The Calotype

1. Photographic Printing Paper The calotype is the negative-positive process, using a paper negative,
The calotype, an improvement on William Henry Fox Talbot’s that William Henry Fox Talbot invented in 1840. Talbot named his
photogenic drawing, is the starting point in the history of techniques process the “calotype,” after kalos, the Greek word for beauty; it was
for printing photographs on paper. Its inventor, Fox Talbot, was a also called the Talbotype. The paper was made photosensitive by
product of the British aristocracy, a multitalented scientist interested soaking it in a solution of silver nitrate and potassium iodide, then
in many fields, including astronomy, mathematics, and optics. In placed in the camera while moist. After the exposure is made, the
1833, while traveling in Italy on his honeymoon, he tried to use a paper is developed and fixed to form the negative. Then it is placed in
camera lucida to sketch the scenery, during which the idea of a contact with a sheet of salted paper, which has been processed with
method for recording the camera’s images (photogenic drawing, or silver nitrate and table salt, and exposed to sunlight to make a
what we now call photography) occurred to him. He began serious positive print. The calotype, which permitted making multiple prints
experimentation the next year and by 1835 had succeeded in creating from the same negative, was the first act in the development of
negatives. In 1839, when he heard of the announcement that analog photographic reproduction in the nineteenth and twentieth
Daguerre of France had invented a photographic process, Fox Talbot centuries.
immediately presented the results of his research to date to the Royal
Society. Subsequent experimentation led to his perfecting the calotype The Pencil of Nature
in about 1840. The Pencil of Nature, the world’s first photographically illustrated
The outstanding feature of the calotype is that it is a book, presents the vision of Fox Talbot, the first to conceive of what we
negative-positive process, an invention that is the fundamental form now know as the photo book or photo collection, a format made
of analog photography, for it makes possible producing multiple possible by a photographic process that permitted reproducing
positive prints from a single negative. The original calotype did not multiple copies of an image.
produce crisp images and was prone to fading. Fox Talbot held, In 1843, Fox Talbot established a photofinishing
moreover, several patents on the method, creating additional barriers laboratory in Reading from which he published The Pencil of Nature,
to its adoption. Thus, its commercial success was unlikely. Controlling which consisted of twenty-four photographic plates and his text, in six
the gradations of light and shadow in the print and choice of paper, installments between 1844 and 1846. In it he introduced the many
however, provided scope for reflecting the intentions and emotions of possibilities of the calotype, including a variety of artistic styles,
the photographer in the image, and the lack of clarity of the outlines photography’s documentary nature, its reproducibility, and its value
could give rise to soft effects. Thus, some artists were attracted by Fox as scientific illustration. Talbot sought to communicate how useful the
Talbot’s process. calotype could be by including plates illustrating scenes from his own
The idea of the negative-positive process then developed home in the country, stone structures, and facsimiles of a printed page,
rather independently in two directions: methods for developing the a lithograph, and a sketch, among other images, along with his
negative, to produce a negative image, and printing techniques for description of the process of photographic reproduction.
creating the positive. Those printing techniques, developing handed A facsimile edition of The Pencil of Nature was produced
in hand with the advances of the Industrial Revolution, did go on to in 1989 to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the invention of
achieve commercial success. The production of photographic printing photography. Here we display the twenty-four plates from that
paper shifted to factories, and those papers were repeatedly improved edition on the gallery walls. In the showcase are the originals, printed
as the companies producing them sought to upgrade their industrial between 1843 and 1853.
products. The result was the production in large quantities of stable
printing papers and the development of many new materials and Calotype Portraits
techniques, including salted paper, albumen paper, platinum printing The calotype process was rarely used for portrait photography. In
paper, gelatin silver prints, pigment printing, and printing color Scotland, where Fox Talbot’s patent on the calotype did not apply,
photographs. however, David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson used that process
to create a striking body of superb portrait photographs.
