Getting Started with Harman Direct Positive Paper

Photography on Harman Direct Positive Paper (DDP) can be both rewarding and a little challenging, so we’ve put together this guide to help you get started. Once you understand the quirks of the material, it becomes an incredibly fun medium to experiment with — especially when paired with tools like the Jagglé self-developing cassettes, which make shooting and processing on-location much easier.

What is Harman Direct Positive Paper?

Harman DDP is a truly unique material:

• A genuine silver gelatin photo paper coated on a traditional baryta/fibre base.Unlike normal darkroom paper, it’s a positive material, meaning you don’t need a negative to make a print — the exposed paper itself becomes the final positive image.
• It’s a fixed grade, high-contrast paper, roughly equivalent to ILFORD MULTIGRADE grade 3½–4. Despite that, you can achieve surprisingly smooth tonal gradations with the help of pre-flashing (explained below).
• It processes in standard black & white chemistry with no special requirements.
• Available in a glossy fibre base similar to ILFORD MULTIGRADE IV FB paper.
• It has a very slow ISO speed (ISO 1–3), which might sound limiting, but actually gives you a lot of control in-camera.
• Safe to handle under deep red (ortho) safelights.

Read the full Datasheet here

What This Means for You as a Photographer

Working with DPP is a different experience than shooting film or printing onto multigrade papers:

• High contrast: DDP does not respond to multigrade filters, so you can’t control contrast at the printing stage in the usual way.
• Fibre base behaviour: The paper is naturally stiff and curls more than film or resin-coated papers. Handling and drying can be a bit tricky at first, but it’s part of the fibre paper charm.
• Exposure quirks: The narrow dynamic range means highlights can burn out quickly. Meter carefully to preserve them, but be ready to sacrifice some shadow detail.

Despite these challenges, the reward is direct, one-of-a-kind prints that feel more “final” than a negative — and when combined with Jagglé cassettes, you can expose and process sheets in the field, cutting down the workflow to something much more immediate and playful.

Practical Tips for Shooting with DPP

1. Exposure straight from the box

When shooting without pre-flashing, pick scenes with even lighting. On a sunny day, meter at ISO 3.2, ideally between the highlights and shadows. This will help protect your highlights, though shadows will likely lose detail.

2. Pre-flashing to tame contrast

One of the best ways to manage the naturally high contrast of DDP is by pre-flashing, as recommended by Ilford. A general guide is around 1 lux·second, but the most reliable method is to determine it yourself with a test strip.

Ilford suggests the following approach:

• Make a test strip in the same way you would with standard papers such as ILFORD MULTIGRADE FB.
• The goal is to identify the step that just shows the faintest sign of shadow detail in the black density. The exposure time for that step is then your pre-flash time.
  (This is the opposite of pre-flashing conventional paper, where you look for the faintest highlight detail.)

Image 1
In this example, the enlarger aperture was set at f/11 with steps of 4 seconds.
Although there are plenty of white, mid-grey, and dark-grey tones, the jump from mid-tones to black is too abrupt, and there aren’t enough distinct black steps with visible detail. This indicates that the overall exposure was too high.

To correct this, either:

• stop the enlarger down further (to f/16 or even f/22)
• shorten the step times (e.g. 3 seconds instead of 4)
• or use a combination of both.

Remember: with Direct Positive Paper, less exposure makes the image darker — the opposite behaviour to conventional printing papers.

Image 2
Here, the enlarger was stopped down to f/16 and the steps reduced to 3 seconds.
This produced a much better tonal separation, with enough shadow detail visible to select a suitable pre-flash point. In this case, the recommended choice would be step 5.

Results of pre-flashing:

Important reminder: With Direct Positive Paper, less exposure makes the photo lighter. This is the reverse of normal printing, so adjust your mindset accordingly.

3. Using filters for better tones

Adding yellow or orange filters can help soften the orthochromatic rendering, particularly on skin tones (which can otherwise look harsh). Be aware, though, that filters eat up much more light on DDP than they would on panchromatic film.

The Joy of Shooting DDP

Direct Positive Paper is not “easy” in the conventional sense — but that’s exactly its appeal. It slows you down, makes you think about your exposure and scene, and rewards you with tangible, one-off prints straight from the camera.

Pairing DDP with a Jagglé cassette makes the process even smoother: you can load, expose, and process without fuss, which keeps you in the creative flow instead of being bogged down by logistics.

If you’re ready to embrace a bit of unpredictability and a lot of magic, DDP is a fantastic medium to explore. The results can be striking, unique, and immensely satisfying.