Editing Photography (section)

== History ==
{{Main|History of photography|Timeline of photography technology}}
{{See also|History of the camera}}

=== Precursor technologies ===
[[File:Camera obscura box.jpg|thumb|A camera obscura used for drawing]]
Photography is the result of combining several technical discoveries relating to seeing an image and capturing the image. The discovery of the [[camera obscura]] ("dark chamber" in [[Latin]]) that provides an image of a scene dates back to [[History of Science and Technology in China|ancient China]]. Greek mathematicians [[Aristotle]] and [[Euclid]] independently described a camera obscura in the 5th and 4th centuries BCE.<ref>Campbell, Jan (2005) ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=lOEqvkmSxhsC&pg=PA114 Film and cinema spectatorship: melodrama and mimesis] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160429011743/https://books.google.com/books?id=lOEqvkmSxhsC&pg=PA114 |date=29 April 2016}}''. Polity. p. 114. {{ISBN|0-7456-2930-X}}</ref><ref name="Krebs">{{Cite book
| title     = Groundbreaking Scientific Experiments, Inventions, and Discoveries of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance
| author    = Krebs, Robert E.
| publisher = Greenwood Publishing Group
| year      = 2004
| isbn      = 978-0-313-32433-8
| url       = https://books.google.com/books?id=MTXdplfiz-cC&pg=PA20
| page      = 20
}}</ref> In the 6th century CE, Byzantine mathematician [[Anthemius of Tralles]] used a type of camera obscura in his experiments.<ref>[[Alistair Cameron Crombie|Crombie, Alistair Cameron]] (1990) ''Science, optics, and music in medieval and early modern thought''. A&C Black. p. 205. {{ISBN|978-0-907628-79-8}}</ref>

