Even though I am not a fan of enhancing prints through software & have stayed away for decades from using imaging softwares, in this post I wanted to share some very easy tools to produce solarized prints using free photo editors.
Solarization, as a creative photography tool, is intimately associated with Man Ray & the surrealist & dada movements. In this technique, a partially developed print is exposed to light & then developed further. This sudden exposure to light creates halo-like outlines around forms and areas of partially reversed tonality.
Man Ray initially implemented this on nudes & the final prints after solarization emphasised the contours of the nude female body.
For easy Solarization, I have used the free online photo editor Pixlr. I have tried out a couple of different ways, all of them quite easy to follow. The Solarization effect is available in the Pixlr E (editor) version & not on the Pixlr X (express) app.
1. Simple Solarization
In this I take a processed image, a positive image, and apply the Solarization effect in the software.
Pixlr Editor provides a Solarization option in the Adjustment Menu. Once you have opened your image up & clicked on Adjustment – Solarization, the software will create a solarized image for you. This image is often good enough to use.
2. Negative Solarization
In this, I take a processed image, but instead of applying the Solarization effect directly onto the positive image as it is usually done, I invert the image, making it a copy of the photo negative & then apply the Solarization effect.
Both these effects are available in the Adjustment Menu. If you have scanned negatives, you can apple the Solarization effect directly to the negative.
Additional Adjustments
In addition, you may have to look into the exposures, highlights, shadows and also the grain. All these add different effects to the final image. I use the Curve tool extensively to enhance the overall exposures.
While some free photo editors have an inbuilt Solarization effect tool, many do not. GIMP is a very popular open source photo editor comparable to commercial ones, but does not have a Solarization Effect or plugin available at the moment. Here is a way around that in Terence Moran’s blog post How to Solarize your Images in GIMP.
Here are some of the final solarized prints.
