ABSTRACT
The earliest films used were sensitive only to blue light. Colors, therefore, did not translate into the monochrome tones of the photographic print in the manner to which we are now accustomed. Yellow tended to register as black, and blues, no matter how dark, as white. The problem was not evident in photographs of architecture with its emphasis on light and shade, but it was very evident in the early attempts to photograph paintings. In the 1880s Attout Tailfer, a French chemist, developed a film sensitive to a wider range of light. At the time the more sensitive film was called isochromatic, although orthochromatic and panchromatic are the more frequently used terms at the present time.
