Timeline of Historical Colors in Photography and Film

Sort by Color system (a–z)▼×
Select Category▼×
50 Records per Page ▼×
Page
Search ›

Tinting by application of varnish

1905
|
no record of inventor available
Applied colors: Tinting
Very little information is available on this very rare process. Instead of immersion into a dye-bath the positive print was coated uniformly with a varnish. This technique can be identified by the lack on dyes in the perforation area and by the ...

1 Image

Toning / metallic toning (French: virage, German: Tonung)

1896
Applied colors: replacement of silver, still photography and film

In contrast to tinting, toning is not the simple immersion of a film into a dye bath but involves a chemical reaction converting the silver image. In this reaction the neutral silver image in the emulsion of the positive film is replaced by one consisting of colored metal compounds. These were usually iron ferrocyanide (Prussian Blue) for blue, copper ferrocyanide for red/brown, silver sulfide for sepia or rarely uranium ferrocyanide for reddish brown. Toning had been used in still photography before. But since film was projected on the screen it required translucent toning compounds.

1550 Images in 63 Galleries

Traube / Diachromie

1906
|
Arthur Traube
Subtractive 3 color: mordant toning, still photography and film
“In the imbibition process, a dye image is transferred from a gelatin relief image to a receiving layer made either of paper or film. Charles Cros described this method of ‘hydrotypie’ transfer printing in 1880 and suggested it ...

Traube / Uvachrome

1922
|
Arthur Traube (Uvachrom)
Subtractive 3 color: mordanting, dye transfer, wash-off relief, still photography and film
“In 1916 Traube found that copper toning baths were especially suitable for dye mordanting and patented the Uvachrome process. At the time, Germany was at war with most of Europe, and little commercial progress was made until the end of ...

3 Images

Triadochrome

1921
|
J. F. Shepherd
Subtractive 3 color: dye mordanting and silver toning process, still photography
“After the war, in 1921, J. F. Shepherd introduced in England a printing method called the Triadochrome Color Process, which was very similar to Hamburger’s Polychromide. To make a print, a cyan impression obtained from an iron-toned ...

Trichromatic vision

1802
|
Thomas Young
Theory: Color vision
Theory of trichromatic vision proposed by Thomas Young.

Trucolor 2 color

1947
|
(Consolidated Film Industries)
Subtractive 2 color: Bi-pack, double-coated with dye couplers
“By the 1940s, most of the two-colour subtractive processes, apart from Cinecolor, were obsolete. The widespread use of the high-quality Technicolor process showed up the serious deficiencies in the simpler methods. The only significant new ...

Trucolor 3 color

1949
|
(Consolidated Film Industries)
Subtractive 3 color: Color separation on DuPont Release Positive Film

30 Images in 1 Gallery

Ufacolor

1931
|
Kurt Waschneck (Afifa)
Subtractive 2 color: Bi-pack, mordant toning

136 Images in 7 Galleries

UltraStable Color Systems

1992
|
Charles Berger, Richard Newmark Kauffman
Subtractive 4 color: pigment process, still photography
“Berger then started to work with the master carbro printer Richard Newmark Kauffman (1916−1998), and together they founded Ultrastable Color Systems, Inc. In 1992 they introduced presensitized UltraStable material for four-color carbon ...

1 Image

Ulysse

1908
|
Pierre Ulysse
|
France
Two, three or four color color additive process: multiple lenses
The process relied on two-, three- or even four-color selections being superimposed on the screen. On the positive, two, three or four images of reduced dimensions were printed on a single frame with a longitudinal and lateral distance corresponding ...

Unidentified Processes

1900
Various

Photographs of unidentified color film technologies. Several different principles and times. Feel free to contact us if you can help identifying them!

298 Images in 5 Galleries

Urban-Joy Process, improvement of Kinemacolor, later called Kinekrom

1916
|
Henry W. Joy (Urban)
Additive 2 color: Rotary filter
“In the design of apparatus Urban was assisted after 1905 by Henry W. Joy. The Urban-Joy perforator appeared in 1906. The Urban-Joy anti-firing device, a shutter to prevent the firing of inflammable film when projectors broke down, was another ...

Uto Paper 1906–1911, after 1911 Utocolor Paper, after 1912 Utocolor-Rapid-Paper

1906
|
John Henry Smith, Waldemar Merckens (Utocolor Company)
Subtractive 3 color: dye destruction process, bleach-out, still photography
“In 1906 John Henry Smith (1860–1917) and Waldemar Merckens commercially introduced a collodion paper impregnated with fugitive yellow, magenta, and cyan dyes. They called it Uto paper, after a range of mountains near Zurich (Johnson 1917: ...

2 Images

Uvatype

1929
|
Arthur Traube (Uvachrome)
Subtractive 3 color: dye imbibition process, still photography
“Uvatype was yet another variation of the dye imbibition process, introduced by the Uvachrome Company of Germany in 1929 (Fig. 4.12). Its inventor, the German chemist Arthur Traube, worked diligently to improve the then-available imbibition ...

1 Image

Vericolor

1933
|
(Vericolor Inc.)
Subtractive 2 color: unknown

40 Images

Versicolor-Dufay

1917
|
Louis Dufay (Versicolor)
Additive 3 color: line screen plate, still photography and film
“The most successful of all the screen processes was the one initiated by Louis Dufay. Today the product is known as Dufaycolor, but it was first introduced about 1910 as the Dioptichrome plate. The first Dufay patents were assigned to an ...

Vitacolor

1930
|
(Vitacolor Company)
Subtractive 2 color: Single coated

Vivex

1928
|
Dr. Douglas Arthur Spencer (Color Photographs Limited of London)
Subtractive 3 color: pigment process, still photography
“Vivex prints were introduced by Color Photographs Limited of London in 1928. One of the most important features of this printing method, invented by Douglas Arthur Spencer (1902–1980), was the introduction in 1929 of cellophane, instead of ...

1 Image

Warner-Powrie

1924
|
John H. Powrie
Additive 3 color: Line screen
“The Warner-Powrie process patented in 1905 was the earliest commercial process using a screen made with bichromated colloid. A glass plate was thinly coated with bichromated gelatin or fish glue and exposed to light through a screen having ...

1 Image

Wolff-Heide

1924
|
Emil Wolff-Heide
|
Germany
additive three-color: Integrated filters and rotary filter
Much like many other additive processes, the Wolff-Heide system was based on three black and white color separations printed consecutively on one film strip and projected through a rotary filter attached to the projector. However, the biggest ...

Worel’s bleach-out process

1899
|
Karl Worel
Subtractive 3 color: dye destruction process, bleach-out, still photography

Zoechrome

1920
|
T.A. Mills
Subtractive 3 color: Multi-layer printing

16 Images in 1 Gallery