The [[Physics in the medieval Islamic world|Arab physicist]] [[Ibn al-Haytham]] (Alhazen) (965–1040) also invented a camera obscura as well as the first true [[pinhole camera]].<ref name="Krebs" /><ref>{{Cite journal
| author1 = Wade, Nicholas J.
| author2 = Finger, Stanley
| year    = 2001
| title   = The eye as an optical instrument: from camera obscura to Helmholtz's perspective
| journal = Perception
| volume  = 30
| issue   = 10
| pages   = 1157–77
| doi     = 10.1068/p3210
| pmid    = 11721819
| s2cid = 8185797
| issn=0301-0066}}</ref><ref name="Plott">{{cite book
| url   = https://books.google.com/books?id=ErMRGiNcxJIC&pg=PA460
| title = Global History of Philosophy: The Period of scholasticism (part one)
| last  = Plott
| first = John C.
| year  = 1984
| isbn  = 978-0-89581-678-8
| page  = 460
| publisher = Motilal Banarsidass Publ.
| quote = According to Nazir Ahmed if only Ibn-Haitham's fellow-workers and students had been as alert as he, they might even have invented the art of photography since al-Haitham's experiments with convex and concave mirrors and his invention of the "pinhole camera" whereby the inverted image of a candle-flame is projected were among his many successes in experimentation. One might likewise almost claim that he had anticipated much that the nineteenth century Fechner did in experimentation with after-images.
}}</ref> The invention of the camera has been traced back to the work of Ibn al-Haytham.<ref name="Belbachir">{{cite book
| last1     = Belbachir
| first1    = Ahmed Nabil
| title     = Smart Cameras
| date      = 2009
| publisher = Springer Science & Business Media
| isbn      = 978-1-4419-0953-4
| url       = https://books.google.com/books?id=it5W3f7yqAgC&pg=PR5
| quote     = The invention of the camera can be traced back to the 10th century when the Arab scientist Al-Hasan Ibn al-Haytham alias ''Alhacen'' provided the first clear description and correct analysis of the (human) vision process. Although the effects of single light passing through the pinhole have already been described by the Chinese Mozi (Lat. Micius) (5th century B), the Greek Aristotle (4th century BC), and the Arab
}}</ref> While the effects of a single light passing through a pinhole had been described earlier,<ref name="Belbachir" /> Ibn al-Haytham gave the first correct analysis of the camera obscura,<ref>{{Citation
| last1    = Wade
| first1   = Nicholas J.
| title   = The eye as an optical instrument: from camera obscura to Helmholtz's perspective
| date    = 2001
| last2   = Finger
| first2  = Stanley
| journal = Perception
| volume  = 30
| issue   = 10
| pages   = 1157–1177
| doi     = 10.1068/p3210
| pmid    = 11721819
| s2cid = 8185797
| quote   = The principles of the camera obscura first began to be correctly analysed in the eleventh century, when they were outlined by Ibn al-Haytham.
}}</ref> including the first geometrical and quantitative descriptions of the phenomenon,<ref>{{cite book
 |url          = https://monoskop.org/images/7/70/Needham_Joseph_Science_and_Civilisation_in_China_Vol_4-1_Physics_and_Physical_Technology_Physics.pdf
 |title        = Science and Civilization in China, vol. IV, part 1: Physics and Physical Technology
 |last         = Needham
 |first        = Joseph
 |access-date  = 5 September 2016
 |archive-url  = https://web.archive.org/web/20170703010030/http://monoskop.org/images/7/70/Needham_Joseph_Science_and_Civilisation_in_China_Vol_4-1_Physics_and_Physical_Technology_Physics.pdf
 |archive-date = 3 July 2017
 |url-status   = dead
 |page         = 98
 |quote        = Alhazen used the camera obscura particularly for observing solar eclipses, as indeed Aristotle is said to have done, and it seems that, like Shen Kua, he had predecessors in its study, since he did not claim it as any new finding of his own. But his treatment of it was competently geometrical and quantitative for the first time.
}}</ref> and was the first to use a screen in a dark room so that an image from one side of a hole in the surface could be projected onto a screen on the other side.<ref>{{cite web
| title   = Who Invented Camera Obscura?
| url     = http://www.photographyhistoryfacts.com/photography-development-history/camera-obscura-history/
| website = Photography History Facts
| quote   = All these scientists experimented with a small hole and light but none of them suggested that a screen is used so an image from one side of a hole in surface could be projected at the screen on the other. First one to do so was Alhazen (also known as Ibn al-Haytham) in 11th century.
}}</ref> He also first understood the relationship between the [[Focus (optics)|focal point]] and the pinhole,<ref>{{cite book
 |url          = https://monoskop.org/images/7/70/Needham_Joseph_Science_and_Civilisation_in_China_Vol_4-1_Physics_and_Physical_Technology_Physics.pdf
 |title        = Science and Civilization in China, vol. IV, part 1: Physics and Physical Technology
 |last         = Needham
 |first        = Joseph
 |access-date  = 5 September 2016
 |archive-url  = https://web.archive.org/web/20170703010030/http://monoskop.org/images/7/70/Needham_Joseph_Science_and_Civilisation_in_China_Vol_4-1_Physics_and_Physical_Technology_Physics.pdf
 |archive-date = 3 July 2017
 |url-status   = dead
 |page         = 99
 |quote        = The genius of Shen Kua's insight into the relation of focal point and pinhole can better be appreciated when we read in Singer that this was first understood in Europe by Leonardo da Vinci (+ 1452 to + 1519), almost five hundred years later. A diagram showing the relation occurs in the Codice Atlantico, Leonardo thought that the lens of the eye reversed the pinhole effect, so that the image did not appear inverted on the retina; though in fact it does. Actually, the analogy of focal-point and pin-point must have been understood by Ibn al-Haitham, who died just about the time when Shen Kua was born.
}}</ref> and performed early experiments with [[afterimage]]s, laying the foundations for the invention of photography in the 19th century.<ref name="Plott" />

[[Leonardo da Vinci]] mentions natural camerae obscurae that are formed by dark caves on the edge of a sunlit valley. A hole in the cave wall will act as a pinhole camera and project a laterally reversed, upside down image on a piece of paper. [[Renaissance]] painters used the camera obscura which, in fact, gives the optical rendering in color that dominates Western Art. It is a box with a small hole in one side, which allows specific light rays to enter, projecting an inverted image onto a viewing screen or paper.

