A print lab and darkroom in Glasgow
Silvergrain makes exhibition prints for photographers who care about the last five percent. Giclée on cotton rag, silver gelatin by hand, and a proof in your hands before anything is committed to an edition.
Around four hundred photographers printed with us last year. Most had printed with us before.
Send a TIFF or a scan and tell us where it is going. We call back the same day with a paper suggestion and a price, and we will say plainly if the file will not hold up at the size you want.
A ten-inch proof on the chosen paper within three days, free for the first one. Mark it up, post it back or photograph it, and we adjust until it is right.
Printed, numbered if you want it, and rested overnight before it is checked under daylight. Mounted and framed here if it is going on a wall; crated if it is going far.
The honest comparison
We are slower than a kiosk and dearer than a website. This is what the difference buys.
Silvergrain
A high-street print shop
Scans from 1994 and files from 2024 had to hang side by side. We proofed every image on the same rag and kept a wall of proofs for the curator to walk past until the run felt like one body of work.
Eleven glass negatives, one darkroom, six weeks. Contact printed on fibre paper, selenium toned, and delivered in archival boxes with a print record for each.
The proof came back with a note about my shadows. They were right, and the show was better for it.
Jenny Hval
Exhibition edition
I sent negatives from 1998 and got back prints I did not know were in them.
Ryley Walker
Silver gelatin
Slower than anyone else we asked, and the only lab we would ask again.
Julianna Barwick
Archive loan
Start with a proof
Send us a file today and a ten-inch proof on the paper we suggest will be in the post within three days. If it is not right, we adjust. If it is, we print.
