Autochrome Plates - Can I use & develop these?

[Deleted member 19578]

I have a box of Autochrome plates "A. Lumiere & Ses Fils Plaques Autochromes" and was wondering if I could use these & then develop them... Anyone tried using old plates? I've found a couple of reference sites for autochromes, but no mention of using old plates.

 

[railwayman3]

I have a box of Autochrome plates "A. Lumiere & Ses Fils Plaques Autochromes" and was wondering if I could use these & then develop them... Anyone tried using old plates? I've found a couple of reference sites for autochromes, but no mention of using old plates.

You would, of course, need to know the formulae for processing and be prepared to mix your own chemicals (it would, I think, have been a reversal process?).
I'm sure that the real problem would be that the plates must be in the region of 70 or 80 years outdated (I think that Autochrome would have finished by the 1930's), so that, by any measure, the chances of them still being in usable condition have got to be low.
If it were me, I know that I'd love to try the old process, but on balance I'd probably keep the unopened box as a collectors item.

 

[Ian Grant]

I should have the Lumiere reversal/developer formula somewhere, it will be in D A Specer, Colour Photography, or L P Clerc. Remember that its just a B&W emulsion and needs reversal processing.

Back in the 70's I worked with a descendant of the Lumiere family. The company was bought by Ciba Geigy and became a sister company to Ilford before becoming an Ilford plant. The company still exists selling and marketing Ilford materials in France.

Ian

 

[Aurum]

Just a thought here, and prehaps it should be in the alt process list, but has anyone ever tried to recreate autochrome plates after they were discontinued?
From what I've seen of the pictures taken on this process (BBC4 is showing a series on the pictures of Albert Kahn) I quite like the feel and appearance of them. A bit like hand tinting but more lifelike.

 

[Michel Hardy-Vallée]

Just a thought here, and prehaps it should be in the alt process list, but has anyone ever tried to recreate autochrome plates after they were discontinued?
From what I've seen of the pictures taken on this process (BBC4 is showing a series on the pictures of Albert Kahn) I quite like the feel and appearance of them. A bit like hand tinting but more lifelike.

Yup, and it's not easy:
(there was a url link here which no longer exists)

 

[Martin Reed]

Just a thought here, and prehaps it should be in the alt process list, but has anyone ever tried to recreate autochrome plates after they were discontinued?.....

Jean-Paul Gandolfo & Bernarde Lavedrine have spent many years studying Autochrome, not from the point of replicating it, which would appear to be impossible, but mapping the process out to record it. Here's one link...

Dead Link Removed

I think one of the problems trying to process the plates now would be the fragility of the screen/emulsion bond. The plate was a composite of a number of layers that didn't sit too well with each other, and as normal reversal processing is quite stressful to emulsion, the emulsion will maybe de-laminate from the plate during processing. Try to avoid using a permanganate bleach, use dichromate if possible.

I've got quite a lot of information from British Journal of Photography Autochrome supplements of the time - I'll scan & link to them if there's relevant stuff.

 

[Aurum]

Cool! thanks for the thread link. It seems that the ideas I had of inkjetting a mask using a high quality inkjet printer may be theoretically possible, but not practical.

Interesting link 1: http://home.bway.net/jscruggs/auto.html

Interesting link 2: http://www.edinphoto.org.uk/1_early/1_early_photography_-_processes_-_autochrome.htm

The idea of squashing a glass plate to 5000PSI is a bit scary mind!
Ground glass powder is my thought!

 

[Deleted member 19578]

Thanks for all the info... I'll probably just leave them in the box & set them on the display shelf.

John "Alpha Flying Monkey" Moore
Flying Monkey Studio

 

[Martin Reed]

Yes, rolling the starch is just one of the problems...another was only about 3% of the potato starch grains were large enough, and these had to be milled out & the rest discarded. The Lumieres went all the way up a photographic evolutionary dead end, it was amazing they got the process to work at all.

They were probably cursing when they realised how great the demand for the plates would be, I believe they had great problems increasing production to the level required.

 

[Ian Grant]

In the 1989 "Art of Photography" exhibition shown at the Royal Academy in London there were a number of Autochromes, the quality of the images was outstanding. The colour fidelity was far more realistic and lifelike than later modern processes.

Ian

 

[Photo Engineer]

According to an archivist at George Eastman House, about 6 people request information each year on either processing or duplicating Autochromes. All, AFAIK, have failed. Even the owners of the original coating machine of the Lumiere brothers have been unable to replicate the process. Several on APUG have tried and apparently given up. These posts exist here somewhere.

