Coating COLOR emulsion at home

[StoneNYC]

So this is going to be way over my capabilities right now.

But I've seen many talk about coating their own B&W emulsions at home, but is it also feasible to coat your own color emulsions?

I wouldn't expect them to have a high color fidelity or anything, but they say the E6 and C41 film coating is very complex, but could you make a simple 3-4 layer color transparency emulsion, semi-easily at home? And actually process it in standard E6 chemistry? Same question for C-41.

[Domingo A. Siliceo]

Don't know if it will be easier to try some autochrome (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autochrome_Lumi%C3%A8re)...

[Tin Can]

Stone, now you need to read some books and I know you have said you hate research.

Color is actually pretty old, but you will not make Kodachrome.

There are ways, but it won't be like you think.

[Brian C. Miller]

... but could you make a simple 3-4 layer color transparency emulsion, semi-easily at home? And actually process it in standard E6 chemistry? Same question for C-41.

NO!!!

There is one fellow down in Australia, a former Kodak engineer, who made a rather sophisticated coating machine out of a lab machine that Kodak had trashed. There's a thread about it on APUG. That machine is capable of color. Anything less than that would result in a mess.

[Drew Wiley]

Now you are freakin' looney nuts. It would probably easier to learn quad-color carbon or make your own dye transfer matrix film. If you want to see how that has
been done take a look at Jim Browning's coating machine and protocol on the Dye Transfer forum. He has since sold that coater. Hope you got a lot of money.
Otherwise you're stuck with something artsy/craftsy like color gum printing. Todd Gangler has a good on-line flick about making color carbon tissue. A few people
around here used to do it. Not a big budget thing, but very fussy and time-consuming. Dye transfer is expensive, cause you gotta make most of your own materials now, unless you have about a million spare bucks to have your own custom industrial coating order. But it should be fun to research these things. I've studied all kinds of esoteric color processes I'll never have time to attempt myself. Or do something really antique like autochrome. You can probably also buy a small batch used precision coater. Add some cleanroom setup. Probably a bit less than a million bucks in gear, if you don't mind a few hundred thousand more to
get it shipped intact. Or why not just buy out the current Kodak plant before Starbucks acquires the property.

[StoneNYC]

Now you are freakin' looney nuts. It would probably easier to learn quad-color carbon or make your own dye transfer matrix film. If you want to see how that has
been done take a look at Jim Browning's coating machine and protocol on the Dye Transfer forum. He has since sold that coater. Hope you got a lot of money.
Otherwise you're stuck with something artsy/craftsy like color gum printing. Todd Gangler has a good on-line flick about making color carbon tissue. A few people
around here used to do it. Not a big budget thing, but very fussy and time-consuming. Dye transfer is expensive, cause you gotta make most of your own materials now, unless you have about a million spare bucks to have your own custom industrial coating order. But it should be fun to research these things. I've studied all kinds of esoteric color processes I'll never have time to attempt myself. Or do something really antique like autochrome. You can probably also buy a small batch used precision coater. Add some cleanroom setup. Probably a bit less than a million bucks in gear, if you don't mind a few hundred thousand more to
get it shipped intact. Or why not just buy out the current Kodak plant before Starbucks acquires the property.

Haha hmm do you think kodak will accept coffee seed and tears as payment?

[StoneNYC]

Thanks guys, I'll check out autochrome.

I'm asking if it's possible now so I can know what to look for in the future.

