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“Douglass Color No. 2 (1919). The two negatives of the Douglass Color system No. 1 were printed on a positive. In this updated version of the process, rather than projecting the frames through red and green filters, both latent images were ...
“This two-color additive system for color cinematography was invented in 1916 by Leon Forrest Douglass of San Rafael, California. A special beam splitter camera would advance each roll of film two frames per exposure with its double frame pull down ...
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Source: Ryan, Roderick T. (1977): A History of Motion Picture Color Technology. London: Focal Press. Credit: Illustration by Sarah Steinbacher, Multimedia & E-Learning-Services, University of Zurich.
- Source: Ryan, Roderick T. (1977): A History of Motion Picture Color Technology. London: Focal Press.
- Source: Ryan, Roderick T. (1977): A History of Motion Picture Color Technology. London: Focal Press. Credit: Illustration by Sarah Steinbacher, Multimedia & E-Learning-Services, University of Zurich.
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The film is recorded through alternating red and green filters, creating two color separations. After development, the print is placed in two alternating dye-baths, toning the blacks green and the whites red. Additionally, a black-and-white copy is ...
“In 1942 Defender Photo Supply Company of Rochester, New York, introduced a panchromatic matrix film called Pan-Chroma-Relief Film, which simplified the making of dye imbibition prints from original Kodachrome or Ansco Color transparencies. Up ...
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Credit: Brian Pritchard.
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“In 1939 Thomas S. Curtis (1889–1964) proposed Orthotone, a dye imbibition printing method that was primarily a variation of the widely used Eastman Wash-Off Relief. Orthotone offered its practitioners complete control on the contrast or ...
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Pénichon, Sylvie (2013): Twentieth Century Colour Photographs. The Complete Guide to Processes, Identification & Preservation. London, Los Angeles: Thames & Hudson, p. 142.
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“In 1939 Thomas S. Curtis of Huntington Park, California, introduced Curtis Neotone, a simple dye mordanting printing method for the production of color prints or transparencies from color separation negatives. With Curtis’s method, a ...
“In the 1940s a product called Crawford Flexichrome appeared on the market. It allowed photographers to obtain prints or transparencies in full color by simply applying dyes of various colors by hand to a gelatin relief image. Results obtained ...
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Pénichon, Sylvie (2013): Twentieth Century Colour Photographs. The Complete Guide to Processes, Identification & Preservation. London, Los Angeles: Thames & Hudson, p. 145.
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Credit: Illustration by Sarah Steinbacher, Multimedia & E-Learning-Services, University of Zurich. Source: Ryan, Roderick T. (1977): A History of Motion Picture Color Technology. London: Focal Press.
- Source: Ryan, Roderick T. (1977): A History of Motion Picture Color Technology. London: Focal Press.
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“Agfa-Gevaert developed its own instant printing materials during the 1980s, Agfachrome-Speed and Copycolor, both introduced commercially in 1983. Agfachrome-Speed was a single-sheet integral print material, whereas Copycolor was a peel-apart. ...
“Around 1940, Condax-Speck, Inc., of New York started to market dyes and mordant for the Condax-Dytrol system of dye imbibition printing (Fig. 4.19). The system, developed by company owners Louis M. Condax (1897–1971) and Robert P. Speck, ...
“In 1929 the London firm Colour Snapshots Limited introduced Colorsnap, a printing service based on the dye imbibition process for a tripack roll film called Colorsnap and manufactured by Ilford Ltd. (Monopolies Commission 1966). The tripack ...
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Pénichon, Sylvie (2013): Twentieth Century Colour Photographs. The Complete Guide to Processes, Identification & Preservation. London, Los Angeles: Thames & Hudson, p. 137.
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“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 ...
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Source: Ryan, Roderick T. (1977): A History of Motion Picture Color Technology. London: Focal Press, p. 67.
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Russian Ideas in Clothes! (USA 1922). Credit: UCLA Film & Television Archive. Photographs of the nitrate print by Barbara Flueckiger.
21 Images in 1 Gallery
“Coloratura. This is the process of Pathé Exchange at Bound Brook, N. J. Negatives are made by the bi-pack method. Prints are made on double-sided film and are dye-toned on one side and metallic-toned on the other. The double-sided film, ...
“In a lecture on the theory of three primary colors, given at the Royal Institution of Great Britain on May 17, 1861, Maxwell presented the first demonstration of a photograph in color. According to the records of that meeting (Maxwell, 1890c, ...