Photogenic Drawing Hill, an artist, had been commissioned to create an
William Henry Fox Talbot published his discovery of what he termed historic group portrait commemorating the founding of the Free
photogenic drawing, the world’s first camera-less photography Church of Scotland. Working with Adamson, a photographer, he
process, in 1839. He placed subjects such as leaves, feathers, and lace produced calotype portraits of over 400 of the founding members,
on paper made photosensitive by soaking it in chemicals, and exposed intending to use them as preliminary sketches for the group portrait.
them to sunlight. The areas that light struck turned black, producing Hill and Adamson’s use of light and placement of the subject,
a negative image in which black and white were reversed. That was combined with the calotype’s characteristic coarse grain and soft
used as a paper negative. When placed in contact with another sheet outlines, created beautiful effects.
of photosensitive paper, it was possible to make a positive image. That
was the prototype for the first negative-positive process: the calotype. Calotype Landscapes
The calotype was more often used in landscape than in portrait
photography. In contrast, the daguerreotype, another photographic photographers Nadar and Julia Margaret Cameron, landscape
process invented almost simultaneously with the calotype, was not photographers Felice Beato and Carleton E. Watkins, and combat
suited for outdoor photography, and developing daguerreotypes was photographers Roger Fenton and Timothy O’Sullivan, for example.
far from simple. The calotype was, however, convenient to use in the The new technology also encouraged full-fledged mass production of
out of doors, and it also permitted making multiple prints of the same photographic prints, and photography became popular in many forms,
image, which increased its usefulness as a means for comprehending including photographs providing journalistic coverage of wars and the
scenery. widespread adoption of the inexpensive carte de visite, a calling-card
In France, the calotype became increasingly popular from sized format used for prints of studio portrait photographs.
the latter half of the 1840s through the 1850s, due in part to At the time that these techniques were becoming popular,
improvements in the process made by Louis Désiré Japan was undergoing the upheavals of the closing days of the
Blanquart-Evrard. The calotype was employed in a national project to Tokugawa shogunate and the Meiji Restoration. Professional
create a photographic record of the monuments of the French state. photographers such as Ueno Hikoma and Shimooka Renjo, pioneers
That project, the Missions héliographiques, was organized in 1851 by in portrait photography, appeared, and the “Yokohama photograph,”
the Historical Monuments Commission of the Ministry of the Interior a popular type of souvenir for foreigners, was invented. Kusakabe
to create a record of France’s architectural heritage. The participating Kimbei and other outstanding talents produced superb work in that
photographers included Édouard Baldus, Hippolyte Bayard, Gustave format.
Le Gray, and Henri Le Secq. They photographed crumbling churches, The albumen print remained in use for a relatively long
forts, bridges, and chalets. period of time. Eugène Atget, who had a huge influence on modern
photography, used that process in printing his photographs of the
Salt Print streets of Paris in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.
Scott Talbot, taking his photogenic drawing a step further, invented But because the albumen print, like the calotype, suffered from a
the world’s first process for making positive prints. The salted paper tendency for prints to yellow and fade, it was replaced form 1900 on
he invented was also used in printing calotypes. Soaking the paper in by the gelatin silver print as the dominant form of black-and-white
a bath of sodium chloride (table salt) and then coating it with a silver print.
nitrate solution creates silver chloride, which is photosensitive. When
the negative is paced in contact with the salted paper and exposed to Albumen Print
sunlight, a positive image, sepia in color, appears. It was, in effect, a Invented in 1850 by the French photographer Louis-Désiré
photogram that did not require developing. Salted paper was Blanquart-Évrard, albumen paper was the type of paper used for
produced until about 1860, but was gradually replaced by printing photographs most commonly, and for the longest period of
albumenized paper, which could produce a clearer image. time, throughout the nineteenth century. The paper was prepared by
coating it with egg white (albumen) mixed with salt, letting it dry, and
Egypte, Nubie, Palestine et Syrie then coating it with a solution of silver nitrate to make it
The world’s first book of travel photographs, Egypte, Nubie, Palestine photosensitive. When a negative was placed in contact with it and the
et Syrie was produced in 1851 from salted paper prints developed at paper exposed to sunlight, a sepia-colored image would develop.
