negative
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negative:
see photographic processingphotographic processing,set of procedures by which the latent, or invisible, image produced when a photographic film is exposed to light is made into a permanent visible image.
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Negative
in black-and-white photography and cinematography, an image formed by grains of metallic silver in which the photographic blackening is inverse to the brightness of details of the object being photographed. The brighter the detail, the greater its blackening in the reproduced image. In color photography, the image of the object being photographed is formed by the pigments whose colors are complementary to the colors of the parts of the object (yellow is complementary to blue, purple to green, light blue to red, and so on).
A negative is an intermediate image of the object in a two-stage process; it is used to obtain a positive. In some cases a negative can be the final image—for example, in recording spectra for spectral analysis. The quality of a negative is judged by its optical density, its degree of contrast, and its graininess. For color negatives the color balance (matching of colored images) is also important. A negative is considered normal if the positives printed from it have a realistic appearance and show easily discernible details.
Negative
in grammar, a word or affix indicating the absence of an object (u menia net knigi,“I do not have the book”), of qualitative attributes of an object (etot chelovek ne star,“this person is not old”), or of actions or states (ia ne pishu,“I am not writing”; ia ne spliu,“I am not sleeping”). A word-sentence expressing disagreement with an utterance (net! “no!”) is also a negative.
Languages express negatives in various ways. Separate words are used in the case of the Russian net and ne, the German nein and nicht, the English “no” and “not,” and the French non and ne ‖ pas. Word-forming affixes may also be used, as the nein the Russian nebol’shoi (“not large,” “small”), the bez- in the Russian bezdetnyi (“childless”), the un- in the German unbekannt (“unknown”), the “un-” in the English “unpleasant,” or the “in-” in the English “invisible.” Negatives may also be expressed by morphological forms in inflection. Negative affixes are used in the Turkic languages, as in the Tatar ëshlim (“I am working”), contrasted to ëshlämim (“I am not working”). Negative verbs are used in certain Finno-Ugric languages, as exemplified by the Zyrian me og mung (“I am not going”). English uses a negative analytical verb form in a sentence such as “I do not see.”