[Drew Wiley]

No... but they might be willing to trade one patent for another. People already know about caffenol developer. But maybe you could figure out how to substitute
coffee creamer or donut glaze for gelatin. If your morning coffee is anything like what they serve here at the office, the ingredients to color film emulsion are probably less toxic anyway. (I bring my own coffee)... I ran into a similar snag when attempting to rethink the toxicity of chromium compounds for tanning gelatin.
Medical research has come up with several potential organic substitutes (there is interest in gelatin-based prosthetic tissues) - but all the substitutes so far turn
out to be even more toxic. I once thought about making my own mid-budget multi-layer film coater. I'm sure I could pull it off; but no space for the thing, esp
considering I'd need a totally dedicted clean room just for some new printing tweak with exactly zero long-term profit potential. Nobody is going to buck the commercial steamroller of inkjet technology at this point in history. And even it is using only a tiny fraction of the applicable patents already on file. "Good enough'
is their mantra. It's all about user convenience, and frankly, the obscene profitability of the inks and paper, for the few surviving suppliers of that food fight. I'll
just be happy if I have enough time after I retire to do dye transfer printing once in awhile. Getting from Point A to Point B in terms of very high quality convenient
color prints is now possible just doing advanced RA4 tricks. But I sure miss Cibachrome and the good ole chrome films that went with them.

[Tin Can]

Bromoil. I am almost ready to try it. Gandolfi is the expert.

Autochrome looks great, but every site is in French...

[StoneNYC]

No... but they might be willing to trade one patent for another. People already know about caffenol developer. But maybe you could figure out how to substitute
coffee creamer or donut glaze for gelatin. If your morning coffee is anything like what they serve here at the office, the ingredients to color film emulsion are probably less toxic anyway. (I bring my own coffee)... I ran into a similar snag when attempting to rethink the toxicity of chromium compounds for tanning gelatin.
Medical research has come up with several potential organic substitutes (there is interest in gelatin-based prosthetic tissues) - but all the substitutes so far turn
out to be even more toxic. I once thought about making my own mid-budget multi-layer film coater. I'm sure I could pull it off; but no space for the thing, esp
considering I'd need a totally dedicted clean room just for some new printing tweak with exactly zero long-term profit potential. Nobody is going to buck the commercial steamroller of inkjet technology at this point in history. And even it is using only a tiny fraction of the applicable patents already on file. "Good enough'
is their mantra. It's all about user convenience, and frankly, the obscene profitability of the inks and paper, for the few surviving suppliers of that food fight. I'll
just be happy if I have enough time after I retire to do dye transfer printing once in awhile. Getting from Point A to Point B in terms of very high quality convenient
color prints is now possible just doing advanced RA4 tricks. But I sure miss Cibachrome and the good ole chrome films that went with them.

Not sure the glazing is a good idea, I'd be too tempted to eat my own film...

[Bruce Watson]

So this is going to be way over my capabilities right now.

But I've seen many talk about coating their own B&W emulsions at home, but is it also feasible to coat your own color emulsions?

I wouldn't expect them to have a high color fidelity or anything, but they say the E6 and C41 film coating is very complex, but could you make a simple 3-4 layer color transparency emulsion, semi-easily at home? And actually process it in standard E6 chemistry? Same question for C-41.

It's way over your capabilities any time, now and in the future. No individual can do it. Feel free to prove me wrong however.

[StoneNYC]

It's way over your capabilities any time, now and in the future. No individual can do it. Feel free to prove me wrong however.

Well now it's like a challenge...

But again, I'm not saying GOOD kodak quality, I'm saying identifiable as an image that's color haha

[Bruce Watson]

I'm saying identifiable as an image that's color haha

And I'm sayin': Good luck. You'll have considerably better luck with something other than (lesser than) E6. I like the suggestion of autochrome. That's doable.

Besides autochrome, another possibility for DIY color is tricolor separations -- three exposures of B&W film through R, G, and B filters. There have been LF cameras made for this (Devon Tri-color (http://www.cameramanuals.org/booklets/devin_tricolor.pdf), see page 8 of the manual), but you can do it with a normal view camera and filters. With this, you can get a quality image, and making a B&W film is within the range of possibilities for an individual. You can print your tricolor separations using dye transfer or some similar process. Arduous, but doable.

