Print Process intermediate technicalarchivalaustere

Cyanotype / Blueprint

Iron-salt contact printing in Prussian blue, where the whites are bare paper and nothing is neutral.

What it does

Invented by John Herschel in 1842 and used by Anna Atkins for the first photographically illustrated book. The chemistry gives one colour only, Prussian blue, with highlights as unexposed paper. Because it is a contact process the original must be the same size as the print, which is why architectural blueprints are large. Tonality is long and soft, edges of the coating are visible as brush marks, and the paper cockles where it was wet. Any neutral grey in the image is a mistake: everything tends blue.

The prompt

[Subject] as a cyanotype contact print. Single Prussian blue tone throughout with highlights dropping to bare unexposed paper, no neutral greys anywhere. Visible brush edges where the sensitiser was coated by hand, uneven coverage in the corners, paper cockle from wet processing. Long soft tonal scale, slight loss of detail in the deepest blues, heavy watercolour rag stock.

Replace [Subject] with what you are shooting. Everything else is deliberate: the gear, stock and lighting are what push a generator towards this look.

Works well in

Midjourney, FLUX

Pairs with

Two-Ink Discipline Technical Drawing

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