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Source: Coe, Brian (1981): The History of Movie Photography. Westfield, N.J.: Eastview Editions.
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Credit: Geo. Willeman, Nitrate Film Vault Manager, Library of Congress.
- Credit: Geo. Willeman, Nitrate Film Vault Manager, Library of Congress.
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“The first two-colour additive method in which the two components were taken and projected simultaneously was the Colcin process, in 1913. The result of a Franco-Japanese collaboration, it was demonstrated at the International Kinematographic ...
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Source: Coe, Brian (1981): The History of Movie Photography. Westfield, N.J.: Eastview Editions.
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Credit: Illustration by Sarah Steinbacher, Multimedia & E-Learning-Services, University of Zurich. A History of Motion Picture Color Technology.
- Source: Ryan, Roderick T. (1977): A History of Motion Picture Color Technology. London: Focal Press.
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Source: Klein, Adrian Bernhard (Cornwell-Clyne) (1940): Colour Cinematography. Boston: American Photographic Pub. Co.
- Source: Klein, Adrian Bernhard (Cornwell-Clyne) (1940): Colour Cinematography. Boston: American Photographic Pub. Co.
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Credit: Harvard Film Archive, George Huizinga Collection, item no. 10454. Film: Prehistoric Women (1951).
- Credit: Harvard Film Archive, George Huizinga Collection, item no. 10454. Film: Prehistoric Women (1951).
- Source: Coe, Brian (1981): The History of Movie Photography. Westfield, N.J.: Eastview Editions.
- Reflection on Cinecolor print. Credit: Image courtesy of the 20th Century Fox Collection at the Academy Film Archive. Photograph by Barbara Flueckiger
- Reflection on Cinecolor 16 mm print. Credit: Library of Congress. Photograph by Barbara Flueckiger
93 Images in 9 Galleries
“[…] pictures were taken side by side, full-size, on double-width film, the film not only being perforated on the edges but also down the centre between the pairs of images.”
(Klein, Adrian Bernhard = Cornwell-Clyne (1940): Colour ...
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Credit: Courtesy of BFI National Archive. Photograph by Barbara Flueckiger. Film: Cinechrome Colour Test with Soap Boxes and Packets (1920)
- Credit: Courtesy of BFI National Archive. Photograph by Barbara Flueckiger. Film: Cinechrome Colour Test with Soap Boxes and Packets (1920)
- Credit: Courtesy of BFI National Archive. Photograph by Barbara Flueckiger. Film: Cinechrome Colour Test with Soap Boxes and Packets (1920)
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“The materials and processes described thus far have been either unsuccessful or short-lived for one reason or another; the trend changed with the launch of Cibachrome in the 1960s. The product and its subsequent forms dominated the silver ...
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Pénichon, Sylvie (2013): Twentieth Century Colour Photographs. The Complete Guide to Processes, Identification & Preservation. London, Los Angeles: Thames & Hudson, p. 216.
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Widely used in print media around 1900, the chromolithographic printing process was first adapted for the Laterna Magica and then utilized to produce early animated films primarily aimed at children. These films were usually very short ...
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[U-Boot]. Credit: Deutsches Filminstitut DIF. Photograph of the chromolithographic nitrate print by Barbara Flueckiger.
- Box Der Film fürs Heimkino. Credit: Deutsches Filminstitut DIF. iPhone photo by Barbara Flueckiger.
- Box "Film for Home Cinema". Credit: Deutsches Filminstitut DIF. iPhone photo by Barbara Flueckiger.
- Box "Attention! Celluloid Film". Credit: Deutsches Filminstitut DIF. iPhone photo by Barbara Flueckiger.
- Boxes and loops. Credit: Deutsches Filminstitut DIF. iPhone photo by Barbara Flueckiger.
- Box and loops. Credit: Deutsches Filminstitut DIF. iPhone photo by Barbara Flueckiger.
- Film can for Chromolithographic Loop. Credit: Deutsches Filminstitut DIF. iPhone photo by Noemi Daugaard, SNSF Filmcolors
- Film can for Chromolithographic Loop. Credit: Deutsches Filminstitut DIF. iPhone photo by Noemi Daugaard, SNSF Filmcolors
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“Chromatone was the first commercially viable process of color print making entirely based on silver toning. It was developed in the early 1930s by the New Yorkers Francis H. Snyder and Henry W. Rimbach, who patented the toning methods and ...
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Pénichon, Sylvie (2013): Twentieth Century Colour Photographs. The Complete Guide to Processes, Identification & Preservation. London, Los Angeles: Thames & Hudson, p. 282.