[Bill_1856]

God and Mann did it when they invented Kodachrome. Obviously it is a piece of cake.
(I tried something similar while in High School, but used the Lumiere technique of dyed starch particles -- it was a total failure.)

[MMELVIS]

Lippmann plates will get you some good information

Some reading

The History of Three-Color Photography By E. J. WALL, F. C. S., F. R. P. S.
https://archive.org/details/historyofthreeco00ejwa
or

Practical Color Photography By E. J. WALL
https://ia600400.us.archive.org/32/items/practicalcolorph00walliala/practicalcolorph00walliala_bw.pdf

[Will Frostmill]

I've thought for a while that Autochrome was pretty neat. Aside from the chemistry, the hard part seems to be coating the paper or film. If you could get the sensitized starch particles small enough, the thing to do would be use an inkjet printer to deposit them on your paper.

[StoneNYC]

I've thought for a while that Autochrome was pretty neat. Aside from the chemistry, the hard part seems to be coating the paper or film. If you could get the sensitized starch particles small enough, the thing to do would be use an inkjet printer to deposit them on your paper.

OMG!!!!

What about actually using an ink jet printer to layer emulsions onto film or paper?? Why have I not thought of this before??

[mdarnton]

Here's something that's possible:

http://blog.americanhistory.si.edu/osaycanyousee/2012/05/discovery-in-the-collections-1914-kodachrome-of-george-eastman.html

More at the bottom here:

http://www.widescreenmuseum.com/oldcolor/additive-subtractive.htm

[Will Frostmill]

OMG!!!!

What about actually using an ink jet printer to layer emulsions onto film or paper?? Why have I not thought of this before??

Heh. Glad you liked it!

[mdarnton]

There's a great idea in there. I don't believe the starch is sensitized, is it? It's on the surface as a point-by-point filter, adjusting what color of light makes it thought to the film underneath, then after processing, you view each exposed bit through the filter that exposed it, and presto . . . . color.

So you could print an RGB pattern directly on the film, if you had a way to stabilize it. Perhaps, for instance, using a film with no anti-halation coating, putting the RGB ink pattern on the back and sealing it with varnish. Then exposing through the back (through the film) and reversal processing the resulting image.

[IanG]

I've thought for a while that Autochrome was pretty neat. Aside from the chemistry, the hard part seems to be coating the paper or film. If you could get the sensitized starch particles small enough, the thing to do would be use an inkjet printer to deposit them on your paper.

The chemistry is simple is just a B&W reversal process.

The starch particles aren't sensitised they just provide a coloured mosaic grid which overlays the silver halide image.

Ian

[Tin Can]

Trinitron process...

[Leigh]

But I've seen many talk about coating their own B&W emulsions at home, but is it also feasible to coat your own color emulsions?
On any color material you're talking about a minimum of 5 emulsion layers, probably several more.

- Leigh

[sanking]

The Autochrome process is probably the easiest way to coat a color emulsion. There were other screen processes from the period that might be feasible. E. J. Wall and The History of Three Color Photography would be a good book to read for anyone seriously interested in the subject.

Ron Mowery, who posts on APUG, was an engineer involved in the production of color emulsions at Kodak. He has many articles on coating silver emulsions, but my guess is not even Ron would recommend hand coating color emulsions.

As Drew suggested, making three-color carbon or dye transfer prints would be a lot easier than coating color emulsions on film.

Sandy

[StoneNYC]

The Autochrome process is probably the easiest way to coat a color emulsion. There were other screen processes from the period that might be feasible. E. J. Wall and The History of Three Color Photography would be a good book to read for anyone seriously interested in the subject.

Ron Mowery, who posts on APUG, was an engineer involved in the production of color emulsions at Kodak. He has many articles on coating silver emulsions, but my guess is not even Ron would recommend hand coating color emulsions.

As Drew suggested, making three-color carbon or dye transfer prints would be a lot easier than coating color emulsions on film.

