Lee and Turner

Additive 3 color: Rotary filter
“Frederick Marshall Lee, of Walton, and Edward Raymond Turner, of Hounslow, to whom is usually accorded the credit of achieving the first practical results in additive projection. Their experimental work was financed by Charles Urban, a ...

16 Images in 1 Gallery

Unidentified Processes

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

Bi-pack

Subtractive 2 color: Bi-pack, still photography
A. Gurtner (Eng. P. 7924/03; U.S.P. 730454), used a front element that was sensitive only to the blue, and a rear element that was sensitive up to but not including the red. He was the first person to suggest that the two films or plates be placed ...

1 Image

Krayn

Additive 3 color: Line screen and mosaic, still photography
“Another method of producing a line screen was patented in 1904 by the German Robert Krayn, and was demonstrated by him in November 1907. Krayn stained very thin celluloid sheets red, green and blue, and cemented them interleaved to form a thick ...

7 Images

Monopack stripping

Subtractive 3 color: Monopack, stripping, still photography
“To offset the possible effects of poor contact between the various members of the tripack, J. H. Smith coated the emulsions directly one on top of the other, but with an insulating layer of collodion between them. In this manner there was ...

1 Image

Pathécolor / Pathéchrome / stencil coloring

Applied colors: Stencil, dyed gelatin
Stencil coloring required the manual cutting, frame by frame, of the area which was to be tinted onto another identical print, one for each color. Usually the number of colors applied ranged from 3 to 6. The process was highly improved by the ...

2265 Images in 73 Galleries

Pinatype / Pinatypie

Subtractive 3 color: Dye transfer, still photography
“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 ...

4 Images

Jumeaux/Davidson

Additive 3 color: Prism

2 Images

Prism

Additive 3 color: Prism

1 Image

Katachromie

Subtractive 3 color: Monopack silver dye-bleach, still photography
Karl Schinzel proposed a multi-layered monopack for still photography, based on the principle of the dye-bleach process which was later elaborated to a practical application with Gasparcolor.

Tinting by application of varnish

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

Traube / Diachromie

Subtractive 3 color: Mordant toning, still photography
“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 ...

Predecessor of Kinemacolor

Additive 2 color: Rotary filter
“Then we come upon the name of George Albert Smith, F.R.A.S., of Laboratory Lodge, Roman Crescent, Southwick, Brighton, who in E.P. 26,671, of 1906, patented the method which eventually was commercialized as Kinemacolor. In this patent he ...

Caille

Additive three-color: line screen, still photography
Process for still photography in which light is filtered through a screen or transparent plate covered in lines or dots in the primary colors orange, green and violet. For the positive, the process relies on a support material which includes an ...

Dye coupling

Subtractive 3 color: Chromogenic monopack
“One of the most elegant solutions to the problem of forming a colored image, lies in the utilization of the products formed by the action of the developer upon the latent image. By this means there is formed a dye image whose intensity follows ...

1 Image

Autochrome

Additive 3 color: Mosaic screen, still photography
“The Autochrome process was the first fully practical single-plate colour process to reach the photographic public. It was easy to use. The plate was loaded into a conventional holder, glass to the front. The exposure was made through a yellow ...

16 Images

Kinemacolor

Additive 2 color: Rotary filter

Kinemacolor was an additive process operated with alternating red and green filters that were applied to the shutter in front of the camera and in front of the projector. With at least 32 fps the frame rate was double the minimal frame rate of 16 fps. Time parallax with small differences between the red and green record resulted in color fringes that became visible when objects or scenes were moving.

13 Images in 3 Galleries

Dufay / Dioptichrome Plate (sometimes incorrectly referenced as Dioptochrome)

Additive 2-4 color: Line screen plate (réseau), still photography and early experiments with film
(see detail page on Dufaycolor)

10 Images

Berthon

Additive 3 color: Lenticular screen
“R. Berthon patented the use of a lens diaphragm with three apertures, covered respectively with red, green and blue-violet filters, and a sensitive surface on a support, the other side of which was impressed with hemi-spherical, transparent, ...

4 Images

Ulysse

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 ...

Procédé Colombier

Subtractive 3 color: Tri-pack
“M. F. de Colombier appears to have been the first to suggest the application of this system to cinematography, and like so many French patents it is a little indefinite in phraseology. Three films were employed representing the same view and ...

Mordant toning / dye toning

Applied colors: Silver replacement by mordanting
Mordant toning or dye toning is a special case of toning whereby the silver image is replaced by colored compounds. Soluble dyes attach to a colorless (silver ferrocyanide) or nearly colorless (silver iodide) silver salt obtained by bleaching. Dye ...

171 Images in 7 Galleries

Dufay / Dioptichrome

Additive 3 color: regular mosaic screen, separate system, still photography
“In 1907 the French lawyer Louis Dufay (1874-1936) patented a system whose screen pattern was obtained by the combined use of dichromated colloids, greasy printing inks, and imbibition.16 To take a photograph, the screen was mounted in a ...

1 Image

Bassani

Additive 3 color: Successive exposure, 72 fps
“Camera.—An interesting camera has been made by the Société Chromofilm, Paris. An astonishing mechanism moves the entire gate, and film within it, at each exposure, with reference to the normal fixed objective. Three miniature negatives are ...

3 Images in 1 Gallery

Dufay / Dioptichrome-B

Additive 3 color: regular mosaic screen, combined system, still photography
“In 1907 the French lawyer Louis Dufay (1874-1936) patented a system whose screen pattern was obtained by the combined use of dichromated colloids, greasy printing inks, and imbibition.16 To take a photograph, the screen was mounted in a ...

1 Image

Biocolour

Additive 2 color: Alternately stained images
“Inevitably, the success of Kinemacolor led to the appearance of imitations. One company, Friese Greene Patents Ltd had been formed in 1908 to exploit several patents, mostly impractical, filed by Friese Greene. From this came a new company, ...

39 Images in 3 Galleries

Audibert

Additive 3 color: Prism
“R. Berthon and M. Audibert patented a method of obtaining a virtual image by means of an anterior lens and prisms or mirrors. This idea was further improved upon in E.P. 17,023, 1913. In F.P. 458,040 Audibert proposed to use a negative front lens ...

2 Images

Chromogenic film stock

Subtractive 3 color: Chromogenic monopack

Colorgraph / Cinecolorgraph

Subtractive 2 color: Beam-splitter, double-coated film
“The principle of the subtractive colour process was described first by Louis Ducos du Hauron in 1868. Although eminently suitable for colour motion pictures, the principle could not be applied until means were found of producing several colour ...

1 Image

Gaumont Chronochrome

Additive 3 color: Sawn-off lenses and filters, simultaneous taking and projection
“The competition between Kinemacolor and other rival systems was partially stimulated by a Utopian faith in the potential of film technology to achieve ‘natural colour’, reality ‘as it is’ being the goal of the cinematic ...

12 Images in 2 Galleries