A platinum print is a photographic monochrome print that is made using the semi-precious metal, platinum. Monochrome printing (mainly black and white) is commonly done using silver-based materials, such as are found in most ordinary photographic printing papers, to make paper photo-sensitive. They have an inherent impermanence. The prints won't last a long, long time. In the late 1800s, the platinotype process resulted in a more permanent print. Platinum is highly stable and won't tarnish in air. Instead of the image resting inside a binder on the surface of the paper, the image of a platinum print is actually absorbed into the paper's fibres. A platinum print takes on the texture of the paper. It is softer in appearance, appears to have more depth, has rich blacks and a highly-delicate tonal range. Platinum prints, in other words, are beautiful prints, with soft details, great tonal rendition and deep blacks. And, they are among the most permanent photographic images, capable of lasting perhaps thousands of years. They are ideal for fine art photography and the preservation and display of great photographs.

First developed in 1872, platinum coated papers were comercially available until 1937, when the cost of platinum made the process prohibitively expensive. For a short while the platinum was replaced with the less costly palladium. The process is based on the light sensitivity of paper that has been treated with iron salts and a platinum compund and then developed in a potassium oxalate. Platinum prints were popular because of their permanency and their wide range of soft gray tonalities. Some modern photographers such as Irving Penn still use this process by hand-sensitizing their own papers.

A photographic print on paper coated with an emulsion of platinum.

a handmade work of personal art