- Pénichon, Sylvie (2013): Twentieth Century Colour Photographs. The Complete Guide to Processes, Identification & Preservation. London, Los Angeles: Thames & Hudson, p. 283.
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“In 1912, two chemists at N.P.G. in Berlin, Rudolf Fischer (1881-1957) and Hans Siegrist (1885-1959), introduced the notion of color couplers and patented the application of Homolkas discovery. Their patent described the structure and chemistry ...
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Source: Cornwell-Clyne, Adrian (1951): Colour Cinematography. London: Chapman & Hall.
- Source: Cornwell-Clyne, Adrian (1951): Colour Cinematography. London: Chapman & Hall.
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“Chemicoior was the name under which the German Ufacolor Process was marketed in Britain. Ufacolor was also marketed under the name Spectracolor. The process used Agfa bipack negatives loaded with the emulsion sides facing and separated by a ...
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Source: Coe, Brian (1981): The History of Movie Photography. Westfield, N.J.: Eastview Editions. Film: Pagliacci (1937).
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“References to Carbro-Chromatone prints are sometimes found in the literature on early color photography. These prints were made using a combination of the two processes they were named after. The method was described by Harlan L. Baumbach in ...
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 ...
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Credit: Gert Koshofer Collection. Photograph by Barbara Flueckiger.
- Source: Klein, Adrian Bernhard (Cornwell-Clyne) (1940): Colour Cinematography. Boston: American Photographic Pub. Co.
- Source: Eggert, John (1932): Kurzer Überblick über den Stand der Farbenkinematographie. Bericht über den VIII. Internationalen Kongress für wissenschaftliche und angewandte Photographie, Dresden 1931, pp. 214-222. Leipzig: J. A. Barth.
5 Images in 1 Gallery
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Source: Cornwell-Clyne, Adrian (1951): Colour Cinematography. London: Chapman & Hall.
- Credit: Illustration by Sarah Steinbacher, Multimedia & E-Learning-Services, University of Zurich. Source: Cornwell-Clyne, Adrian (1951): Colour Cinematography. London: Chapman & Hall.
- Credit: Illustration by Sarah Steinbacher, Multimedia & E-Learning-Services, University of Zurich. Source: Cornwell-Clyne, Adrian (1951): Colour Cinematography. London: Chapman & Hall.
- Credit: Illustration by Sarah Steinbacher, Multimedia & E-Learning-Services, University of Zurich. Source: Cornwell-Clyne, Adrian (1951): Colour Cinematography. London: Chapman & Hall.
- Credit: Illustration by Sarah Steinbacher, Multimedia & E-Learning-Services, University of Zurich. Source: Cornwell-Clyne, Adrian (1951): Colour Cinematography. London: Chapman & Hall.
- Coote, Jack (1948): New Three-Color Camera, In: Journal of the Society of Motion Picture Engineers, vol. 50, June 1948, pp. 543-553.
- Coote, Jack (1948): New Three-Color Camera, In: Journal of the Society of Motion Picture Engineers, vol. 50, June 1948, pp. 543-553.
19 Images in 3 Galleries
“Following the premises of one of William Friese-Greene’s systems, this two-colour subtractive process required that two reels of film be printed in parallel through a lens fitted with a prism that split light in two directions, through red ...
“The Brewster Process.
(U.S.P. 1,752,477. 1930-)
Camera. – P. D. Brewster, an American inventor, who was one of the first to apply the bipack system to colour cinematography, has a number of patents to his credit covering various cameras and ...
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Dyes of Brewster color. Credit: Brian Pritchard.
- Source: Ryan, Roderick T. (1977): A History of Motion Picture Color Technology. London: Focal Press.
52 Images in 1 Gallery
The procedure for obtaining the lenticular elements in relief required a series of steps: starting from three black and white positive color separations, obtained with any of the available methods, three matrices were printed, from which the film to ...
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Projection of lenticular film in Bocca-Rudatis. Refraction of light beams through lens. Source: Pierotti, Federico (2016): Un'archeologia del colore nel cinema italiano. Dal Technicolor ad Antonioni. Pisa: Edizioni ETS, p. 81.
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“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, ...
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Source: Coe, Brian (1981): The History of Movie Photography. Westfield, N.J.: Eastview Editions.
39 Images in 3 Galleries
Timeline of Historical Film Colors by Barbara Flueckiger is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Quote as Flueckiger, Barbara (2012 ff.): Timeline of Historical Film Colors. (= https://filmcolors.org/).
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