The birth of photography was then concerned with inventing means to capture and keep the image produced by the camera obscura. [[Albertus Magnus]] (1193–1280) discovered [[silver nitrate]],<ref>{{cite web
| last        = Davidson
| first       = Michael W
| publisher   = National High Magnetic Field Laboratory at The Florida State University
| website     = Molecular Expressions: Science, Optics and You
| title       = Albertus Magnus
| date        = 13 November 2015
| url         = http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/optics/timeline/people/magnus.html
| url-status  = live
| archive-url  = https://web.archive.org/web/20151222121436/http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/optics/timeline/people/magnus.html
| archive-date = 22 December 2015
}}</ref> and [[Georg Fabricius]] (1516–1571) discovered [[silver chloride]],<ref>Potonniée, Georges (1973). ''The history of the discovery of photography''. Arno Press. p. 50. {{ISBN|0-405-04929-3}}</ref> and the techniques described in [[Ibn al-Haytham]]'s [[Book of Optics]] are capable of producing primitive photographs using medieval materials.{{citation needed|date=April 2023}}

[[Daniele Barbaro]] described a [[Diaphragm (optics)|diaphragm]] in 1566.<ref name="Gernsheim">[[Helmut Gernsheim|Gernsheim, Helmut]] (1986). ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=GDSRJQ3BZ5EC&pg=PA3 A concise history of photography] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160429080916/https://books.google.com/books?id=GDSRJQ3BZ5EC&pg=PA3 |date=29 April 2016}}''. Courier Dover Publications. pp. 3–4. {{ISBN|0-486-25128-4}}</ref> [[Wilhelm Homberg]] described how light darkened some chemicals (photochemical effect) in 1694.<ref>Gernsheim, Helmut and Gernsheim, Alison (1955) ''The history of photography from the earliest use of the camera obscura in the eleventh century up to 1914''. [[Oxford University Press]]. p. 20.</ref> Around 1717, [[Johann Heinrich Schulze]] used a light-sensitive slurry to capture images of cut-out letters on a bottle and on that basis many German sources and some international ones credit Schulze as the inventor of photography.<ref name="Watt2003">{{cite book|author=Susan Watt|title=Silver|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TYPyWkuRJqYC&pg=PA21|accessdate=28 July 2013|year=2003|publisher=Marshall Cavendish|isbn=978-0-7614-1464-3|pages=21–|quote=... But the first person to use this property to produce a photographic image was German physicist Johann Heinrich Schulze. In 1727, Schulze made a paste of silver nitrate and chalk, placed the mixture in a glass bottle, and wrapped the bottle in ...}}</ref><ref>Litchfield, Richard Buckley (1903). ''Tom Wedgwood, the First Photographer'', etc., London, Duckworth and Co. Out of copyright and [https://archive.org/details/tomwedgwoodfirst00litcrich available free at archive.org]. In Appendix A (pp. 217–227), Litchfield evaluates assertions that Schulze's experiments should be called photography and includes a complete English translation (from the original Latin) of Schulze's 1719 account of them as reprinted in 1727.</ref>
The fiction book ''[[Giphantie]]'', published in 1760, by French author [[Tiphaigne de la Roche]], described what can be interpreted as photography.<ref name="Gernsheim" />