the photographic printing plant Louis Désiré Blanquart-Evrard Albumen paper, the dominant photographic printing paper for over
established in Lille, France. It is a pioneering example of connecting 40 years, could be mass produced, unlike materials used earlier. The
photography with print media. Maxime Du Camp travelled factory Blanquart-Évrard opened in Lille was the world’s first
throughout the Middle East in 1849 to 1851, taking photographs, of large-scale manufacturing facility for photographic printing paper.
which 125 are included in this book. The special interest that the
people of Europe at that time expressed in the Middle East help Carte de Visite
create a market for books of photographs. The carte de visite, a photograph mounted on paper the size of a
calling card, was a popular format in the second half of the nineteenth
Progress in Photographic Printing century. Multiple copies of a single (wet-plate) negative the size of the
Combining the wet collodion process and albumen paper permitted card were shot, from which sheets of cards were printed and then the
capturing greater detail in photographic prints as well as greater cards cut out, one by one. In 1854, André-Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri
image clarity. As photography evolved from the calotype to the secured a patent on the carte de visite. Photography studios opened in
processes the succeeded it, its potential expanded further. cities and towns all over, achieving commercial success as men and
The wet collodion process began with the introduction of women, young and old, from the bourgeois and working classes,
the use of glass plates to photography in 1851. By mixing a silver ordered their cartes de visite.
halide with collodion, a viscous solution of potassium iodide and
potassium bromide in alcohol, and applying it to the glass substrate, Science and Photography
it was possible to produce a light-sensitive negative. A host of Photography was soon used as a tool of scientific research. In the age
outstanding photographers adopted the wet collodion process, of the wet collodion process, attempts were made to use photography
printing from those negatives onto albumen paper: portrait to create a scientific medical record of psychological responses and
psychotic states. One early adopter was Guillaume-Benjamin-Amand potential of the platinum print.
Duchenne de Boulogne, the French physician famed as the inventor
of electrotherapy, who photographed the momentary expressions of The Carbon Print
the human face in his research into the physiology of emotion. Joseph W. Swan of the UK received a patent for the carbon print
In the late 1870s, advances were being made in process in 1864. It was Alphonse Louis Poitevin of France who had
developing gelatin as a new photosensitive material to replace discovered the basic principle, that gelatin or gum arabic, when
collodion, and photography was poised to make new leaps forward. As mixed with potassium dichromate, becomes photosensitive. (The
highly sensitive gelatin dry plates began to be widely adopted, it areas of the gelatin exposed to light will harden.) That discovery led to
became possible to do without the tripod and take photographs with a Swan’s invention. A mixture of a pigment, usually carbon black, and
hand-held camera. Eadweard Muybridge and Etienne Jules Marey, the potassium bichromate-gelatin solution is applied thickly to paper,
among others, utilize the more sensitive plates to conduct making it photosensitive. After the gelatin dries, the negative is
experiments in using photography to capture the actions of both placed in contact with the paper, which is exposed to sunlight and
humans and animals. For the series of photographs of actions by then developed in warm water to produce the print. In the 1860s,
Muybridge displayed here, he used the wet collodion process. He carbon prints were popular for their deep, rich tones and permanence,
switched to the more sensitive gelatin dry plates for his later and the process was widely used in Europe. While commercial use all
photographs analyzing motion. but ceased after the 1880s, the carbon print process continued to be
employed by Pictorialist photographers and is still used by
Photographic Technique for Pictorialists contemporary photographers who appreciate its expressive
The art photography movement known as Pictorialism spread in the possibilities.
