An undated color photograph from 1905 to 1915 by Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii

Color photography was explored throughout the 1800s. Initial experiments in color could not fix the photograph and prevent the color from fading. Moreover until the 1870s the emulsions available were not sensitive to red or green light. Download high resolution version (800x692, 209 KB) Early color photograph from Russia, created by Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii as part of his work to document the Russian Empire from 1909 to 1915. ... Download high resolution version (800x692, 209 KB) Early color photograph from Russia, created by Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii as part of his work to document the Russian Empire from 1909 to 1915. ... Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii (August 31, 1863 – September 27, 1944) (Russian: Сергей Михайлович Прокудин-Горский   listen[?]) devoted his career to the advancement of photography. ... Events and Trends Beginning of the Napoleonic Wars (1803 - 1815). ...

The first permanent color photo was taken in 1861 by the physicist James Clerk Maxwell. Several patentable methods for producing images (by either additive or subtractive methods, see below) were devised from 1862 on by two French inventors (working independently) Louis Ducos du Hauron and Charles Cros (see Coe, ref 1, for details). Practical methods to sensitise silver halide film to green and then orange light were discovered in 1873 and 1884 by Hermann W. Vogel. (Full sensitivity to red light was not achieved until the early years of the 20th century.) James Clerk Maxwell (June 13, 1831–November 5, 1879) was a Scottish mathematical physicist, born in Edinburgh. ... Louis Ducos du Hauron (b December 8, 1837 at Langon (Gironde) - d August 31, 1920 at Agen) was a French pioneer of color photography. ... Charles Cros (October 1, 1842 - August 9, 1888) was a French poet and inventor. ... Hermann Wilhelm Vogel (1834-1898) was a German photo-chemist who made a key contributions to practical color photography. ...

The first fully practical color film, Autochrome, did not reach the market until 1907. It was based on a screen-plate method, the plate being made using dyed dots of potato starch. The screen plate lets filtered red, green or blue light through each grain to a photographic film in contact with it. This is then developed to a negative, and reversed to a positive, which when viewed through the screen plate restores the original colours in their correct proportions. The Autochrome Lumière is an early color photography process. ...

Other systems of color photography included that invented by Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii, which involved three separate monochrome exposures ('separation negatives') of a still scene through red, green, and blue filters. Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii (August 31, 1863 – September 27, 1944) (Russian: Сергей Михайлович Прокудин-Горский   listen[?]) devoted his career to the advancement of photography. ...

The first modern ('integrated tri-pack') color film, Kodachrome, was introduced in 1935 based on three colored emulsions. Most modern color films, except Kodachrome, are based on technology developed for Agfacolor (as 'Agfacolor Neue') in 1936. (In this newer technology the colour-couplers are already within the emulsion layers, rather than having to be carefully diffused in during development.) Instant color film was introduced by Polaroid in 1963. This article is about the color film. ... Agfacolor is a series of colour photograpic products produced by the Agfa company of Germany. ... Polaroid (a trademark of the Polaroid Corporation) is the name of a type of synthetic plastic sheet which is used to polarise light. ...

There are basically two colour systems.

(1)Additive. The colours are added as coloured lights: Red, Green and Blue. Clerk Maxwell's experiment was of this type, as are screen-plate methods, such as Autochrome. Modern digital photographs seen on a VDG are also viewed by addition of light from an RGB phosphor array.

(2)The other system is subtractive, using the secondary colours Cyan, Magenta and Yellow, which are subtracted from white light. Ducos du Hauron made several pictures by this method in the late 1800s.

Several commercial print methods were devised using the subtractive technique during the 1930s (see eg Coe, ref 1), for printing from 'separation negatives'. Kodachrome was the first commercially-available 'integrated tri-pack' film of this type.

Patents

• U.S. Patent 2059884 -- Color photography

See also

• Timeline of invention
• Photography
• color printing
• color television
• Potassium ferricyanide

People This is a chronological list of inventions. ... Lens and mounting of a large format camera Photography is the process of making pictures by means of the action of light. ... Color printing is the reproduction of an image or text in color (as opposed to simpler black and white or monochrome printing). ... See TV (disambiguation) for other uses and Television (band) for the rock band European networks National In much of Europe television broadcasting has historically been state dominated, rather than commercially organised, although commercial stations have grown in number recently. ... Potassium ferricyanide (K3Fe(CN)6), molecular weight:329. ...

• Frederick Lanchester
• Gabriel Lippmann
• William Eggleston
• Louis Ducos du Hauron see also Coe, ref 1

Frederick William Lanchester (October 23, 1868 - March 8, 1946) was an English polymath and engineer who made important contributions to automotive engineering, aerodynamics and co-invented the field of operations research. ... Categories: Possible copyright violations ... William Eggleston (born 1939) is an American photographer. ... Louis Ducos du Hauron (b December 8, 1837 at Langon (Gironde) - d August 31, 1920 at Agen) was a French pioneer of color photography. ...

Reference

• Coe, Brian, "Colour Photography: the first hundred years 1840-1940", Ash & Grant, 1978.