A contact print is a photographic image produced from film; sometimes from a film negative, and sometimes from a film positive or paper negative. In a darkroom an exposed and developed piece of film or photographic paper is placed emulsion side down, in contact with a piece of photographic paper, light is briefly shone through the negative or paper and then the paper is developed to reveal the final print. The defining characteristic of a contact print is that the resulting print is the same size as the original, rather than having been projected through an enlarger. Basic tools Contact printing is a simple and inexpensive process. Its simplicity avails itself to those who may want to try darkroom processing without buying an enlarger. One or more negatives are placed on a sheet of photographic paper which is briefly exposed to a light source. The light may come from a low wattage frosted bulb hanging above an easel which holds them together, or contained in an exposure box with a plate of frosted glass on top. Accurate timing of the light comes with experience, but only a little experimenting leads to positive results. The negative and the photographic paper are placed on the glass plate of the exposure box. A hinged top-cover presses the negatives in close contact with the paper and keeps them in place. The paper is then developed and the result is called a contact print. After exposure, the paper is processed using chemicals in the darkroom to produce the final print. The paper must be placed in a film developer bath, a stop bath, fixer, and finally the hypo-eliminator bath, in that order. Failure to adhere precisely to this process will result in a poor-quality final image with a variety of issues. Ansel Adams describes procedures for making contact prints using ordinary lighting in his book, The Print. Proof sheets Since this process produces neither enlargements nor reductions, the image on the print is exactly the same size as the image on the negative. Contact prints are used to produce proof sheets from entire rolls of 35 mm negative (from 135 film cassettes) and 120 (2 film rolls) in order to aid in the selection of images for further enlargement, and for cataloging and identification purposes. For 120 roll film (once a common negative size for popular cameras) and larger film, contact prints are often used