WASHINGTON - The Office of Reference Prints said Thursday that a digital negative must sit in the developing tray before a photograph may file. Pictures without a negative wait in a side tray marked notes. Under Circular RP-17, a clerk at the window lowers the negative into the tray and stamps a paper reference print as the original. A photograph may not issue until the stamp is date-marked. "The negative is the photograph," said Nora Pell, counsel to the office. Labs that issue pictures without a tray store the prints in a side tray marked notes. At one photo window, a staffer not authorized to speak said two prints from the morning tray arrived already dry, with no negative in the bath. Duty windows that issue photographs begin the tray rule on 8 May. The office said the same tray will remain at the same window.