Birds and All Nature, Vol. 6, No. 5, December 1899: Illustrated by Color PhotographyVarious
History
Birds and All Nature, Vol. 6, No. 5, December 1899: Illustrated by Color Photography
Various
Birds -- Periodicals; Natural history -- Periodicals
The color photograph is found to be most useful in developing the
color sense in children. The act of recognizing various colors and
shades is educative. When we consider that all the effects of the color
photograph are produced by combinations of the three primary colors we
at once step into a realm of thought and observation that is boundless.
The danger is that we may attempt too much with the abundance of
material at hand and, by forgetting the limitations of the unformed
mind, confuse instead of enlighten.
It is well for the teacher to know the process by which the color
photograph is produced, but young children who know little of the laws
of light are not expected to understand it fully. In advanced classes
the following will be found beneficial:
A natural object is placed before a camera and a water screen is
adjusted so no rays but the yellow may reach the photographic plate.
A negative is thus obtained recording all the yellow that appears
upon the surface of the object, whether it shows as pure yellow or in
combination with other colors. With the camera and object in exactly
the same position and another screen which absorbs all the rays but the
red ones coming from the object, a negative of the red is obtained. A
third negative of the blue in the object is similarly got, and we have
an accurate representation of the form and all the colors of the object
separated into red, yellow, and blue.
From these negatives three half-tone plates are made upon copper. A
half-tone plate is an acid etching produced by photographic process
with fine lines crossing each at right angles so that the picture
appears as a series of microscopic square points which decrease in
size in the lighter portions of the plate.
Red, yellow, and blue inks of the rarest quality are used in printing
from these plates, with great care exercised as to getting the exact
depth of color required for each. By placing a sheet of fine tissue
paper beneath a plate printing red, the red is deepened, another sheet
makes it more intense, and others are placed under the plate, if
necessary, to get the rich red required to blend with the yellow and
blue to make the exact reproductions of nature's colors which appear in
the color photograph.
The order of the printing is yellow first, and when this is thoroughly
dry the red is laid on, and the blue a day later. As the color is
nowhere a solid mass, but a series of points, one color does not hide
another, but the three colors shine through and make the blendings
which appear in the beautiful and delicate shades and tints of the
color photographs.
Do not manifest surprise when you find pupils wholly or partly color
blind. The boy who cannot find a red marble in the grass will show
by his conversation that red and green are the same to him. His is
an extreme case, but there are many who are slow to name the primary
colors and totally fail to recognize differences in tints.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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