In June 1802, [[United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland|British]] inventor [[Thomas Wedgwood (photographer)|Thomas Wedgwood]] made the first known attempt to capture the image in a camera obscura by means of a light-sensitive substance.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Werge |first=John |date=December 1, 1894 |title=The Oldest Photograph |pages=10 |work=The Newcastle Weekly Chronicle |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-newcastle-weekly-chronicle/127710631/}}</ref> He used paper or white leather treated with [[silver nitrate]]. Although he succeeded in capturing the shadows of objects placed on the surface in direct sunlight, and even made shadow copies of paintings on glass, it was reported in 1802 that "the images formed by means of a camera obscura have been found too faint to produce, in any moderate time, an effect upon the nitrate of silver." The shadow images eventually darkened all over.<ref>Litchfield, R. 1903. "Tom Wedgwood, the First Photographer: An Account of His Life." London, Duckworth and Co. See Chapter XIII. Includes the complete text of Humphry Davy's 1802 paper, which is the only known contemporary record of Wedgwood's experiments. (Retrieved 7 May 2013 [https://archive.org/details/tomwedgwoodfirst00litcrich via archive.org] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151007125801/https://archive.org/details/tomwedgwoodfirst00litcrich |date=7 October 2015}}).</ref>

=== Invention ===

[[File:Nicéphore Niépce Oldest Photograph 1825.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.1|Earliest known surviving heliographic engraving, 1825, printed from a metal plate made by [[Nicéphore Niépce]].<ref name="UTexas">{{cite web
 |title        = The First Photograph – Heliography
 |url          = http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/exhibitions/permanent/wfp/heliography.html
 |quote        = from Helmut Gernsheim's article, "The 150th Anniversary of Photography," in History of Photography, Vol. I, No. 1, January 1977: ...In 1822, Niépce coated a glass plate... The sunlight passing through... This first permanent example... was destroyed... some years later.
 |access-date   = 29 September 2009
 |archive-url  = https://web.archive.org/web/20091006135924/http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/exhibitions/permanent/wfp/heliography.html
 |archive-date = 6 October 2009
 |url-status   = dead
}}</ref> The plate was exposed under an ordinary engraving and copied it by photographic means. This was a step towards the first permanent photograph taken with a camera.]]

[[File:View_from_the_Window_at_Le_Gras_colorized_2020_new.png|thumb|396x396px|''[[View from the Window at Le Gras]]'', 1826, the earliest surviving camera photograph. Original plate (left) and [[Film colorization|colorized]] reoriented enhancement (right).]]

[[File:1838 or 1839 Frauenkirche Munich - Steinheil and Kobell 1.png|right|thumb|[[Carl August von Steinheil]] and [[Wolfgang Franz von Kobell|Franz von Kobell]]'s silver chloride photograph of [[Frauenkirche, Munich|Frauenkirche]] from the [[Old Academy (Munich)|Old Academy]], March 1837<ref name="auto">{{Cite web|url=https://www.deutsches-museum.de/museum/aktuell/1837-die-erfindung-der-fotografie-in-muenchen|title=1837: Die Erfindung der Fotografie in München|date=28 May 2024|website=www.deutsches-museum.de}}</ref>]]

The first permanent [[photoetching]] was an image produced in 1822 by the French inventor [[Nicéphore Niépce]], but it was destroyed in a later attempt to make prints from it.<ref name="UTexas" /> Niépce was successful again in 1825. In 1826 he made the ''[[View from the Window at Le Gras]]'', the earliest surviving photograph from nature (i.e., of the image of a real-world scene, as formed in a [[camera obscura]] by a [[lens (optics)|lens]]).<ref>{{cite book
| author       = Hirsch, Robert
| title        = Seizing the light: a history of photography
| url          = https://books.google.com/books?id=vftTAAAAMAAJ
| year         = 1999
| publisher    = McGraw-Hill
| isbn         = 978-0-697-14361-7
| access-date  = 13 December 2015
| archive-url  = https://web.archive.org/web/20160429023604/https://books.google.com/books?id=vftTAAAAMAAJ
| archive-date = 29 April 2016
| url-status   = live
}}</ref>
[[File:Boulevard du Temple by Daguerre.jpg|thumb|''[[View of the Boulevard du Temple]]'', a [[daguerreotype]] made by [[Louis Daguerre]] in 1838, is generally accepted as the earliest photograph to include people. It is a view of a busy street, but because the exposure lasted for several minutes the moving traffic left no trace. Only the two men near the bottom left corner, one of them apparently having his boots polished by the other, remained in one place long enough to be visible.]]

