Stealth3kpl Posted October 1, 2012 Share #1 Posted October 1, 2012 Advertisement (gone after registration) On what date was colour film first available for purchase by the general public? Pete Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted October 1, 2012 Posted October 1, 2012 Hi Stealth3kpl, Take a look here Colour Film. I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
CalArts 99 Posted October 1, 2012 Share #2 Posted October 1, 2012 I'd say it was the Autochrome in the early 1900s. It was pretty popular at the time. But if you mean film as in modern celluloid film, then that would be in the early 1930s. The same people that made Autochrome plates (the Lumiere brothers) started making sheet film and then roll film. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
stunsworth Posted October 1, 2012 Share #3 Posted October 1, 2012 Autochromes have a unique look that I wish could be copied in Photoshop. Search for Albert Kahn for some superb examples. A few here... http://www.albertkahn.co.uk/ Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
robert_parker Posted October 1, 2012 Share #4 Posted October 1, 2012 Apparently 1903 for the patent and 1907 for the first commercial release to the public - strange but I seem to recall that there were some older photgraphs in the Kahn museum but they say he began his collection in 1909. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
adan Posted October 2, 2012 Share #5 Posted October 2, 2012 Autochromes have a unique look that I wish could be copied in Photoshop. Well, the "look" varies a lot, even in that collection from one photographer. Some pictures are simply low-saturation. Some look quite modern (guy leaning against a pillar in the header of that site). Some are variable in saturation. And of course we are seeing digitized versions, not the originals, with who knows what post-processing to make them as "pretty" as possible. And with likely variable aging effects to the originals. But if I were to describe an "average Autochrome look", it seems to be the variable saturation look - vivid colors are captured vividly, while low saturation colors are virtually gray, subsumed in the silver image. And with dead neutral "silvery" grays. Examples being the woman in red against a gray stone wall, also in the page header, or the brightly-dressed couple on the steppes. And yes, what Photoshop lacks is a way to vary saturation globally "on a curve." One can raise or lower saturation for all colors, or specific colors, but not specific saturation levels. If there were a Hue-Saturation-Lightness color mode (as opposed to RGB, CMYK or Lab), one could convert the image to that mode, and then open the Curves dialogue and adjust the "saturation" curve selectively, lowering saturation of low-saturation colors without affecting vivid colors, and without affecting hue and brightness. I messed around with several techniques (Lab color, selective color, layering) to try and find a way to approximate variable control of saturation. Picking a neutral gray in the color picker and then using that to "Select a color range" of grays/near-grays and then desaturating that selection almost worked, but the selection is done based on value/lightness of the gray, rather than saturation as such, so the selection missed some light or dark low-saturation areas, while including medium-tone higher-saturation areas. Realistically, one must manually select low-saturation near-grays and desaturate them completely, and then manually select medium-saturation aras (including skin, usually) and desaturate those areas a bit, and then manually select the vivid colors and increase or decrease their saturation if needed/desired. I'm fascinated by Autochromes as a precursor to digital imaging - digital uses the same idea of a color filter array overlaid on a "monochrome" sensitive layer, the only difference being the Bayer array (and variations like Fuji's) uses a regular rectangular pattern, while Autochrome used a random pattern. See also Dufaycolor (introduced slightly later than Autochromes, but roughly of the same era) and Polavision/Polachrome. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlanG Posted October 2, 2012 Share #6 Posted October 2, 2012 If there were a Hue-Saturation-Lightness color mode (as opposed to RGB, CMYK or Lab), one could convert the image to that mode, and then open the Curves dialogue and adjust the "saturation" curve selectively, lowering saturation of low-saturation colors without affecting vivid colors, and without affecting hue and brightness. Well I knew that Autochromes used an additive color process via dyed starch grains, but that was about it. So your post and this thread got me to read up on it. But I haven't seen any Autochrome plates first hand and can't say what it would take to simulate that "look." I am not sure what other software is available for the effect you want, but I have 12 year old software called "Micrografx Picture Publisher version 10" that I still use for a lot of my retouching. It does have the ability to split the image into HSL channels, work on them individually, and then recombine them. The difficulty is that when working on one channel you only see it represented as grey scale. You can't see the effect on the color image until the channels are combined. So it is really trial and error but I guess once you have a tone curve you like, it could be applied to many similar images pretty easily. I only use Photoshop infrequently so I don't know if it can do anything like that. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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