late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to Europe, the United
States, and Japan. The Gum-bichromate Print
One trigger for that movement was the rise of a class of The gum-bichromate print is a type of pigment print. It was invented
amateur photographers who sought to create photographs as fine art, in 1855 by Alphonse Poitevin, who discovered that when a colloid
a movement spurred by the widespread adoption of the gelatin dry such as gelatin, albumen, gluten, or gum arabic was combined with
plate. Among them, Peter Henry Emerson advocated what he termed potassium bichromate, it becomes photosensitive. A photograph
Naturalist Photography from about 1885. Emerson, an innovative printing process based on that principle was introduced at an
photographer, asserted that the visual impression that the human exhibition of the Photo-Club de Paris in 1894 and became widely
eye received from nature could be expressed directly in a known. The primary process utilized for printing art photographs
photographic print. His thinking had a great influence on the until the 1930s, the gum-bichromate process was used by Constant
members of the Brotherhood of the Linked Ring, a British group of Puyo, Robert Demachy, Edward Steichen, Heinrich Kühn, and other
Pictorialists formed in 1892, and on Alfred Stieglitz, who was Pictorialist photogrpahers. The beautiful shading that the pigment
studying abroad in Germany. Upon his return to the United States, produced and the rich tones that superimposing negatives in printing
Stieglitz, through Camera Work, the journal of the Photo-Secession, could achieve are among its distinctive characteristics.
an organization he formed to work for the establishment of
photography as a fine art, brought the art photography movement to The Bromoil Print
its peak. The bromoil printing process was a favorite of Pictorialist
The sharpness of the perimeters of elements in photographers in the first half of the twentieth century. Its principle
photographs, which had been greatly improved since the days of the was discovered in 1907 by J. E. Wall of the UK; C. Welborne Piper
calotype, was, in the eyes of the Pictorialists, a disadvantage, in perfected the process the following year. A gelatin silver print,
artistic terms. To erase those strengths of photography, they enlarged from the negative, was chemically bleached so that the
manipulated their prints, added color, and aimed to create work in a gelatin in the areas that had been more exposed to light hardened
painterly style. Thus, the Pictorialists actively used pigment printing and the other parts became absorbent to water. When oil-based ink or
methods such as the carbon, gum bichromate, and bromoil print that oil pigments are brushed on, the shadows will take up the ink, while
facilitated manipulating their images. the highlights will reject them, so that the print of the photograph will
appear.
Platinum Print
William Willis of the UK invented the platinum printing process in Photomechanical Printing Processes
1873. Because the image in such prints is rendered in platinum, it is Heliography, which Joseph-Nicéphore Niépce conceived of in 1822,
resistant to fading and discoloration and outstandingly stable over represented the dawn of both photography and photomechanical
time. Such prints also have rich tonal gradations and clear detail; the printing.
delicate tones in the mid range are particularly beautiful. Platinum After the invention of the daguerreotype, researchers
prints were frequently used until the 1920s, when the soaring price of experimented successfully with a method of using etching or other
platinum led photographers to abandon the process. Some methods to create grooves in the image on the silver plate of the
contemporary photographers are, however, once again focusing on the daguerreotype, apply ink, and transfer the image to paper or other
materials. That method was not developed further, since William The Age of the Gelatin Silver Print
Henry Fox Talbot’s invention of the paper negative, in the same The first three decades of the twentieth century were fertile years in
period, made reproducing photographs possible. The paper negative Europe for the birth of new movements in the arts. In response to
had, however, two major disadvantages: lack of image clarity and a Surrealism, the Bauhaus, and the Neue Sachlichkeit (New
long processing time. Fox Talbot, seeing photomechanical printing as Objectivity), for example, photographers also created new styles. It
a possible solution, conceived of the principles behind photogravure was not by imitating painting but by pursuing the beauty unique to
and half-tone printing. photography that it would achieve full citizenship in the world of fine
Photomechanical printing methods developed in the art.
nineteenth century include the collotype, the woodburytype, From 1900 on, the gelatin silver print became the
photogravure, and half-tone printing. From the latter half of the dominant type of black-and-white print, its strengths the rich
century on, their use, on an increasingly large scale, continued to gradations of grays, blacks, and whites it could produce and the
expand, both to deliver images as documentary records and to serve clarity of the image. Surrealists such as Man Ray and Bauhaus
commercial objectives, i.e., meeting the demand for advertising. Some artists such as László Moholy-Nagy created a variety of approaches to
photographers also used those printing processes for the distinctive art photography that exploited the characteristics of that
beauty that they could produce. Among them, the technique known photographic printing paper: the Photogram and other versions of
as “dust-grain gravure,” which used fine resin dust grains, was camera-less photography, solarization, and the negative photograph,
characterized by soft, delicate tones, and was adopted by Peter Henry for example. The New Objectivity, whose goal was direct visual
Emerson and other Pictorialist photographers as well as used in perception via the lens, created a new world of beauty by discovering
printing Camera Work, the journal of Alfred Stieglitz’s subjects in every aspect of the world--things, human beings, plants,
Photo-Secession. The high artistic quality of such work clearly animals, still lifes, landscapes, factories, machines--through the
distinguishes it from the high-volume printing used to turn out mechanical gaze. The outstanding photographers of that group
masses of reproductions. included Albert Renger-Patzsch and August Sander, who tried
systematically to photograph representatives of all types of Germans,
The Woodburytype of every occupation and social class.
