatives require color printing. The driver determines which inks are actually used.
• Turn off fast or draft printing. Use the slower, higher-quality option if it’s available. Allow extra drying time between passes when the driver offers it and the film requires it.
• Print one side only. Check any mirror setting before sending the sheet through.

A glossy setting doesn’t give every printer a separate photo-black ink. What it does is tell the driver how to handle that media. The useful test is how your ink and film behave together, followed by the cyanotype they produce.

Do you need an orange negative

I used to print orange negatives after hearing they could produce cleaner whites. In my own work, I haven’t seen enough difference to keep using that approach, so I generally print a plain black-and-white negative.

That is an observation about my setup, not a rule for every ink. Visible color alone doesn’t tell you how much ultraviolet light a printed ink layer blocks. If you want to explore colored negatives, compare physical prints using your own printer, film, and exposure setup.

For reference, the optional Photoshop experiment shown in the episode uses a Solid Color fill layer, a color entered with M 50 and Y 90 in the CMYK fields, and Overlay blending mode. That color choice doesn’t force the printer to deposit those exact ink proportions. Keep it as an optional experiment rather than another thing you have to do before making a cyanotype.

Let the negative dry

When the sheet comes out, avoid touching the printed area. Lay it coated-side-up on a clean surface or hang it somewhere free of dust.

I generally leave mine for about 30 minutes to an hour, but follow the film and ink instructions if they call for longer. Drying helps prevent smearing and transfer; a sheet that feels dry immediately may still benefit from more time.

Look for fingerprints, pooled ink, obvious streaks, or dust before bringing it into contact with coated paper. A Rocket Air Blaster can help clear loose dust from the sheet before contact printing. A fingerprint can become part of your photograph remarkably quickly. It rarely improves the composition.

From negative to cyanotype

You now have a photograph on a transparency, ready to use as a contact-printing negative. The next installment covers exposing and washing the cyanotype itself.

If you’re still preparing the earlier stages, revisit mixing cyanotype chemistry and choosing and coating paper.

If you’re still gathering supplies for the earlier stages, you can use the pre-mixed Cyanotype Solution A and B set, or mix your own stocks with potassium ferricyanide and ferric ammonium citrate, following the chemistry guide. Jacquard also offers a complete cyanotype kit with paper, a brush, chemicals, and other supplies.

For the video walkthroughs, see Emulsion Guide and Introduction, Paper Selection and Coating, and the Welch Method for Japanese Washi Printing.

Start with a picture you like. Make the negative. Let it dry. Then make a print and see what it tells you. You can refine the process from there without turning the first attempt into a research project.