I have seen Dufay color duplicated quite nicely by using ain inkjet printer to create the dye matrix. I have seen the "Dufay" slide projected along with a replicate of the original Maxwell type color demonstration done at GEH.

PE

 

[Ian Grant]

Interestingly both Autochrome & Dufay colour are processes that now technically belong to Ilford, or rather Harman Technology.

Ian

 

[Martin Reed]

Perhaps we could form a pressure group to persuade Harman to start up Autochrome production again? At the least it would be a good way of winding Simon up!

 

[Aurum]

Prehaps a nice autochrome of the look on his face

 

[Photo Engineer]

I have a box of lovely Autochrome stereo slides sitting next to me right now. The colors are quite amaxing, but scanning them presents a problem. I get a severe grain pattern and difficulty duplicating the colors. It is amazing.

In any event, the slides in the OP are probably fogged beyond salvage but there is no harm trying. OTOH, the unused box of slides has a lot of historical value and might be more useful if kept as-is.

PE

 

[removed account4]

htmlguru here on apug has tried
to duplicate making autochromes.
perhaps you can contact him ( or he will post in this thread ? )
to learn how he might have processed HIS
or ask him for advice.
from what i remember he was close,
but still had hurdles to overcome.

good luck!

john

 

[df cardwell]

One of the nicest autochromes we'll ever see,
the fresh from storage,
The 5x7 Steichen of Charlotte Spaulding:

A duplicate transparency is on exhibit at the Eastman House. Wonderful.

 

[Aurum]

htmlguru here on apug has tried
to duplicate making autochromes.
perhaps you can contact him ( or he will post in this thread ? )
to learn how he might have processed HIS
or ask him for advice.
from what i remember he was close,
but still had hurdles to overcome.

good luck!

john

I think this thread from 2005 is what you may be referring to
(there was a url link here which no longer exists)

Twelve pages of good potential stuff, but appeared to die a death.
I suspect that it may well have been down to lack of time.
Sometimes in a Research and development situation the art is deciding when to call it a day, and stop flogging a dead horse

I'm considering using an acetate sheet, a laser printer, and emulsion in a can, or fine polyethylene powder masterbatch in three colours, but its purely at the thought experiment point at the moment.

I think I'll continue this over in Alt-process

 

[Photo Engineer]

A duplicate of an Autochrome onto a modern slide film which is then scanned gives better results than a direct scan I think.

I have seen slides made from Autochromes and they look better than the original. I have seen 5x7 Autochromes and they look ok, but have a grain pattern and aliasing due to "pixels" just like a digital material only worse.

Here is one part of a stereo pair out of a box of stereo Autochromes. The box scan is also inlcluded.

On the emulsion side, you can clearly see the silver image and on the base side all you see is black when you view the slides by incident light. Looking through them with a loupe you can clearly see the grains.

These commercially produced Autochromes bore the label Limichrome as you can see from the box. They and others that were in the set, were produced about 80 years ago. I bought these at an antique photo and camera show 2 years ago while shopping with Grant Haist and his wife. I was fortunate enough to run into them at the show and ended up shopping with them for a while.

PE

 

[df cardwell]

A duplicate of an Autochrome onto a modern slide film which is then scanned gives better results than a direct scan I think.

I was fortunate to be able to see the original. Lots of obvious reasons IT is not on display.
I'd love for you to go over and take a peak yourself. It is a pretty special case.

 

[htmlguru4242]

Aurum, sounds good, except for the emulsion part; all of the commercially available liquid emulsions are orthochromatic at best, and maybe only blue sensitive. You're not going to get any yellow, orange or red response from them.

 

[Photo Engineer]

A duplicate of an Autochrome onto a modern slide film which is then scanned gives better results than a direct scan I think.

I was fortunate to be able to see the original. Lots of obvious reasons IT is not on display.
I'd love for you to go over and take a peak yourself. It is a pretty special case.

I'll ask the next time our group has lunch there.

PE

 

[jd callow]

One of the nicest autochromes we'll ever see,
the fresh from storage,
The 5x7 Steichen of Charlotte Spaulding:



A duplicate transparency is on exhibit at the Eastman House. Wonderful.

I saw the original just a couple months back at the Vancouver Art Gallery it was part of an installation on loan from the GEH. It was a beauty...