Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1893-07-13
Can you print your photographs in


ferred to devote the greater part OF
my attention to reproducing them in
this way. The Washington Museum
possesses a set of lantern slides IN col
Ors which / gave them. These were
made by printing on gelatine and ce-
menting the three images in layers in
particular way; the color was not
touched by hand
Can any one take colored photo
graphs by your process, or does the
apparatus need special adjustments
None whatever. You take photo
graphs in the ordinary manner and
print in the ordinary manner. except
tnat for purposes Of heiiochromy you
print on to glass instead of paper. Here
is my camera attachment. The light
which comes from the object is split
up automatically by an arrangement Of
transparent mirrors. so that part goes
to a circle covered by a red screen,
part to one covered by a green screen
and part to another covered by blue
screen.
MY Photographic screens" he said,
ARE based upon MaXwelPs diagram
of the curves of color sensation. The
most remarkable fact shown by this
diagram is that the rays which repre-
sent a fundamental color sensation are
not the ones which most powerfully
excite that sensation. The red SenSa-
| ton is excited by the spectrum rays
| from red to green, but most power
fully by the orange. Thus, in order
! to get the effect of the red sensation
on my negative, l must use not a SIM
pie red glass, but one which will adj
nit Gin definite proportions the red,
orange, yellow and yellow-green spect-
rum rays. Similarly, to get the effects
of the green sensation, I must admit
on to my negative the joint action
of the orange, yellow, yellOw-green and
! g.reen-blue spectrum rays, but only
in proportion to their power to excite
that sensation. So with the blue-violet
sensation. Allowance is, of course,
made for the difference in SenSitiveness
of the eye and the Photographic plate.
No one has attempted to do this before,
and that is where my work differs so
widely from that Of the French people,
who have proceeded on these lines.
They have simply been content to use
the ordinary red, green and blue-violet
screens to produce the effect"
I'm concentrating the three images
back again into one image do you use
the same colored screens"
mo, that is rather strange. For
this purpose the pure colors must be
used, which represent the fundamental
sensations
''The heliochromoscOpe is arranged
like the reverse of your camera, !
suppose?'
practically it is. I use a pure col
Ored screen to each image, and the
| three images are SuperimpOSed at one
focus by means of an arrangement of
mirrors The three rays, so to speak
are interfered with by the lights and
shades on the Photographic plate
through which the light passes, and
the composite effect of these interior
ences is to produce the original colors
of the object photographed. You will
see, if no plate intervenes, the rays
passing through are three oOlored
screens of the heliOchromOscope pro-
duce white disc merely"
Does your camera reproduce every
color and shade in natIre?''
Certainly. That is more than the
Lippmann process can claim. Or less
perhaps I should say; for the Lipp
mann process is certain to photograph
in colors whether the object is colored
or not. My camera does not do that
Here is a photograph of an ordinary
photograph pasted on to bands OF
bright colOrs; you see the photograph
remains in brown monochrome while
the bands are bright. One Photographic
worthy has described my process as
looking at ordinary photographs
through colored glass. [ can't think
why people should wish to detract
from it. 1t is a perfectly honest scien
tific process, and I have not forced il
on them. Since Captain Abney and
others of the leading scientists have
taken it up, however, this pettiness
has ceased"
Us color photography your princi-
pal work?''
mo; it has been little more than one
of my favorite hobbies. I am best
known in America as the inventor of
the first successful system of half-tone
block engraving"
''Why do you call your process of
color photography by such a long
name?"
Because, popularity speaking, it is
not color. photography at all, and do
not wish to mislead. Color photography
in the sense of reproducing directly the
colors Of nature in camera [ believe
to be an impossibility; and certainly
no such picture has ever been produced
Besides Lippmann's results, [ have
seen hand-painted affairs masquerading
as color photographs, and in Paris I
went to see some marvellous results
which I had read about in three col
umns Of fulsome print, and found they
We're nothing but lithochrome repI q
uctions from collotype plates, touched
up by hand I would not go a yard
aside to see a 'colored photograph
now"
FADS OF THE SEASON.