Walter Woodbury of the UK applied in 1864 for a patent on this The depiction of the subject in the New Objectivity had
photomechanical process, which was used in printing photographs. A much in common with the Straight Photography that Alfred Stieglitz
lead mold (a letterpress plate) was formed from a relief of an image came to conceive as a form of art photography. By positioning the
formed of hardened bichromate gelatin emulsion. The mold was filled photograph as a medium of individual expression, refining the point
with an ink made of a pigment (carbon black) and gelatin. The of view in the straight and precise way essential to the lens, America
Woodburytype process was widely used in Europe and America. launched its own distinctive form of photographic art. Its leaders
Goupil & Co. licensed it in France, using the Woodburytype in included Stieglitz, Paul Strand, Charles Sheeler, and Edward Weston
publishing Galerie Contemporaine, a weekly review. The portraits of and Ansel Adams, who led f.64, a society of purist photographers
famous people and literary figures in that magazine were printed based on the West coast. Their new vision was the essential form that
using the Woodburytype process. later inspired developments in documentary photography,
photojournalism, and the advertising and fashion fields. In all their
Photogravure work, the dominant type of black-and-white photograph was the
Karl Klic of Austria developed the photogravure process in 1879 by gelatin silver print.
improving on the intaglio printing process that Fox Talbot had
announced in 1852. A photomechanical process, it permits Photogram
reproduction of photographs in large numbers. A copper plate is In a photogram, the subject is placed directly on photograph printing
coated with powdered pine resin and then bichromated gelatin. A paper, and its image is captured without use of a camera. The
transparent positive image is placed in contact with it and the plate is technique had been used since the nineteenth century, but it was in
exposed. The plate is then inked and the image transferred to paper. the 1920s that László Moholy-Nagy and Man Ray “rediscovered” it as
Because manipulating the copper plate can control the resulting a modern means of expression. Man Ray called his photograms
photograph, Pictorialist photographers such as Emerson, Coburn, “Rayograms.” The photogram is one of the expressive techniques that
and Stieglitz used the photogravure process extensively. epitomize New Vision Photography.

Electricité Solarization
Man Ray created this work in 1931 as part of a project commissioned Solarization is a technique based on the Sabattier effect, in which a
by Compagnie Parisienne de Distribution d’Electricité, a French negative or positive is re-exposed to light when partly developed,
electric power company. In the portfolio of his work that he prepared producing a partial reversal of light and dark in the image. Man Ray,
for senior officials and customers, Man Ray’s photograms using it as a creative technique in art photography, gave it the name
(Rayograms) were crisply and beautiful reproduced by means of “solarization.” The resulting image has a distinct rim or band
photogravure. around its perimeter and displays a mingling of negative and positive
images. reproduction, since there is no negative from which to produce
additional prints. Nonetheless, from its introduction until the mid
Negative Photograph 1850s, the daguerreotype attracted more interest than the calotype,
As the name implies, the image is printed in the negative, so that which Fox Talbot had invented.
