Procédé Colombier
Description
“M. F. de Colombier appears to have been the first to suggest the application of this system to cinematography, and like so many French patents it is a little indefinite in phraseology. Three films were employed representing the same view and perfectly superposable. The positives were wholely colored, each having one of the fundamental colors or the complementaries, generally three, blue, red and yellow. The combination of the tints, more or less neutralized by the blacks and whites of the film, would give animated projections possessing their true colors. The three pictures were exactly superposed, either by apparatus having synchronous movement and automatic focusing, and superposed or separate projectors were used. And it was stated that it was possible to employ superposable films without preliminary coloring; it being sufficient to provide each projector with a different filter, yellow, blue and red. Another arrangement consisted in making reels of three or more films rolled up together, the impression of the image would then be simultaneous, the small thickness of the film base and its opacity being without action. It would be sufficient to color the films separately and place them in their first order so as to have a single trichromatic film; in this case an ordinary projector might be used. From this it is clear that the inventor had the idea of using a tri-pack for exposure; also he would use the additive as well as the subtractive processes.”
(Wall, E.J. (1925): The History of Three-color Photography. Boston: American Photographic Pub. Co., pp. 598 f.)
Secondary Sources
Wall, E.J. (1925): The History of Three-color Photography. Boston: American Photographic Pub. Co., pp. 598 f. View Quote
Patents
Fr.P. 395,981, 1908
