"Flipping" a negative with your brain

Mats_A · Mar 12, 2011

This might sound loopy but humour me.
The human brain is a colossally adaptable thing. There is a psychology experiment where the participant is wearing glasses that turns everything up-side down. After a few days of stumbling around the brain finally switches the image right-side up. Until the glasses are removed and the world is up-side down again.
A good musician are known to "hear" the music inside his head when reading a sheet of music.

Has anyone ever experienced something similar when viewing b&w negatives? That you suddenly "see" the negative as a positive? I think this would be a tremendously useful "skill". Would save a fortune on proof prints if nothing else.

So has anyone ever experienced anything like this. You are viewing a negative on the light box when "woooops" it is a positive. I imagine it would be something like finding the picture in those 3D pictures that just looks like blobs of colour until it snaps in to focus.

No, I have never seen it myself but I imagine it would be possible if you stared at negatives enough hours of the day.

r

Mats

hpulley · Mar 12, 2011

I don't bother with proof prints. I look at the negatives to decide what to print. I don't know that I flip it in my head but I'm used to looking at the negatives and find proofs a waste of time personally but as always it is personal preference.

bobwysiwyg · Mar 12, 2011

I'm still waiting for my brain to flip the upside down to right side up.

Vaughn · Mar 12, 2011

Been doing that for years. I have not made proofs in a long time. Working with LF negatives makes it a little easier.

Same under the darkcloth. Having the image "upside down" is no big deal -- I read it as right side up. I can easily flip the neg right to left also. On the GG the image is upside down, but not really reversed left/right, because we are seeing the image on the backside of the GG. But since I use a process that yields a backwards image, I can mentally flip the image on the GG so that I will know what it will look like compositionally on the print.

A long time ago I can remember being under the darkcloth for a long time -- and when I finally stuck my head out, I had a bit of a shock -- it seemed that it was the world was upside down!

Vaughn

samcomet · Mar 12, 2011

I do not know about the brain adapting although the premise is promising indeed!! I used to hold 35mm neg "just so" on a tilt and in a certain light and have seen them in positive. This is more likely to have been caused the refraction or reflection of the light on the neg rather than my dim brain compensating.......nowadays needing glasses I use a proof sheet. Good luck in finding out if your hypothesis is correct!! cheers, sam

2F/2F · Mar 12, 2011

I guess the brain just gets used to it when you do it enough, because looking at a negative seems perfectly normal to me.

Printing helps too, not just looking at negs.

Mats_A · Mar 13, 2011

The problem I have when looking at negatives is remembering that the highlights are really shadows and vv. I must tell myself that "that's really a shadow you know". I guess it really is a question of practice and experience.

r

mats

benjiboy · Mar 13, 2011

The brain adapts, I've used waist level finders on TLRs for about twenty five years in which the image is laterally reversed and you do get used to it, and after a while can even follow action with it , in the early days of TV the image on the TV cameras wasn't only laterally reversed but also upside down and the cameramen could still follow the action and do sports broadcasts.
If you hold negatives at a certain angle to the light you can see them as positives.

amac212 · Mar 14, 2011

I'm with bobwysiwyg - though I can quickly translate the horizontal flip as a long time WLF shooter, the upside down thing is simply not intuitive for me. Seeing positives from a negative? Alas not that either.

But seeing sound? Yes, I'm all over that one! (Thank you, synesthesia).

dnjl · Mar 14, 2011

I don't think this is possible on the same level as the upside-down glasses. There is no life-threatening or severely limiting problem with negatives. Your brain doesn't know that the negative image is "wrong".
Some people though are very good at reading negatives. Personally, I'm really bad at it. I guess it comes with experience.

holmburgers · Mar 14, 2011

Have you ever seen this kind of experiment? http://illusionsetc.blogspot.com/2005/08/american-flag-optical-illusion.html

It's the "negative" american flag. You stare at it for a long time, and when you stare at a white space, you see the positive image. The same thing should work for negatives, and color negatives too; allowing you to see the positive in correct color theoretically.

lxdude · Mar 14, 2011

I tried to flip a negative with my brain, but it stuck to it. I think I need to let my brain dry out a little before I try it next time.

bobwysiwyg · Mar 14, 2011

holmburgers said:
Have you ever seen this kind of experiment? http://illusionsetc.blogspot.com/2005/08/american-flag-optical-illusion.html

It's the "negative" american flag. You stare at it for a long time, and when you stare at a white space, you see the positive image. The same thing should work for negatives, and color negatives too; allowing you to see the positive in correct color theoretically.

Interesting, it works! However, my brain didn't apply sufficient sharpening.

Thomas Bertilsson · Mar 14, 2011

I must be really stupid, but I almost need my contact sheets in order to judge whether a negative will print well or not. For the life of me I cannot imagine what it'll look like as a positive.

Have you noticed, however, that if you hold up a negative against a dark background that it gives a similar effect to a black glass ambrotype? The negative appears as a positive! Now that is very useful.

- Thomas

Vaughn · Mar 14, 2011

As good as I am with 'flipping" over a neg from neg to positive, I still have trouble with faces -- I can't judge the expressions. Lack of practice, probably.

jp498 · Mar 14, 2011

I can see negatives pretty well. Sticking to one film and 2 developers helps with that. You can see with your eyes when something's thin and is going to print dark without detail, you can evaluate the contrast the same way as a normal image. Sharpness, composition is all the same. Really, what's the difference between an S-curve and a backwards S curve when you're evaluating that shapes on a negative.

The only thing that gets me is eyes open/closed. Probably if I did more portraits, I'd tell better instead of being fooled.

The benefit of a contact sheet/proof sheet is that I can flip through my book of negatives without need to hold them up to light or use a light table. I can also write on the sheet printing suggestions, identify favorite images to print, etc...

"Flipping" a negative with your brain

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