Color photography

“ Many workers have tried, with varying success to devise a means whereby photography could be made to reproduce not only the outlines and gradations of natural objects but the colors as well, and there is now available a method of great worth for this purpose. In brief, it consists in making, by one exposure in an ordinary camera, a set of three-color negatives, each of which represents that portion of one of the primary colors—violet, green and red—which was reflected from the subject. ”

“ But how much more popular and useful does photography become, when it can be used as a means of securing plates from which to print photographs in a regular printing press, and, what is more astonishing and delightful, to produce the REAL COLORS of nature as shown in the subject, no matter how brilliant or varied. ”

“ However, the value of color to the scientific worker is incalculable, as will be realized at once on considering only one of the possible applications—namely, the study of skin affections. It is interesting to note that several methods have been devised for the reproduction of natural colors in motion-picture work—the familiar method of coloring the positive film by hand being only an approximation to truth. ”

“ When a blue photograph is reduced, it is advisable before drawing upon it to first reduce its intensity by a prolonged immersion into water. Pale blue is a very actinic color which is not reproduced in photography, except by the ortho-chromatic process, or if it does, the impression being very weak, is not objectionable. When the image has not been sufficiently or not at all bleached, the blue is dissolved by an alcoholized solution of the blue solving. ”

“ Thus foliage green, due to its possessing a reflection band in the red of the spectrum, which is absent in most pigments, may be made to appear red while the camouflage remains green or turns black. Filters which cause changes of color are of course of no use for photographic detection of camouflage, since the photographic image is colorless. Brightness differences are alone available. ”

“ A paler yellow remains as a residual tint, and this on continued exposure to the light, slowly darkens to brown. Exposed to the spectrum, the paper is first reduced nearly to whiteness in the region of the blue and violet rays. More slowly, an insulated solar image is whitened in the less refrangible portion of the red. Continue the exposure, and a brown impression begins to be percieved in the midst of the white streak, which darkens slowly over the region between the lower blue and extreme violet rays.
THE RED POPPY yields a very beautiful red color, which is entirely destroyed by light. ”

“ Instead, therefore, of mixing upon his palette three primaries to produce the tertiary gray, he so places them on the canvas that at the proper distance (though this consideration is of small concern to him) the spectator will mix them—which he often does. The advantage of this method of color presentation lies in the degree of purity which the pigment retains. Its disadvantage appears in its frequent distortion of fact and aspect of nature, sacrificed to a scientific method of representation. ”

“ Indeed, commercial cinematography in the true colours of Nature appears to be as far from realisation as a simple process of still-life colour photography. Nature defies the photographic investigator to capture and reproduce the myriad tints and hues in which she is garbed.
We see colour pictures upon the white screen, but with one or two exceptions the tints are the result of the artist’s handiwork. An ordinary black and white film is taken, and then coloured, in the same way that the photographic artist tints his portraits. ”

“ As an artist's color, it replaces almost all the other red pigments which we have inherited from the past. The same chemists have an equally powerful yellow and blue under careful observation, and it is highly probable that in another year or two these, also, will be given to the world. Now it is evident that if painters can secure these three primary colors in two values, a light and a dark shade, they will, with the addition of white and black, have a perfect palette ”

“ We must expect, then, in painting, to find that neutral gray will be more altered by pale tints of red, orange, or yellow, which are slightly lighter than itself, and that the gray will be less altered by these colors when differing considerably from it in luminosity; analogous conclusions with regard to green, blue, violet, and purple, can also be drawn. Saturated or intense colors in a painting have less effect on white or gray than colors that are pale; this was shown in the preliminary experiment when gray was placed on a ground of strong color. ”

“ If the general tone of a picture be yellow, like a golden sunset, the complementary color would be a bluish green, and therefore a bluish green, with some gray in it, offset by a narrow metal colored moulding, would be the proper frame for a painting of that kind. Nothing is so hideous as brilliant gold on all the paintings in a room, and many a museum is spoiled through the glossy, inharmonious effects of the conglomerate masses of frames, which detract from the color value of a painting. ”

“ Amateur photography, with its soft pastel effects in black, green, white, red, and gray, is making rapid strides and doing much to advance the cause of art in the home. The hand-colored photograph is acceptable if the coloring is true and rightly applied, while certain charming colored French prints, so like water colors as to be hardly distinguishable from them, have distinct worth. ”

“ If the ground is white there is so much the less dark pigment to influence your painting. He is right in this; but white is a most unsympathetic color to work over, and if you do not want to lay in your work with frottées, a tint is pleasanter. For most work the light ochrish ground will be found best; but you may be helped in deciding by the general tone of your picture. If the picture is to be bright and lively, use a light canvas, and if it is to be sombre, use a dark one. ”

“ Red is favored by women, with blue a close second, but the reverse is true for men. It is also thoroughly established that red, orange, and yellow exert an exciting influence; yellow-green, green, and blue-green, a tranquilizing influence, and blue and violet a subduing influence upon mankind. All these results were obtained with colors divorced from surroundings and actual usage. In the use of light and color the laws of harmony and esthetics must be obeyed, but the sensibility of the lighting artist is a satisfactory guide. ”

“ Yellow is much lighter by gaslight, and rose pink loses its brightness. The colors being all mixed with water to a pulpy state are now put into the compartments on the palette, putting no more on the palette than is required for immediate use. In scene painting many of the different shades are only obtained by mixing one color with the other while on the palette. ”

