World War I color photos

Those are re-enactors. Look at the quality of the film. That didn't exist back then and there were no color photographs before the 1930s other than hand colored ones.
 
Charge_7 said:
Those are re-enactors. Look at the quality of the film. That didn't exist back then and there were no color photographs before the 1930s other than hand colored ones.
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you are right. I have seen some of this pics in black and white.
 
Charge_7 said:
Those are re-enactors. Look at the quality of the film. That didn't exist back then and there were no color photographs before the 1930s other than hand colored ones.
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If there ware color film, couldn't there be color photos?

The first "color" photo "film" was a fake color film (panchromatic black and white) but none the less it still showed color and was first seen in 1906 the first real color "film" (plate) came around 1907-1908 ;)

This "panchromatic black and white film" had a higher quality then normal of the date black and white film.

;)

These are however digitaly coloured photos that ware originaly black and while, probebly also a bit enhenced. Have a photo of my great grandmother and father taken a bit before the time period of those photos that is about the same quality, not exactly as great as those scanned enhenced photos but about the same. :)

It atleast looks like scanned photos, because of the vertical and horisontal lines that are quite iregular. Which accurs on low level scanners, only barell, well called something else but not quite sure of the exact name, can do good quality scanns of around 64 000 dpi, normal scanner is around 2000 dpi and dark images usually have these kinds of iregular lines.

Or it might just have been taken from a newspaper hehe because that will give you terrible scans hehe

(Yes im interested in photography and its histrory)

Also you have to remember that photographys from that time is usually bad quality because of the paper processing which wasnt that great at that time, hence the original plate ("film") is alot better quality then the paper copy of it ;) So if you have a plate today with todays equipment you can get rather high quality prints from old photos from that time. So in fact it is a posibility that these photos are indeed real color photos of its time.
 
the_13th_redneck said:
I know I'm not supposed to link to other forums but this particular thread has just put up rare COLOR World War I pictures.
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It's no problem to link to other forums here, as long as there's some interesting information in the other end.. ;)
 
Scroll down on the posts they made. Someone posted an article that sheds some "proof" on its authenticity.
I think it's real.
A lot of old pictures... the colors would look rather "fake." After all it was color photography at its infancy right?
 
the_13th_redneck said:
Scroll down on the posts they made. Someone posted an article that sheds some "proof" on its authenticity.
I think it's real.
A lot of old pictures... the colors would look rather "fake." After all it was color photography at its infancy right?
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Correct, early color film, they just had a trubble getting it on to paper, paper reacts to light, and different trypes is used for either B/W or color and i doubt the paper for color existed then especially with the use of filters :).
 
its impressive, even at infancy. the photo quality isnt too bad either. and very interesting information too.

they are mostly french soldiers right?
 
Yes they're French soldiers and the photography was done by the French. Apparently they pioneered the earliest color photos.
 
the_13th_redneck said:
Yes they're French soldiers and the photography was done by the French. Apparently they pioneered the earliest color photos.
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very interesting, thx for the useful facts given by alex kroll. i had fun reading that.

i nearly got mixed them up with austrian soldiers. btw does austrian soldiers had a pointed hat like the germans in WW1?

is the soldiers with high hats and black unform a special regiment of the french or the BEF?
 
World War I Color Photos

There is no technical reason why these photographs cannot be real. There were several good color photography processes available at that time. The Library of Congress has a nice selection of Photochromes available on-line here for example: http://lcweb2.loc.gov/pp/pgzquery.html (type in Paris as a search term). These World War I photographs appear to be Autochromes, a process invented by the Lumiere brothers (the inventors of motion pictures) in 1903: http://www.institut-lumiere.org/english/lumiere/autochexpo.html

Old photographic techniques and technology were often remarkably advanced, their practicioners real craftsmen. Lenses, although more limited, were every bit as sharp as those of today. To this day, no photographic process can match the sharpness and resolution of the original Daguerrotype process (1840).

That said, these seem to be photographs taken on the Alsace front, perhaps in the early stages of the war, judging from some uniforms, but they might well be from right after the war, as they include a lot of photos of ruins, which was a favorite subject of photographers looking for a subject that was both sensational and did not move. The street scenes show no signs of electric or telephone wiring, which would be correct in rural France of 1914~1918.

There's also no reason why they could not be heavily Photoshopped images, but I think it unlikely.
 
On a side note, the history channel has a very interesting series called "World War 1 in color" where they digitally added very realistic color to actual WW1 footage, it's amazing how much more "real" the war seems when the footage is displayed in color.
 
Okay, I surrender. I was wrong. (I'm sure Chewie will frame this)

I did do some checking and it is evident that these can indeed be real. What would have been helpful is if the pictures initial post had stated that they were original pictures reprocessed with modern technology. I was basing my opinion on the pictures as they were produced at that time. I did not know that they could be so well improved with updated means. Of course the fact that alot of, shall we say, "hooey" is posted on these forums made me more inclined to think they couldn't be real.
 
Charge_7 said:
Okay, I surrender. I was wrong. (I'm sure Chewie will frame this)

I did do some checking and it is evident that these can indeed be real. What would have been helpful is if the pictures initial post had stated that they were original pictures reprocessed with modern technology. I was basing my opinion on the pictures as they were produced at that time. I did not know that they could be so well improved with updated means. Of course the fact that alot of, shall we say, "hooey" is posted on these forums made me more inclined to think they couldn't be real.
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i don't have any frames, but i'm just glad i was here to see it! lol

just jokes charge
 
Color Photographs

Make no mistake: these are original COLOR images from the period. The Autochrome process was a true full-color photographic process. There is no need for "enhancement". In fact, the modern part of the reproduction process, the scanning in this instance, seems to have degraded the images somewhat by introducing banding.

On the other hand, looking at the Library of Congress' Photochromes I've come to the conclusion that those are "colorized" black&white images.
 
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