Because Niépce's camera photographs required an extremely long [[exposure (photography)|exposure]] (at least eight hours and probably several days), he sought to greatly improve his [[Bitumen of Judea|bitumen]] process or replace it with one that was more practical. In partnership with [[Louis Daguerre]], he worked out post-exposure processing methods that produced visually superior results and replaced the bitumen with a more light-sensitive resin, but hours of exposure in the camera were still required. With an eye to eventual commercial exploitation, the partners opted for total secrecy.

Niépce died in 1833 and Daguerre then redirected the experiments toward the light-sensitive [[silver halide]]s, which Niépce had abandoned many years earlier because of his inability to make the images he captured with them light-fast and permanent. Daguerre's efforts culminated in what would later be named the [[daguerreotype]] process. The essential elements—a silver-plated surface sensitized by [[iodine]] vapor, developed by [[Mercury (element)|mercury]] vapor, and "fixed" with hot saturated [[sodium chloride|salt]] water—were in place in 1837. The required exposure time was measured in minutes instead of hours. Daguerre took the earliest confirmed photograph of a person in 1838 while capturing a view of a Paris street: unlike the other pedestrian and horse-drawn traffic on the busy boulevard, which appears deserted, one man having his boots polished stood sufficiently still throughout the several-minutes-long exposure to be visible. The existence of Daguerre's process was publicly announced, without details, on 7 January 1839. The news created an international sensation. France soon agreed to pay Daguerre a pension in exchange for the right to present his invention to the world as the gift of France, which occurred when complete working instructions were unveiled on 19 August 1839. In that same year, American photographer [[Robert Cornelius]] is credited with taking the earliest surviving photographic self-portrait.

[[File:Latticed window at lacock abbey 1835.jpg|thumb|upright|left|A latticed window in [[Lacock Abbey]], [[England]], photographed by [[William Fox Talbot]] in 1835. Shown here in positive form, this may be the oldest extant photographic negative made in a camera.]]

In Brazil, [[Hercules Florence]] had started working out a silver-salt-based paper process in 1832, later naming it ''photographia'', at least four years before [[John Herschel]] coined the English word ''photography''. In 1834, having settled on [[silver nitrate]] on paper, a combination which had been the subject of experiments by [[Thomas Wedgwood (photographer)|Thomas Wedgwood]] around the year 1800, Florence's notebooks indicate that he eventually succeeded in creating light-fast, durable images.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Hercule Florence |url=https://artsandculture.google.com/partner/instituto-hercule-florence |access-date=April 17, 2024 |website=Google Arts and Culture |language=pt-br}}</ref> Partly because he never published his invention adequately, partly because he was an obscure inventor living in a remote and undeveloped province, Hércules Florence died, in Brazil, unrecognized internationally as one of the inventors of photography during his lifetime.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Hercule Florence |url=https://ims.com.br/titular-colecao/hercule-florence/ |access-date=April 17, 2024 |website=Instituto Moreira Salles |language=pt-br}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Hercule Florence |url=https://artsandculture.google.com/partner/instituto-hercule-florence |access-date=April 17, 2024 |website=Google Arts and Culture |language=pt-br}}</ref><ref>{{cite book | title = Hercule Florence: El descubrimiento de la fotografía en Brasil | author = Boris Kossoy | publisher = Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia | isbn = 968-03-0020-X | year = 2004 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=wCoQAAAACAAJ | access-date = 2016-11-04 | archive-date = 2023-07-02 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20230702164331/https://books.google.com/books?id=wCoQAAAACAAJ | url-status = live }}</ref>

