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latent image

American  

noun

Photography.
  1. an invisible image, produced on a sensitized emulsion by exposure to light, that will emerge in development.


latent image British  

noun

  1. photog the invisible image produced by the action of light, etc, on silver halide crystals suspended in the emulsion of a photographic material. It becomes visible after development

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

The acidity of the beer, combined with the added ingredients, creates a solution that can reveal the latent image on the film.

From BBC

"Then, you can develop that latent image into a real image by attaching another material, silver, afterwards. In this way implosion fabrication can create all sorts of structures, including gradients, unconnected structures, and multimaterial patterns,"

From Fox News

"It's a bit like film photography -- a latent image is formed by exposing a sensitive material in a gel to light," said Daniel Oran, an MIT graduate student, and one of the paper's lead authors, in a statement.

From Fox News

You hold the developer of that and flow it across the plate, move it around until you’re seeing the latent image .

From Washington Times

I did not realize the master fact that the latent image which had been developed was the basis of photographic manipulation.

From Project Gutenberg