There is a considerable body of information of a technical and review nature on negative staining elsewhere in the literature (Bremner et al., 1992; Harris and Home, 1991, 1994; Hayatand Miller, 1990; Holzenburg, 1988; Home, 1991; Nermut, 1991; Spiess et al., 1987; Valentine and Home, 1962); therefore, I shall attempt to avoid undue repetition and present the current laboratory approaches with which I am personally familiar and have achieved some technical success. After considering the range of procedures necessary for the production of carbon and carbon-plastic support films (sometimes termed substrates) emphasis will be placed upon the droplet negative staining technique (Harris and Agutter, 1970; Harris and Horne, 1991). I was introduced to this approach by Ennio Lucio Benedetti in his laboratory, at the start of my doctoral studies in 1966 (Anderson, 1966; Benedetti and Emmelot, 1965,1968) and with minor variations it is still useful for many biological applications.