Adox Lupex Silver Chloride Contact Paper, 16 x 20in, Pack of 25

If you own a large format camera, you can expose photographic printing paper in the camera, and once developed in the darkroom, this creates a paper negative.

The tones of the original scene are reversed in the negative. Bright things become dark on the paper, and dark things become light. You can then make contact prints from these paper negatives instead of enlargements. The process is called contact printing because you squeeze the negative face down in contact with the sheet of silver-gelatin printing paper (between two sheets of glass) and shine a bright light through it to print the image into the paper. The print is exactly the same size as the negative. This same principle can be achieved by printing the paper negative onto an inkjet printer and ready immediately for transfer to the darkroom for contact printing.

This is like darkroom printing in an old-fashioned way, and now there's a special silver chloride paper from Adox called Lupex to achieve such enlargements in just 60 seconds.

The Grade 3 paper renders a neutral to warmtone finish on its 255gsm fibre base. It's also a slow-speed contact fibre paper made with a silver chloride emulsion (eight stops lower than Multigrade). It offers extremely fine grain and impressive results from its first-class resolution, just like your large format negatives.

We recommend using a 300w bulb situated about 4 feet above the exposure area. Exposure takes about 60 seconds. No enlarger is needed to obtain the print. Develop in Multigrade developer diluted 1+9.

It keeps for at least three years from the purchase date.

For technique tuition, we recommend the series from Tim Bowman on YouTube to inspire you.