Sandy

I'm pretty sure Ron still coats his own at his house, but he may have special equipment.

I've been trying to stay away from APUG lately, it's been kind of toxic, when I ask a question I get too many distractions from people who just want to derail the thread.

Thanks Sandy, perhaps I'll just ask him. But certainly going to look into autochrome more.

I was aware of the theory behind B&W film shot with different filters and then combined to replicate color, but let me first learn how to actually do normal carbon before I try color carbon! :)

[Brian C. Miller]

Autochrome layers: wax, potato grain, emulsion. The potato grain is smashed flat before the emulsion is put down.

There's also another color process that used a color screen, Dufaycolor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dufaycolor). The mosaic would still need to be put down before the emulsion, though.

But AFAIK, there hasn't been a color film process that you can do yourself. Sure, there were early processes, but all of those were done at a corporate lab with real chemists. The Autochrome process was attempted again, and that failed, even with all of the original equipment.

[jnantz]

RM/PE doesn't coat his own color ...

[Drew Wiley]

An interesting direct color carbon screen process is Fresson, direct meaning not a transfer process. It's largely a family secret; but their website does illustrate the basics and show samples.

[sanking]

An interesting direct color carbon screen process is Fresson, direct meaning not a transfer process. It's largely a family secret; but their website does illustrate the basics and show samples.

Or you could follow the procedures of Keith Taylor, who makes beautiful hand made color gum prints, with what is essentially a direct color carbon method.

I like what Taylor said about the Autochrome process. "this process is a merciless bitch far more daunting than weaving straw into gold.”

http://unblinkingeye.com/Articles/3CG2/3cg2.html

Sandy

[Drew Wiley]

Gum and Kwikprint etc have a whole different look than true carbon transfer. .... generally awfully artsy/craftsy. But that could well be the result of poor pigment
choice and sloppy registration. I'm just saying, Sandy... I've never personally seen a gum print anywhere near your own league of quality.

[Drew Wiley]

... Well I just did surf Keith Taylor's site, Sandy. Thanks for noting him. Would be nice to see real prints someday. There are lots of gum prints in this neighborhood;
but they all, well, er... fit the unfortunate stereotype I just described in the previous post.

[Domingo A. Siliceo]

Stone, have you seen this site (http://www.autochromes.fr/english/last.html)? It has some current autochromes examples that could be of your interest.

[StoneNYC]

Stone, have you seen this site (http://www.autochromes.fr/english/last.html)? It has some current autochromes examples that could be of your interest.

Wow thanks thats really awesome!

[Wayne]

Thanks guys, I'll check out autochrome.

I'm asking if it's possible now so I can know what to look for in the future.

seems a shame if not a crime to go to all that trouble for home brew autochrome and then have to inkjet it. Internegative then RA-4 maybe?

[Drew Wiley]

Internegs are tricky at this point in time. Stay tuned. I'll be honing that technique with Portra 160 over the coming months. Preliminary results have been mixed,
depending upon what specific chrome film I start with. The two sticking points are that everything has to be calibrated for your own workflow and colorhead,etc,
which means that my exact specifications might differ from yours - a fair amt of personal calibration and test printing is involved. And second, for the best results
you really need to master chrome masking, and indeed learn it in a little different manner than anything you're going to read about anywhere. But as far as the films involved, Portra 160 is probably at least as suitable as any official interneg film avail in the past, and masking can be done with TMX or FP4 even better than it could once be done with Pan Masking film if you know the right exp and dev tricks. Not so pleasant is the cost of some of these films at the moment, esp in 8x10 size.

