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.
A single page for a fine-art print lab and darkroom: a navbar with two column mega menus anchored to the sections below it, a split hero with a frosted proof card over the portrait, the three steps from file to frame as photo steps, an honest comparison against a high-street print shop, two editions as case studies, six papers in a light masonry with a lightbox, an ink band of counting figures, three short quotes from photographers, a half-photo call for a first free proof, and a columns footer with a paper newsletter.
Composed from 10 blocks. Installing this page installs all of them, plus the pieces and primitives they use.
Built in the Altair collection.
navbar81
A sticky frosted navbar with two mega items, each dropping a full-width panel of three small-caps link groups in serif type beside a soft featured card with a photograph, an eyebrow and a lifting arrow link. Every panel stays in the markup and is shown with CSS; a light mobile menu groups the same links.
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A light split hero: eyebrow, a serif headline settling in word by word, intro, a sliding-marker pill and a text link on the left, and a portrait photograph drifting inside its frame on the right with a frosted avatar proof card overlapping its corner, under a slowly drifting soft light.
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Three numbered steps in columns, each topped by a photograph that drifts inside its frame, with a serif title and a description, under a serif heading that settles in word by word and a sliding-marker pill.
feature288
An us-and-them comparison under a centred serif heading that settles in word by word: an ink column and a muted column list the same points with ringed checks and dashes that arrive one by one, and a sliding-marker pill closes it.
showcase51
Two case studies side by side under a serif heading that settles in word by word: each with a photograph drifting inside its frame, a small-caps client and sector line, a serif title, a summary, and a ruled foot pairing a serif result figure with a read link.
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A three-column masonry of photographs in mixed aspects, each rising into view and drifting inside its frame as the page scrolls, with a serif subject and a small-caps place and month under every plate; any plate opens a paper-toned lightbox that sets the subject large beside the picture, turns pages by clicking either half of the plate, the arrows or the keyboard, and slides each plate in from the side it came from.
stats78
A dark ink statistics band with film grain: a serif statement that settles in word by word beside a light sliding-marker pill, then four ruled columns of serif figures that count up from zero as they enter the viewport.
testimonial54
Three short testimonials in ruled columns, each a serif quote with a name and context, under a serif heading that settles in word by word and a sliding-marker pill.
