Face mounting on Dibond
In this process, a photograph is mounted on a same-size, composite panel made of aluminum, meaning that it is glued on to a surface so that the edges of both photograph and plate are even. The even application of special glue produces a lasting, smooth surface. To prevent damage, the photograph is then protected by a UV laminate.
Baryta Print
This is a general term, in frequent use in Germany, for the classic black-and-white print on fiber-based, silver halide photographic paper. Raw photo paper is coated with a thin layer of baryta (barium sulfate), which prevents the emulsion from being completely absorbed into the paper. This intensifies the blacks and whites, creating a high-definition image with a strong contrast between light and shadow. Surfaces can range from glossy to extremely matte. (BVDG: Bundesverband Deutscher Galerien, Cologne)
C-Print
A general term for a color coupler print that has at least three coats of light-sensitive silver salts emulsion. After processing, the silver image is removed by a fixer, so that only the “coupled” colors formed in the layer remain. (BVDG: Bundesverband Deutscher Galerien, Cologne)
Diasec
Diasec is a patented name for a process in which a photograph is sealed between a panel (usually aluminum) and an acrylic glass plate. This special seal protects the photograph from UV rays, climate changes, and chemical air pollution, which makes the print extremely durable. In addition, the acrylic glass enhances the illusion of depth, thanks to the way it bonds with the picture without refracting light.
Digital pigment print
In digital photography, the image is not captured on film, but on a light-sensitive chip, which in turn transforms the image into data and saves it in a proper storage medium. Analog photos can also be digitally processed, but most digital photos come from digital still cameras, videos, camcorders, and different kinds of scans. Digitalizing an image with digital processing software allows for a wide variety of ways to optimize and shape the image. Besides the traditional processing techniques, such as brightening underexposures, retouching, and improving color contrast, a photographer has access to all of the computer graphics techniques that make it practically impossible for the human eye to spot alterations. Furthermore, digitally stored images can often be printed over and over, without any loss of quality. At this point in time, the ink jet print and the laser print (Lambda print) are of special interest on the fine arts photography market, since these prints are durable and of good quality. (artnet fotoglossar)
Giclée
A high-end reproduction of a work of art made on an inkjet printer is called a giclée. The printing method allows for the finest gradations in tonal values and excellent detail, and is done with UV-resistant pigment inks on sturdy, layered, archive-quality art paper.
Original
From a purely technical standpoint, every photograph printed from a negative onto photographic paper, whether by hand or machine, is an original photo. In the strictest sense, or from an authorial standpoint, however, an original is a print personally made by the photographer, or else by a photo technician selected by the photographer. Due to the possibilities involved in technical reproduction, a photographic original is not necessarily one of a kind. Since the nineteen-seventies, at the latest, many fine arts photographers have been issuing numbered editions of prints, in the same way that fine arts prints are issued. Every print in a limited edition issued by the artist is an original. There are no rules in Germany regulating the number of prints that may be in an edition. As far as old photographs are concerned, museums and art dealers use the term “vintage print” as a synonym for an original photograph.
Sepia print
To make a sepia print, a “normally” processed print is treated (sometimes years later) in a toner bath. The toner does not affect the gelatin or the paper, but the silver, which creates the image. This makes the image last longer, too, because even though the elementary silver in a photo oxidizes over the years, it is more stable because the toning changes the pure metallic silver into a silver compound.
Silver gelatin or gelatin silver print
This process produces precisely detailed, brilliant images, and so, throughout the twentieth century and onward, it has been the process most frequently employed to make black-and-white prints. Light-sensitive silver salts or crystals are the basic element used to create a photograph. Silver imbedded in gelatin makes a suspension, which is then used to coat the photo paper. When exposed to light, metallic silver atoms are freed and form a latent image (primary photographic process). During the next step, development, the silver particles can be seen as grains or density, and together they form the motif of the photograph. Bathing the print in fixer removes the undeveloped silver salts.
Vintage
Vintages or vintage prints are prints that were made right around the time the photograph was taken—that is, when the negative was created. Among collectors, the vintage print is considered the most valuable type of photographic “original.”
Sabine Dehnel