BJC0000
Subscriber
In my dilettante way I've been looking into gum printing in 3 or 4 colours.
I've produced CMYK seps using digital means but it occurred to me that the original gummists were more likely to have used RGB filters in camera to produce their negatives as I guess colour photography and electronic methods were unavailable.
Any current reference to colour printing flags up dire warnings about using RGB.
So, did early practitioners have CMY filters and if not what colours did they print through each of their separated RGB negs to reproduce anything resembling true colours?
I'm sure this is basic stuff but if the idea is to print complementary colours through each separation where did blue printing come from without a yellow filter?
No wonder I've largely kept to black and white.
Basically what I want to know is did the Victorians attempt colour and is there anywhere I can find information about how they managed it. I've tried the usual searches without success.
I understand autochromes used RGB dyed starch grains and I have a couple of autochromes that look ok colour-wise but I suppose they were transparencies.
I suppose hand tinting was popular because of the problems but surely someone must have tried alternatives?
I've produced CMYK seps using digital means but it occurred to me that the original gummists were more likely to have used RGB filters in camera to produce their negatives as I guess colour photography and electronic methods were unavailable.
Any current reference to colour printing flags up dire warnings about using RGB.
So, did early practitioners have CMY filters and if not what colours did they print through each of their separated RGB negs to reproduce anything resembling true colours?
I'm sure this is basic stuff but if the idea is to print complementary colours through each separation where did blue printing come from without a yellow filter?
No wonder I've largely kept to black and white.
Basically what I want to know is did the Victorians attempt colour and is there anywhere I can find information about how they managed it. I've tried the usual searches without success.
I understand autochromes used RGB dyed starch grains and I have a couple of autochromes that look ok colour-wise but I suppose they were transparencies.
I suppose hand tinting was popular because of the problems but surely someone must have tried alternatives?