“ As soon as the liquid is applied, which cannot be in too thin a film, the negative picture vanishes, and by very slow degrees is replaced by a positive one of a violet blue color on a greenish yellow ground, which at a certain moment possesses a high degree of sharpness and singular beauty and delicacy of tint. ”

“ The paint for raised lights is taken from the palette in a particular way; the brush must lift up a lump of color at the point, that it may be laid on the easier. Raised lights are placed on small flowers, on jewelry, pearl necklaces, etc. A light in the eye is often marked with permanent white, but it should be used in great moderation, and placed at the second firing.
Photographs from casts, medals, bas-reliefs, afford excellent models for copying in monochrome painting. Copies of photographs on oval plaques are done with red brown, heightened with bitumen. ”

“ If it were practicable to use opaque colors in the school they could be employed to show that the effect of a tint is produced in pigments by mixing white with the standard color and a shade by mixing black with it, but while the mixture of white may produce the best imitations of some tints in nature, the same result does not hold good in the use of black to form shades, and black pigments are rarely used for this purpose, because they impart various untruthful hues, according to the colors with which they are mixed. ”

“ As in nature, a shadow is formed by obstructing the light, so in the technic of coloring the shadow is obtained by the annihilation of the light-color. By combination of a primary color with a harmonizing secondary color of equal strength, we obtain the right shadow tone of the first color. In this way, by experiments in mixing, the right shadow tones, which form in a multi-colored edge, the gradual transitions of primary colors can be easily detected. ”

“ When the sky and shadows are completed the main values of the picture are established, and the highlights being thin and transparent do not change the other values.
Most of the color is mixed on the paper as the work progresses and not on the palette, thus a pleasing transparent change and variety of color is obtained which can be seen by a study of the shadows and highlights in the plates. ”

“ The painter's estimate of the tone of a painting may be understood by applying a test cited by a writer upon art: "If the canvas were placed upon a revolving pin and whirled rapidly around, the coloring would blend into a uniform tint." The color tone of a painting must then be the dominant color, modified by the subordinate colors. If the color tone be yellow for example, as it is in some of the good work of Dutch artists, there must be enough yellow so that it will be a yellow blur if the piece is spun rapidly around. ”

“ More than one professional artist has already worked successfully from nature in oil colors with a palette consisting of only close approximations to the six standard colors with white and a few grays. A person whose color perception has been trained by the use of the color disk in six standard colors with [Pg 121] colored papers to correspond, will undoubtedly be able to more truthfully reproduce the colors which he sees in nature, on the canvas or paper by means of such a pallette than if he had been taught by any other system and used the ordinary pigments. ”

“ As we are dealing with pictures finished in light and shade, it is well that we should have rules to aid in choosing good ones to work on.
In selecting a photograph to color we want as perfect a print as it is possible to procure. A light one is preferable. Notice in particular if it is well defined, that the shadows and middle shades are clear, the lights pure, and that it is free from defects and spots. Many think that they can take a poor photograph, and, by coloring it, cover up the defects, but they are wrong in this, for the transparent colors will not conceal defects. ”

“ It is a common habit with artists to introduce very warm effects into all sunlight by the use of orange or yellow in the warm colors. This extreme tendency has been intentionally avoided in the preparation of these papers, however desirable or allowable it may be considered in heightening effects. So also in the shades as in the tints, the aim has been to keep all the tones of one color in the same scale, even though artists [Pg 118] often run the various tones of the same piece of color into two or three analogous scales. ”

“ Most of the color photographs taken so far end in the glass negative, and even that has its weak points. The ideal is a negative that will give a print in the actual colors of nature. In most of the so-called photographic color prints there is more or less failure in the blending of tones. ”

“ Variety may be given to the local color by taking up on the point of the brush when charged with the compound tints portions of pure pigment such as madder, lake, blue or gray.
Water is most difficult to represent, and the suggestions given for different tones and tints may be varied indefinitely. The colors which appear in both running and still water are largely the result of the reflections of sky, cloud, and surrounding objects, but they are also produced by the light or shade reflected from its surface, and by the color of the objects over which it flows. ”

“ When the painter opens a new lot of color, he desires it to be exactly like the last in every particular, provided, of course, the last lot was standard. Hence, uniformity of color, of tint, of shade, of quality throughout, is a requirement with which the color maker may properly be expected to comply. It will thus be observed that the purchase of colors is one of the really important steps leading up to fine and durable color effects. ”

“ For optical reasons, colour cannot be reproduced by photography, and as certain colours produce an effect which might not be anticipated by the inexperienced, it will be well to warn such against these effects, to prevent disappointment at the results obtained. ”

“ The hues stop short at the boundary where green meets blue.
The public has sometimes drawn attention to another defect in colour cinematography. It appears to photograph the subject in a brilliant sunlight, regardless of the fact that sunlight kills colours. Every amateur photographer knows that if he exposes his plate upon a brilliantly lighted subject the tones are hard, everything being practically resolved into an intense white and black, while the leaves of trees appear to be covered with snow. ”

“ Red and also fair golden hair become black. Even a very slight yellow shade has an unfavorable effect. A photograph from a drawing is often blemished by little iron-mould specks in the paper, invisible to the eye. These specks frequently appear as black points. There are faces with little yellow specks that do not strike the eye, but which come out very dark in photography. ”