Exploring Color Photography Fifth Edition, 5th Edition

Analog Input: Color Films

Transparency Film

Characteristic Advantages

The old photographic rule holds true: The fewer generations an image goes through to reach finality, the better the ultimate quality. Color transparencies, also known as color slides, are positives that are made on reversal film. Each slide is an original piece of film that was exposed in a camera. For viewing purposes, what you see is what you get. Prints, on the other hand, are second-generation images, made by enlarging a negative onto color printing paper. Transparencies are what communication theorist Marshall McLuhan referred to as a “light through” medium, viewed by transmitted light that passes through the image only one time. Prints are a “light on” medium seen by ...