autochrome
Early color photo
Autochrome was the first commercially successful color photography process, invented by the Lumière brothers and marketed from 1907 to the 1930s.
The process used microscopic grains of dyed potato starch on glass plates to filter light into color.
Autochromes have a distinctive soft, pointillist quality: The autochrome portraits captured her in muted pastels.
The term also refers to images made by this process.
French cinematograph inventors
- glass plateFlat transparent tableware
- potato starchCarbohydrate extracted from tubers
- color separationIsolating pigment channels for printing
- emulsionBlended immiscible liquids
exposure · transparency · dichroic · panchromatic · color rendering · varnish
Dot-based art technique
- soft focusDeliberately blurred image technique
- dreamlikeHazy and fantastical
- impressionisticConveying general mood, not specifics
- muted tonesColors desaturated toward gray
pastel hues · painterly · ethereal · luminous · grainy · atmospheric · romantic · delicate
French term for light
- 1907Date, twentieth century's start
- patentObvious; inventor's monopoly
- LyonMajor French city
- Edwardian eraBritish period 1901-1910
First commercial photography method
- tintypePhotograph on metal sheet
- cyanotypePhotographic blue-print process
- collodionNitrocellulose in solvent
- platinum printPhoto using metallic emulsion
archival · museum · preservation · restoration · vintage photography
Lumière brothers
French cinematograph inventors
- glass plateFlat transparent tableware
- potato starchCarbohydrate extracted from tubers
- color separationIsolating pigment channels for printing
emulsion · exposure · transparency · dichroic · panchromatic · color rendering · varnish
pointillism
Dot-based art technique
- soft focusDeliberately blurred image technique
- dreamlikeHazy and fantastical
- impressionisticConveying general mood, not specifics
muted tones · pastel hues · painterly · ethereal · luminous · grainy · atmospheric · romantic · delicate · faded
Lumière
French term for light
daguerreotype
First commercial photography method
- tintypePhotograph on metal sheet
- cyanotypePhotographic blue-print process
- collodionNitrocellulose in solvent
platinum print · archival · museum · preservation · restoration · vintage photography
autochromemonochrome
Single-color rendering
black-and-white · grayscale · daguerreotype · cyanotype · sepia
auto, chrome, chroma, chromatic, achromatic, polychromatic, monochromatic, chromatography, chromosome