[StoneNYC]

Internegs are tricky at this point in time. Stay tuned. I'll be honing that technique with Portra 160 over the coming months. Preliminary results have been mixed,
depending upon what specific chrome film I start with. The two sticking points are that everything has to be calibrated for your own workflow and colorhead,etc,
which means that my exact specifications might differ from yours - a fair amt of personal calibration and test printing is involved. And second, for the best results
you really need to master chrome masking, and indeed learn it in a little different manner than anything you're going to read about anywhere. But as far as the films involved, Portra 160 is probably at least as suitable as any official interneg film avail in the past, and masking can be done with TMX or FP4 even better than it could once be done with Pan Masking film if you know the right exp and dev tricks. Not so pleasant is the cost of some of these films at the moment, esp in 8x10 size.

Drew, would it be prudent to perhaps specialize on designing masking using x-ray film? Since it's so cheap, you could make lots of masks using this film instead? But I'm not sure because of its spectral sensitivity if that would work, I'm just asking if maybe for example the 8 x 10 single-sided x-ray film I believe it's Ektascan? It's a little more expensive than normal x-ray film, however it's certainly a lot less then a box of standard single-sided 8 x 10 normal pan film.

[Nathan Potter]

Stone, just a comment on Xray film (well some Xray film). It may not be sensitive throughout the visible spectrum. The common Ektascan B/RA is not sensitive in the red so not suitable for tricolor applications. I think you can use blue and green although there may be some serious falloff in sensitivity as you go through the green.

Xray film types with intensifying screens tend to show spikey peaks when adjusted for the visible range and are also not so useful for trichrome applications. The three phosphor types plotted below show the telltale spikes compared to the normal cutoff of standard silver halide Xray film.

https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2917/14277940526_0220ee33d7_c.jpg (https://www.flickr.com/photos/argiolus/14277940526/)
Picture 2 (https://www.flickr.com/photos/argiolus/14277940526/) by hypolimnas (https://www.flickr.com/people/argiolus/), on Flickr

Nate Potter, Austin TX.

[Drew Wiley]

Correct. One thing you need is a true pan film that can be balanced for the full visual spectrum. Second, you need a film capable of a long straight line at quite low
contrast. Third, you often might want to accentuate or diminish the impact of certain colors in the scene by altering the contrast mask itself, just like in ordinary
outdoor shooting.

[Drew Wiley]

... Another important characteristic is that the film needs to be polyester-based, not acetate, for the sake of dimensional stabilty and reliable registration. Of course, if the original chrome is itself acetate, like Provia or most 120 films, things can get a bit tricky. But that's an involved subject in its own right.

[Wayne]

Perhaps even more important, you first need the autochrome with which to make the internegative. And from what (little) I know, that is going to be more difficult than making masks or internegs although the latter are nothing to sneeze at (having done some, but never mastered it).

[jnantz]

seems that at this point in time it might be an easier task to make dye transfer prints. at least a few years ago the matrices were still being made
and it is a KNOWN PROCESS that is archival. my uncle used to make them, and while they took many hours to make they were worth it .. being a permanent image.
although trichromes are a close second seeing the color image is made from stable archivaly processed b/w film which some suggest will never stop being made.
autochromes are nice ( the linked modern autochromes are nice ) but it is a mystery, still ... even the george eastman house doesn't make them ...

[StoneNYC]

Stone, just a comment on Xray film (well some Xray film). It may not be sensitive throughout the visible spectrum. The common Ektascan B/RA is not sensitive in the red so not suitable for tricolor applications. I think you can use blue and green although there may be some serious falloff in sensitivity as you go through the green.

Xray film types with intensifying screens tend to show spikey peaks when adjusted for the visible range and are also not so useful for trichrome applications. The three phosphor types plotted below show the telltale spikes compared to the normal cutoff of standard silver halide Xray film.

https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2917/14277940526_0220ee33d7_c.jpg (https://www.flickr.com/photos/argiolus/14277940526/)
Picture 2 (https://www.flickr.com/photos/argiolus/14277940526/) by hypolimnas (https://www.flickr.com/people/argiolus/), on Flickr

Nate Potter, Austin TX.