Meanwhile, a [[United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland|British]] inventor, [[William Fox Talbot]], had succeeded in making crude but reasonably light-fast silver images on paper as early as 1834<ref name=EB1911>{{cite EB1911 |wstitle=Photography |volume=21 |page=487}}</ref> but had kept his work secret. After reading about Daguerre's invention in January 1839, Talbot published his hitherto secret method in a paper to the Royal Society<ref name=EB1911/> and set about improving on it. At first, like other pre-daguerreotype processes, Talbot's paper-based photography typically required hours-long [[Exposure (photography)|exposures]] in the camera, but in 1840 he created the [[calotype]] process, which used the [[photographic processing|chemical development]] of a [[latent image]] to greatly reduce the exposure needed and compete with the daguerreotype. In both its original and calotype forms, Talbot's process, unlike Daguerre's, created a translucent [[negative (photography)|negative]] which could be used to print multiple positive copies; this is the basis of most modern chemical photography up to the present day, as daguerreotypes could only be replicated by rephotographing them with a camera.<ref>[https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/fox_talbot_william_henry.shtml William Henry Fox Talbot (1800–1877)] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101003154557/http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/fox_talbot_william_henry.shtml |date=3 October 2010}}. [[BBC]]</ref> Talbot's famous tiny paper negative of the Oriel window in [[Lacock Abbey]], one of a number of camera photographs he made in the summer of 1835, may be the oldest camera negative in existence.<ref>Feldman, Anthony and Ford, Peter (1989) ''Scientists & inventors''. Bloomsbury Books, p. 128, {{ISBN|1-870630-23-8}}.</ref><ref>Fox Talbot, William Henry and Jammes, André (1973) ''William H. Fox Talbot, inventor of the negative-positive process'', Macmillan, p. 95.</ref>

In March 1837,<ref name="auto"/> Steinheil, along with [[Wolfgang Franz von Kobell|Franz von Kobell]], used [[silver chloride]] and a cardboard camera to make pictures in [[Negative (photography)|negative]] of the [[Munich Frauenkirche|Frauenkirche]] and other buildings in Munich, then taking another picture of the negative to get a [[Positive (photography)|positive]], the actual black and white reproduction of a view on the object. The pictures produced were round with a diameter of 4&nbsp;cm, the method was later named the "Steinheil method".

In France, [[Hippolyte Bayard]] invented his own process for producing direct positive paper prints and claimed to have invented photography earlier than Daguerre or Talbot.<ref>{{Cite web
| url          = http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artMakerDetails?maker=1876
| title        = Hippolyte Bayard (French, 1801–1887) (Getty Museum)
| access-date  = 21 April 2019
| archive-url  = https://web.archive.org/web/20131024055944/http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artMakerDetails?maker=1876
| archive-date = 24 October 2013
| url-status   = dead
}}</ref>

British chemist [[John Herschel]] made many contributions to the new field. He invented the [[cyanotype]] process, later familiar as the "blueprint". He was the first to use the terms "photography", "negative" and "positive". He had discovered in 1819 that [[sodium thiosulphate]] was a solvent of silver halides, and in 1839 he informed Talbot (and, indirectly, Daguerre) that it could be used to "fix" silver-halide-based photographs and make them completely light-fast. He made the first [[glass negative]] in late 1839.

