Image Details

Positive and negative contrast in these photos of the face on the shroud. The first photographer of the shroud, Secondo Pia, aroused the curiosity of the scientific world in 1898 when he reported that the image on the shroud was a negative image. The photo on the right (the face on the shroud in natural color) shows the negative quality of the image on the shroud: the normal relationship between light and dark areas is reversed. The photo on the left is a color photo of a black and white negative. The image of the face in this photo is a positive, that is, light areas in the photo on the right appear as dark areas in the photo on the left, and the dark areas in the photo on the right appear as light areas.