Thanks, I feel foolish, having not yet don't masking myself, I was under the impression that you were mostly dealing with the density of the film grains themselves and not the colors so I was thinking the density would affect the exposure no matter what, but if the masks' density is created from the color dye in the film, then I guess it wouldn't work.

[Bill Burk]

How about taking an existing emulsion of film and coating with a stripping layer. Print that (in the dark of course) with an inkjet color pattern of filters. A stochastic/random pattern would be best. A different pattern for each pass would make it more beautiful and more difficult for someone to figure out your process by looking at several shots that you make this way.

Then strip the film, develop it and scan. And overlay the color pattern in the computer.

[Kirk Gittings]

seems that at this point in time it might be an easier task to make dye transfer prints. at least a few years ago the matrices were still being made
and it is a KNOWN PROCESS that is archival.

Archival in dark storage. Not particularly archival if hung on a wall in the light.

[jnantz]

Archival in dark storage. Not particularly archival if hung on a wall in the light.

thanks kirk ...

i guess my uncle's successes were not typical ( or the changes were so gradual he didn't notice them ? )
.. the ones he showed me had been on his wall in ambient light for 30 years
he said it looked the same as the day he made it ... my-bad ( i thought his results were typical )

[Kirk Gittings]

Not my opinion-a known fact for a long time. Also when someone says after "30 years
he said it looked the same as the day he made it" well.............if after 30 years he compared it with an identical one that had been in dark storage for thirty years that statement would have some weight. The plain fact is that fading happens so slowly that we don't really notice it until it becomes pretty significant.

[Bill Burk]

How about taking an existing emulsion of film and coating with a stripping layer. Print that (in the dark of course) with an inkjet color pattern of filters. A stochastic/random pattern would be best. A different pattern for each pass would make it more beautiful and more difficult for someone to figure out your process by looking at several shots that you make this way.

Then strip the film, develop it and scan. And overlay the color pattern in the computer.

And with this method, I don't know why you would be restricted to a design of three "filters" Red-Green-Blue - you could scatter all variety of shades of color and then the reconstructed image would just need to be the complement of whatever colors you happened to use on the "filter".

[jnantz]

The plain fact is that fading happens so slowly that we don't really notice it until it becomes pretty significant.

i guess the trick is to make them and enjoy them
and not worry about the instability ... ?
i'm kind of wondering what the point is otherwise ...
maybe my uncle was really saying " see in ambient light, it might have faded
like all dye transfer prints do, but i don't really care, because it isn't too noticeable
and i am enjoying looking at it on my wall .. " but
i didn't really have a clue ( 21 years old and didn't even know what it was i was looking at
and the only thing i knew about it was that it took him a very long time effort and skill to make by comparison to
the handful of color prints we cranked out in his darkroom 20 minutes later )

i guess my point of bringing up dye transfer to begin with is
that "making autochromes" is still a mystery to most
making dye transfer prints is not..

[Drew Wiley]

"Archival" is an awfully plastic term. I make "Crystal Archive" prints because they are a good value, and should last longer on display than many other papers. But the
admitted fact that they might still yellow as much as .30 in fifty years or so simply due to residual couplers hardly makes them archival in any ultimate sense. I made
Cibachromes for several decades, and these are very stable in the dark; but sunlight or other UV sources will get to them faster than the CAII prints. So it all depends. The problem (as well as color reproduction advantage) with dye transfer prints is that different dyes could be chosen, and not all these are created equal. And again, UV is the obvious killer. But the same could be said for inkjet - all kinds of "inks" and printing substrates are available, and not everything will
be equal. Color shifts are inevitable over time. Even true pigment prints can fail. It's all relative. In fact, I can't think of any cadmium-free yellow pigment that
isn't fairly fugitive given enough UV exposure. If you want permanent pigments, think of the surface of Mars - all a bunch of oxides baked over the millennia. Same
reason fresco painters often worth with natural oxides and mineral colors that have already survived the ages. But these won't pass thru inkjet nozzles, and aren't
suitable for process colors at all. No free ride. You pick your battle.