<!--[[File:Daguerreotype tintype photographer model studio table brady stand cast iron portrait photos.jpg|right|thumb|Mid-19th-century "Brady stand" photo model's armrest table, meant to keep portrait models still during long exposure times (studio equipment nicknamed after the famed US photographer, [[Mathew Brady]]).]] – remove, not mentioned in body-->[[File:Wilson Chinn.jpg|thumb|[[Wilson Chinn]], a branded slave from Louisiana—per ''[[The New York Times]]'', "one of the earliest and most dramatic examples of how the newborn medium of photography could change the course of history."<ref>{{cite news|last=Paulson Gage|first=Joan|title=Icons of Cruelty|url=http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/05/icons-of-cruelty/|newspaper=The New York Times|date=August 5, 2013}}</ref>]]
[[File:The Macon city directory, embracing a full alphabetical record of the names and inhabitants of Macon and its suburbs. A business directory of the city; county and city governments; societies, a - DPLA - f06f279fd02ed401f5126198836a5269.pdf|page=3|thumb|right|Advertisement for Campbell's Photograph Gallery from The Macon City Directory, {{circa|1877}}]]
In the March 1851 issue of ''The Chemist'', [[Frederick Scott Archer]] published his wet plate [[collodion process]]. It became the most widely used photographic medium until the gelatin dry plate, introduced in the 1870s, eventually replaced it. There are three subsets to the collodion process; the [[Ambrotype]] (a positive image on glass), the [[Ferrotype]] or Tintype (a positive image on metal) and the glass negative, which was used to make positive prints on [[albumen]] or salted paper.

Many advances in [[Photographic plate|photographic glass plates]] and printing were made during the rest of the 19th century. In 1891, [[Gabriel Lippmann]] introduced a process for making natural-color photographs based on the optical phenomenon of the [[Interference (wave propagation)|interference]] of light waves. His scientifically elegant and important but ultimately impractical invention earned him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1908.

Glass plates were the medium for most original camera photography from the late 1850s until the general introduction of flexible plastic films during the 1890s. Although the convenience of the film greatly popularized amateur photography, early films were somewhat more expensive and of markedly lower optical quality than their glass plate equivalents, and until the late 1910s they were not available in the large formats preferred by most professional photographers, so the new medium did not immediately or completely replace the old. Because of the superior dimensional stability of glass, the use of plates for some scientific applications, such as [[astrophotography]], continued into the 1990s, and in the niche field of laser [[holography]], it has persisted into the 21st century.

=== Film ===
{{Main|Photographic film}}
[[File:undeveloped film.png|thumb|upright=1.6|right|Undeveloped Arista black-and-white film, [[Film speed|ISO]] 125/22°]]

[[Hurter and Driffield]] began pioneering work on the [[sensitometry|light sensitivity]] of photographic emulsions in 1876. Their work enabled the first quantitative measure of film speed to be devised.

The first flexible photographic roll film was marketed by [[George Eastman]], founder of [[Kodak]] in 1885, but this original "film" was actually a coating on a paper base. As part of the processing, the image-bearing layer was stripped from the paper and transferred to a hardened gelatin support. The first transparent plastic roll film followed in 1889.<!--am leaving this date untouched, but it is a matter of some controversy--> It was made from highly flammable [[nitrocellulose#Film|nitrocellulose]] known as nitrate film.

Although [[cellulose acetate]] or "[[safety film]]" had been introduced by Kodak in 1908,<ref>[http://www.kodak.com/global/en/corp/historyOfKodak/1878.jhtml History of Kodak, Milestones-chronology: 1878–1929] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120210123011/http://www.kodak.com/global/en/corp/historyOfKodak/1878.jhtml |date=10 February 2012}}. kodak.com</ref> at first it found only a few special applications as an alternative to the hazardous nitrate film, which had the advantages of being considerably tougher, slightly more transparent, and cheaper. The changeover was not completed for [[X-ray]] films until 1933, and although safety film was always used for 16&nbsp;mm and 8&nbsp;mm home movies, nitrate film remained standard for theatrical 35&nbsp;mm motion pictures until it was finally discontinued in 1951.

