The New Inkjet Negative Companion - Digital Negatives Made Easy DVD-ROM – June 1, 2013

I preferred this video walk-through of Dan Burkholder's technique for making inkjet negatives. Nothing in here is revolutionary, but the explanation is clear and easier to understand than many of the other books or videos that I have seen on the subject. I'd recommend this to anyone who has read other books or seen some poorly-made YouTube videos about making inkjet negatives. This will make things clear for beginners, speed up the process for intermediates, and experts might also pick up a thing or two. It's better than a book and far less expensive than a workshop; certainly a valuable resource for anyone using Alternative Historical Photography as well as other graphic arts like screen printing and offset lithography.

OK so I really wanted to give it a better review because there is some solid information in this "book/dvd". That being said, this really fell short for me. The quicktime videos are a quick glaze over whats in the BOOK and the "book" fell short for me because I feel it would be better if read through while working on photoshop. Hard to do with a pdf screen up on your computer and trying to get that pdf printed and in a presentable form is not cheap, AT ALL!! As useful as some of this information is, I would honestly spend some time on the internet getting a general understanding of this topic and if you want to know more check this out, because it's a $35 pdf file, and a canned curve. 3 stars for the information...but the presentation is horrible.

The description of the process is a little long winded but perhaps this is best for a real novice and / or someone who wants to extensively tweak the supplied curves. Beyond the curves themselves the color settings to generate a really opaque boarder around the negative really worked.

If you know absolutely nothing about digital negatives and have never used Photoshop, this book is for you. But if you have already made digital negatives using another method (e.g., Peter Mrhar "Easy Digital Negatives") this book will make you feel like you're taking a step backward. For example, you will be using either the platinum/palladium or silver gelatin curves supplied by Burkholder, rather than developing your own curves. Burkholder asserts that curves for other processes (e.g., cyanotype) can be developed by tweaking one or the other of the supplied curves.Many pages of text are devoted to explaining Photoshop basics, such as how to find the eye dropper tool or how to resize an image. Readers coming from a darkroom background usually have a terror of Photoshop and may find this level of hand-holding comforting. For them, I'd give the book 3 stars. But Photoshop users -- even novice users -- will find themselves flipping rapidly through much of the text. I read the book in one sitting, and when I was finished, felt that I had learned almost nothing new.The PSD "template" supplied in the DVD extras is touted as having near-magical properties. But if you know anything about Photoshop, you'll see that the only "magic" is the curve, and the other layers of the template can be stripped away if you know what you're doing (apply the curve, invert, flip, and mask the border if you don't want brush strokes to show.

Exactly what it purports to be. If you're just getting of the ground with alternative printing you will need some version of what is contained on this dvd to get going. Very highly recommended.

This is the second disk replacing the first that didn't work. I've tried several computers, both mac and Pc. I really want the materials and not a refund. However I can't find any way to contact the disk producer to get working files. Maybe he'll read this and help me get the files on the disk.

The idea behind the book is awesome, creating digital negatives. What I found frustrating was their was no companion book. If I wanted a book I had to print out the over 100 pages of the PDF or go back and forth on the screen trying to locate information. I am old school, I want a book.

e-book and tutorial are excellent oportunity how to get these info instead of to test that and spend a lot of time. I can only congratulate Dan for such experience, Thanks a lot again. jirka pavel