The final part in this three-part series on Orthochromatic Photography, describes how scientists used new light and color measurement techniques to characterize photographic plates and determine the precise specifications required for color photography and color printing. Many of the concepts developed during this period can be seen reflected in the work of the CIE that defined modern colorimetry decades later.
View More Orthochromatic Photography, Part 3: Prelude to the CIE…
Orthochromatic Photography, Part 2, traces the graphic arts community’s quest to understand the nature of photographic materials and develop a system for accurate light and color measurement. We can clearly see the origins of what developed into modern spectrophotometry, densitometry, and the CIE system of Colorimetry, through the work of William Abney, Leon Warnerke, and others.
View More Orthochromatic Photography, Part 2: Measuring Light and Color
The development of orthochromatic photography, using plates sensitive to a broad range of colors, had a drastic impact on the ways in which photographers were able to capture the world around them and made possible the development of color photography. This article tells the story of orthochromatic photography’s early development.
View More Orthochromatic Photography, Part 1: True Color in Black and White
Dan Flavin created art from colored linear fluorescent bulbs. His works were not defined only by the materials he used, but by how they blended into their environment and connected to viewers through their luminosity. But how does one copy, preserve, and study works that exist in a dimension beyond 2D and 3D space, that change over time, and from installation to installation? This article explores the work of Dan Flavin, its impact on color perception, and how publishers and galleries sought to reproduce works of art that were impossible to reproduce.
View More Dan Flavin and the Reproduction of Experience
William Kurtz created the first successful three-color letterpress print in the world. His example inspired the growth of color in the commercial printing industry, but it did not come without a cost. Kurtz invested his entire fortune in three-color research without any return, then lost his key patent to a corporate collective bent on monopolizing process color printing in America, bullying engraving firms to either join the collective or cease process color work altogether. This is the story of William Kurtz, his patent, and the attempt to monopolize color printing in America.
View More William Kurtz and the Attempt To Monopolize Color Printing in America
The first offset lithographic press for printing on paper was invented by Ira Rubel in 1903. Yet, offset lithography did not overtake letterpress in publications printing until the second half of the 20th century. It took many decades for the industry to fully understand offset printing technology, such as the chemistry of ink-water balance, plate coatings, and color reproduction. One of the most important technical innovations in printing was the use of masking to correct for deficiencies in printing inks. This is the story of how masking evolved from a craft to a science, and solidified its place in printing toolbox.
View More A Color Correction Maskerade
In 1936, Alexander Murray published a simple equation that would have a profound impact on the printing industry. This simple equation, first suggested to him by Edward Roy Davies, and now known as the Murray-Davies equation, was a key development in the quest to create standardized tone reproduction processes in a world where printing was a much a craft as it was a manufacturing process.
View More The Murray-Davies Equation: An Origin Story
Charles Gustav Zander was remarkable not just because of his important contributions to discourse on three-color color printing, but because, in the face of criticism, he had the courage to change his mind. An ardent evangelist of three-color printing and the use of scientifically rigorous color reproduction techniques, he realized, after more than 20 years in the industry, that he was wrong. This is the story of Zander and how he came to create his four-color complementary color system, one of the earliest examples of Expanded Gamut Printing.
View More Zander’s Baby: Red, Yellow, Blue (and Green?)
In the early 1900’s, Milton A. McKee, a “technical expert and authority on letter-press printing,”2 made two of the most important contributions to printing industry. Donald C. Cottrell, President of The Cottrell Company, for whom McKee worked, referred to McKee as a “printing genius” in his 1955 address to the Newcomen Society.3 That Cottrell made a point to honor McKee with this epitaph 26 years after his death is a testament to the impact he had on the industry. However, achieving this level of success…
View More A Printing Genius Named Milton A. McKee
This the story of the original wet-printing ink technology, the man who invented it, and the man who tried unsuccessfully to market it as the next revolution in multi-color process printing.
View More Ivan Orloff and His Press