Sabattier Effect

Sabattier Effect or Solarisation is a phenomenon in photography which includes recording of the image on a negative or on a photographic print, found to be wholly or partially reversed in tone. Dark areas appear light and the lighter side of the image appears to be darker. More specifically, the Sabattier Effect is generated in a dark room which is called pseudo-solarisation.

The Sabattier Effect was discovered in 1862 by French photographer Armand Sabattier. The effect was caused by the unintentional and severe over-exposure and even sometimes accidentally exposing the exposed plate or film to light before processing.

Artist Man Ray worked more intrinsically on the solarisation effect later with assistant Lee Miller. The phenomenon is a very common concern among 19th century photographers as it had a loud consequence. They proved that the Sabattier phenomenon tends to occur wherever and whenever there is light or more importantly in the darkroom during the course of transformation from negative to positive of a film.

In modern times, the Sabattier Effect was emulated in film photography to give an artistic touch in the print through its brief exposure to actinic light during chemical development. Nevertheless, solarisation is a very commonly practice in printing business now.

Sabattier Effect not only includes reversed parts of images in terms of tone but also an occurrence of Mackie line. Mackie line is a thin line created around the areas of contrasting tone. Such a phenomenon helps to determine whether a film or print has been used to produce the solarisation.