[Fr. Mark]

I paint with cadmium colors. I think as long as you don't aerosolize them it should be safe to use them, though I'd avoid eating them. Even then, as the forms found in artist's oils, I don't think they are very bio-available. And, if working with dry pigment powders, a mask or fume hood to avoid inhalation should be fine. Some of the suggestions here sound a lot harder than learning to mix colors and painting on prints or using colored pencils to color photos, which is what the autochromes more/less look like to me. As has been mentioned several times, black, yellow, red, blue quad (or omit black and go for 3 color) separations are possible in hardening gelatin type printing and I'm not sure why the Cadmium colors would be unsuitable for that. Actually, I'd think that finding the right reds and blues would be harder than finding the right yellow which I'd think would be Cadmium Yellow Light in Gouache from M. Graham. Cd Red Lt might work but the blue...Ultramarine's too purple, perhaps Cobalt blue is in the center of things enough to work. These pigments have been on display as Monet era paintings for quite a while now, the oil as binder doesn't provide significant uv protection, I don't think they fade much in gallery spaces. The originals I've seen look pretty close to what I'd expect if I'd painted using the same colors as year ago. I don't know much about the technology of automotive paints, but that's come a long way in recent years---I suspect they put a UV absorbing agent in the clear coat, but I'm sure they use ton quantity of mineral and organic pigments every year---in fact, I think that and house paint is what really drives the pigment marketplace. We poor painters have to use the left-overs which, admittedly are pretty splendid. And, anyway, cars parked outdoors are a pretty harsh color fade test. I notice more deterioration of the lens for the headlights these days than I do the paint, even for colors that "ought" to fade (red, purple) I don't know if I will ever have the time/space/money/courage/patience to do multi-color carbon---I'm still trying to nail down Xray film with pyrocat hd (or rodinal) for Cyanotypes from a box in a box projector lens homebuilt leaky camera...

[Brian C. Miller]

(repeating myself: )

Autochrome layers: wax, potato grain, emulsion. The potato grain is smashed flat before the emulsion is put down.

There's also another color process that used a color screen, Dufaycolor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dufaycolor). The mosaic would still need to be put down before the emulsion, though.


I paint with cadmium colors.

Sorry, different process. You guys really need to take a look over on APUG.org, and read Photo Engineer's posts on the subject. Seriously, he's posted a lot of really good info about E6 and C41, and stuff like that.

A transparency requires the light to pass through it. Pigments block the light. That's it, light stops there, does not pass GO!, does not collect $200. Pigments reflect light, so they can be used on a final print.

The original Autochrome plates were dimly viewable against a light box. The Dufaycolor film used a printed color matrix. The best route to a home-made color film would be the Dufaycolor process. We have inkjet printers that can print on glass and plastic. This would then be coated with the emulsion, and there you have it.

As for Autochrome, the original machines are still in France. They tried to get the process going again to celebrate the centenary, but couldn't get it to work. There's a fellow who has done his own Autochrome, and there are scans on the web from his results.

[Domingo A. Siliceo]

There's a book, recently published by Taschen to celebrate the centenary of WWI, with more than 320 colour images of that period. Most of the images, if not all, are Autochromes.

You can take a look a the book in Taschen site: The First World War in Colour (http://www.taschen.com/pages/en/catalogue/photography/all/05794/facts.the_first_world_war_in_colour.htm).

[StoneNYC]

There's a book, recently published by Taschen to celebrate the centenary of WWI, with more than 320 colour images of that period. Most of the images, if not all, are Autochromes.

You can take a look a the book in Taschen site: The First World War in Colour (http://www.taschen.com/pages/en/catalogue/photography/all/05794/facts.the_first_world_war_in_colour.htm).

Cool!!! Great images! (The 12 they show) there's hope!