Setting up your negative export

Once your corrective curve is generated, the next step is producing the digital negative you'll print on a transparency and then expose. It isn't just an image export — it's a combination of transformations (the curve, the inversion if you're making a negative, the CMYK decomposition if you're doing color) plus eight layout options that define how the file will come out on your transparency.

These eight options are grouped in a dedicated panel, reachable when you're in generation mode. The mode itself (negative, positive, CMYK, color) is chosen separately via four action buttons — that's deliberate, because changing the mode fundamentally changes what the options do, whereas adjusting the options within a given mode is a lighter operation.

#How it works

You start by choosing the mode via one of the four buttons at the top of the generation screen:

• Negative: inverts the image to produce a standard negative to expose.
• Positive: keeps the image in its natural polarity (useful for some processes such as resinotype).
• CMYK: breaks the color image down into four negatives (one per Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black channel) for four-color printing.
• Color: direct color export for non-printing use (rare in practice).

Once the mode is chosen, the options panel appears with the eight settings:

Size: A4 or A3+. No custom format, no A5 or A2 — the two standard VP formats.

Orientation: portrait or landscape. Simply swaps the file's dimensions.

DPI (print resolution): 300 or 720 dpi. 300 is the standard, 720 produces a file twice as dense for high-resolution printers.

Background: black or white. This is the color of the area around your useful image. For a standard negative, black background (keeps UV light off your paper's margins). For a positive, white background.

Frame: none, thin, or thick. Adds an opaque rectangular frame around your image that visually marks the print's final outline. See Frame and background.

Registration: registration marks on/off, with a sub-mode (color, positive, negative, cmyk) that determines the marks' appearance. Useful for multi-layer processes. See Registration marks.

Dither: Floyd-Steinberg or AM Halftone screening applied to the final image, on or auto. Relevant for some pigment processes. See Dither.

Mirror: horizontal flip of the image, off or on. Required for contact processes where the emulsion faces the image. See Mirror and orientation.

Every change is reflected immediately on the preview. When you click "Generate", the app produces the final PNG file with all options applied in the right order.

#Why it matters

To avoid retouching in Photoshop. All the manipulations you'd do manually in Photoshop (inversion, rotation, adding marks, frame) are handled directly in Calibration Flow. You produce a print-ready file in one operation, not in five successive steps.

For consistency across the negatives in a series. The eight options are stored in your preset. If you produce ten negatives in a row from the same series, they'll all have the same frame, the same registration, the same dithering. You don't have to reconfigure for each image.

For multi-layer precision. In CMYK mode, the eight options apply to each of the four generated negatives, with the registration marks positioned identically. That's what guarantees alignment between the layers at print time.

#When to avoid it

For simple use with no production constraints. If you're making an occasional A4 negative with a thin frame and nothing else, the defaults the app offers work in 80% of cases. You don't have to touch the panel.

If you prepare your negative entirely in Photoshop. You can export your processed image as PNG and print it directly, without going through Calibration Flow's options panel. You lose the benefits of the integration but you keep the freedom of your Photoshop workflow.

For large format. Beyond A3+, Calibration Flow's tiling tool automatically assembles your calibrated negative into several A4/A3 sheets to print edge to edge — no need to go out to Photoshop. For a precise custom format, you can still export the PNG and adjust the dimensions in your software.

#Worth remembering

#The test

Load an image, open the options panel in Negative mode. Change each of the eight options in turn and watch the preview. You should see a visible change for every setting. If some settings don't seem to change anything on the preview (the DPI, for example), that's normal — their effect only shows on the final export, not in the on-screen preview. Generate the file and compare two versions (thin frame vs thick frame, for example) to confirm the options really do apply to the output file.