Solarisation- Research

Solarisation is a technique in which the image is turned into a negative form. The whole image is completely reversed, causing darker parts of the original image to appear lighter or white, and light areas to appear darker or black. Originally, solarisation was first recognised in extreme cases of over exposure on a negative.

To create a solarised images in the darkroom, what you have to do is expose your image to the light sensitive paper, as you normally would, then place the image into the developer. However, this is where the processing changes. As soon as the image starts to appear, remove the print from the developer and flash it under plain white light for 3 seconds. Make sure you have all the corners in, then place it back into the developer for another 30 seconds. Then remove and carry on with the processing as normal.

Solaristaion in photoshop is a lot simpler. To create a solarised image in photoshop all you do is open the image, select par of the image or all of it, go to filter, stylize and then solarisation. You can either leave it how it is, or play around with the curves.

Online darkroom examples;

Online photoshop solarisation;





My photoshop solarisation;