light and dark are reversed in the entire image. New Vision
photographers actively used it to achieve special visual effects. The Ambrotype
The ambrotype is a positive image created using the wet-plate
The Gelatin Silver Print collodion process that Frederick Scott Archer of the UK invented in
This process was discovered by Peter Mawdsley of the UK in 1873. 1851. First, a glass plate negative is coated with a photosensitive
Gelatin silver prints are stable and resistant to discoloration, and the material, exposed while that material was still wet, and then
process of developing them is not complicated. Thus they gradually developed and fixed. Next, black paper, cloth, or paint is applied to the
replaced albumen prints to become the dominant black-and-white back of the negative so that, when viewed in reflected light, the
photographic process from 1900 on. The material for the prints, negative appears to be a positive image. After James Ambrose
baryta paper or resin-treated paper coated with a gelatin emulsion Cutting of the United States took out patents on the process, which
containing photosensitive silver salts, which is then allowed to dry, he named the “ambrotype,” in 1854, it came into widespread use.
can be mass produced in factories for use long after their Particularly in the United States, ambrotypes became highly popular
manufacture. as inexpensive substitutes for daguerreotypes. The process was
mainly used as a medium for portrait photography.

2. Prints on Metal and Glass The Tintype

The daguerreotype was the first photographic process invented. A simplification of the ambrotype, the tintype does not use a
Unlike the calotype, however, the daguerreotype did not support collodion-on-glass negative. Instead, a darkened sheet of metal is
making multiple positive images from a single negative. For some coated with photosensitized collodion emulsion and exposed in a
years after its invention, the daguerreotype overwhelmingly camera to produce a positive image. First introduced by
outstripped the calotype in popularity, partly because it rendered Adolphe-Alexandre Martin of France in 1853, the tintype was easier
images in superb detail and partly because the French government to produce and less expensive than the daguerreotype and thus
actively promoted the process. The response was so strong that it became popular in the United States among immigrants and the
became known as “daguerreotype mania.” working class. Used mainly in portrait photography, tintypes were
The use of the daguerreotype developed most notably in light in weight and relatively sturdy; thus, during the American Civil
the field of commercial portrait photography, with the appearance of War, many soldiers sent tintype portraits of themselves from the front
commercial photography studios for that purpose. Matthew Brady, to their families.
for example, opened a portrait studio in New York to great
commercial success, creating system for large-scale production in
which he applied a division of labor to the daguerreotype processes.
3. Development of Color Photographic Processes
Daguerreotypes were difficult to create out of doors, where As black-and-white photograph evolved, the pursuit of color began.
the facilities for developing them would not be available, and thus From the dawn of photography, efforts were made to reproduce color
they were used far less for landscape than for portrait photography. by hand tinting daguerreotypes and by using carbon prints,
The daguerreotype was an extremely demanding, and gum-bichromate prints, and other pigment printing processes. In the
expensive, process. Thus, when the ambrotype and tintype emerged 1840s, John Herschel and other researchers conducted repeated
as alternatives to it, they swiftly gained popularity. If the experiments on fixing the colors of the visible spectrum of light by
daguerreotype was the medium of choice for the affluent segment of means of the photosensitivity of silver halide, but achieved little
society, ambrotypes and tintypes were popular among the masses. success. The researchers thought of all the colors of the natural world
While inferior to the daguerreotype in image quality, the tintype had as consisting of combinations of three primary colors: red, blue, and
the advantage that, unlike the ambrotype, it did not use a glass base. green. The spectrum of colors could be reproduced by changing the
Since tintypes were both strong and light in weight, it was possible, proportions of the primary colors or reducing them through the use of
for example, to mail a tintype to a loved one. colored filters.
In 1861, the Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell
The Daguerreotype created a color photograph by projecting three lantern slide positive
The daguerreotype, introduced by Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre in images of a tartan ribbon, an additive process. At about the same
1839, was the world’s first practical photographic process. A highly time, in France, Louis Arthur Ducos du Hauron was conducting
polished silver-coated sheet of copper is fumed with iodine to make it similar experiments and announced Heliochromy, a subtractive
photosensitive, exposed for a long period, and developed by mercury process for printing color photographs. Their approaches failed,
vapor. The daguerreotype process produces extremely sharp, clear however, to have sufficient photosensitivity throughout the visible
images, but each daguerreotype is a unique image, not susceptible of spectrum and did not result in truly practical color photography.
