10/06/2026
1907: Autochrome introduced
By the 20th century, photography was a relatively simple process that many hobbist and enthusiast could do, but its lack of colour reproductiuon was its biggest drawback. Many methods starting to emerge to colourise images, from artists hand-tinting daguerreotypes and calotypes, but in 1907 the first commercially successful colour photographic process was introduced by The Lumière brothers. Their method, called autochrome, used a glass plate instead of plastic film. The plate was coated with light-sensitive chemicals and granules of dyed potato starch, which acted as a colour filter. The process resulted in a colour transparency (now known as a slide). However, because this was once again a positive image it could only be viewed using a light source, and, like the daguerreotype, it was not easy to reproduce.