PHOTOGRAPHY IN THE COLORS OF NATURE.* 

 By F. E. Ives. 



Heliochromy — nieaniuj;' sun-coloring — has been settled upon as a 

 name for processes of photography in natural colors, or in the colors of 

 nature. There are two kinds of heliochromic processes. In one, the 

 light itself produces the colors by direct action upon the sensitive plate; 

 in the other, light does not produce colors, but is nuide to regulate their 

 distribution and combination. Some of the colors of the spectrum were 

 imperfectly re produced V)y a process of the first kind nearly thirty years 

 before the discovery of the Daguerreotype process. Seebeck, of Jena, 

 in 1810, found that chloride of silver, after preliminary exposure to 

 white light, is colored a brick-red by prolonged exposure to the red 

 light of the spectrum, and a metalic blue by the blue light. After the 

 discovery of the Daguerreotype process, several exiierimentalists tried 

 so to modify the preparation of the chloride of silver plates as to make 

 them capable of re-producin g all the colors of nature. In a photographic 

 text-book published so long ago as 1853, 1 find the following statement: 

 "Even the long debated question of the re-production of the natural 

 colors by the agency of light seems on the point of solution. - - - 

 M. Niepce de St. Victor, from whose well-known character as an exper- 

 imental philosopher much might be expected, has forwarded to London, 

 as we understand, specimens of proof in which every color is re pro- 

 duced with a vigor and richness truly wonderful." Similar announce- 

 ments have been made since that time, but the best results ever ac- 

 tually shown were nothing more than interesting curosities. Dr. W. H. 

 Vogel,t who recently had an opportunity to compare some of the latest 

 and most talked about of these "photographs in natural colors" with 

 the original colored pictures from which they were printed (by con 

 tact), says: 



"The original is one of those transparent window i)ictures in bright 

 colors, brought into market by Grimme and Hembel, in Leipsic, as a 



* A lecture before the Franklin Institute. From The BrUish Journal of Photof/ra- 

 plni, January 23, February 13, 20, 27, 1891 ; vol. xxxviii. 

 iJnthonii's BuUetin, 1890, p. 325. 



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