(Film sensitive to all wavelengths in the visible spectrum did not The Diffusion Transfer Process
appear until the early twentieth century, when Kodak invented its The physicist Edwin Land invented this instant photography system
Panchromatic film.) in the United States in 1947. The Polaroid process, using film and
The commercialization of color film began in 1904 when cameras made by the Polaroid Corporation, was the version most
the Lumière brothers, Auguste and Louis, invented the Autochrome commonly used, but Kodak marketed its own internal dye diffusion
process. Autochrome plates produced color transparencies or slides on products, as did Fujifilm (the Photorama). Polaroid ceased production
glass. They were costly, required long exposure times, and produced of Polaroid film in 2008. Kodak had withdrawn from manufacturing
images that had to be seen through a viewer, but they proved products related to instant photography in 1985.
unexpectedly popular. The Autochrome had, however, considerable
room for improvement in technique and in the naturalness of the The Silver Dye-Bleach Print
resulting color. A general term for processes used to make color prints directly from
Color photography in a true sense was not realized until color positives, the silver dye-bleach print was developed as a film
1935, when Eastman Kodak introduced Kodachrome, a three-layer process for still photography and color motion picture work by Bela
positive film. Since then color photographs have acquired an Gaspar, a Hungarian chemist, in the 1930s. It did not become widely
overwhelming market share among the mass of amateur used until 1963, when Ciba-Geigy Corporation of Switzerland
photographers. With subsequent development of the dye transfer, announced the Cibachrome process. Silver dye-bleach prints use a
diffusion transfer, chromogenic, and silver dye bleach processes, color paper that, like the paper used for most other color prints
photography has achieved an unshakeable position in our lives. (chromogenic color process paper), contains three layers of
photosensitive materials. In this case, however, the yellow, magenta,
Heliochromy and cyan dyes are imbedded in the respective layers of emulsion at
The first practical process for printing color photographs, heliochromy the outset. In developing a photograph, the silver and complementary
was invented by Louis Ducos du Hauron. It was in 1868 that he color dyes in the areas exposed are selectively bleached out to produce
announced his subtractive method for making colored prints, based a color print.
on the three-color process, which involves assembling three negatives
of the same subject, each a dye image made with a different pigment: The Chromogenic Print
cyan, magenta, and yellow. The printing of enlargements of color A general term for means of creating color prints from color negatives,
photographs in natural colors was not, however, perfected until about the chromogenic print was the most widespread process used in color
1900. photography in the twentieth century. Agfa announced color negative
film for making color prints in 1939; Kodak did so in 1942. Because
Autochromes such film was initially quite expensive, it was little used outside the
The Autochrome was the first commercially successful color process. world of advertising photography. In the 1970s, however, as color film
The Lumière brothers, famous for the invention of motion pictures, prices came down, it became widely accepted among amateur
began manufacturing and selling Autochrome plates in 1907. The photographers, and a transition from black-and-white to color
resulting images are color transparencies or slides on glass. They photography occurred among society at large. Until then, color
were made by coating the glass plate with a random mosaic of grains photography had also not been used extensively in art photography,
of potato starch dyed in the three primary additive colors (red, blue, but in the latter half of the 1970s, the New Color school of
and green). That three-color mosaic filter and a black-and-white plate photographers began using it.
were combined so that, with the light passing through the Chromogenic prints are also referred to as “Type-C prints,”
microscopic three-color filter, color transparencies that resemble terminology derived from the Type-C chromogenic paper once offered
pointillist paintings could be created. by Kodak. Such photographic paper has three emulsion layers,
sensitized to red, blue, and green light, and dye couplers in the paper;
The Dye Imbibition Process in the development process, the dye couplers bond with the silver
Improving on its Wash Off Relief dye imbibition process, which it halides to form color dyes, producing a color print.
released in 1935, Eastman Kodak gave the world the Dye Transfer
process in 1946. Its clear colors, permanence, and ease of color
manipulation made it a process used to create original prints in color.
The color negative is reproduced as black-and-white negatives by
using three filters, red, green, and blue, to make three color
separation negatives. Then the images in relief created with those
three negatives are soaked with dyes in the appropriate
complementary color, yellow, magenta, or cyan. The negatives are
placed in exact registration on paper covered with a gelatin layer,
which is then contact printed.