Films remained the dominant form of photography until the early 21st century when advances in digital photography drew consumers to digital formats.<ref>{{cite book
| last      = Peres
| first     = Michael R.
| title     = The Concise Focal Encyclopedia of Photography: from the first photo on paper to the digital revolution
| date      = 2008
| publisher = Focal Press/Elsevier
| location  = Burlington, MA
| isbn      = 978-0-240-80998-4
| page      = 75
}}</ref> Although modern photography is dominated by digital users, film continues to be used by enthusiasts and professional photographers. The distinctive "look" of film based photographs compared to digital images is likely due to a combination of factors, including (1) differences in spectral and tonal sensitivity (S-shaped density-to-exposure (H&D curve) with film vs. linear response curve for digital CCD sensors),<ref>{{cite web
| url          = http://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/8473695
| title        = H&D curve of film vs digital
| date         = 19 April 2004
| website      = Digital Photography Review
| format       = Forum Discussion
| archive-url  = https://web.archive.org/web/20150923223829/http://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/8473695
| archive-date = 23 September 2015
| url-status   = live
}}</ref> (2) resolution, and (3) continuity of tone.<ref>{{cite book
| last1      = Jacobson
| first1     = Ralph E.
| title      = The Focal Manual of Photography: photographic and digital imaging
| date       = 2000
| publisher  = Focal Press
| location   = Boston, MA
| isbn       = 978-0-240-51574-8
| edition    = 9th
| url-access = registration
| url        = https://archive.org/details/digitalvideocame00pete
}}</ref>

=== Black-and-white ===
{{Main|Monochrome photography}}
{{Also see|Black-and-White}}
{{Also see|Black and White Photography}}
[[File:Dark room.jpg|thumb|A photographic [[darkroom]] with [[safelight]]]]
Originally, all photography was [[monochrome photography|monochrome]], or ''[[black-and-white]]''. Even after color film was readily available, black-and-white photography continued to dominate for decades, due to its lower cost, chemical stability, and its "classic" photographic look. The tones and contrast between light and dark areas define black-and-white photography.<ref>{{cite journal
| title   = Black & White Photography
| journal = PSA Journal
| volume  = 77
| issue   = 12
| year    = 2011
| pages   = 38–40
}}</ref> Monochromatic pictures are not necessarily composed of pure blacks, whites, and intermediate shades of gray but can involve shades of one particular [[hue]] depending on the process. The [[cyanotype]] process, for example, produces an image composed of blue tones. The [[albumen print]] process, publicly revealed in 1847, produces brownish tones.

Many [[photographers]] continue to produce some monochrome images, sometimes because of the established archival permanence of well-processed silver-halide-based materials. Some full-color digital images are processed using a variety of techniques to create black-and-white results, and some manufacturers produce digital cameras that exclusively shoot monochrome. Monochrome printing or electronic display can be used to salvage certain photographs taken in color which are unsatisfactory in their original form; sometimes when presented as black-and-white or single-color-toned images they are found to be more effective. Although color photography has long predominated, monochrome images are still produced, mostly for artistic reasons. Almost all [[digital cameras]] have an option to shoot in monochrome, and almost all image editing software can combine or selectively discard [[RGB color model|RGB]] color channels to produce a monochrome image from one shot in color.

=== Color ===
{{Main|Color photography}}
[[File:Tartan Ribbon.jpg|thumb|The first [[color photograph]] made by the three-color method suggested by [[James Clerk Maxwell]] in 1855, taken in 1861 by [[Thomas Sutton (photographer)|Thomas Sutton]]. The subject is a colored, [[tartan]] patterned ribbon.]]
[[Color photography]] was explored beginning in the 1840s. Early experiments in color required extremely long exposures (hours or days for camera images) and could not "fix" the photograph to prevent the color from quickly fading when exposed to white light.

The first permanent color photograph was taken in 1861 using the three-color-separation principle first published by Scottish physicist [[James Clerk Maxwell]] in 1855.<ref name="King's College">{{cite news
| title        = 1861: James Clerk Maxwell's greatest year
| url          = https://www.kcl.ac.uk/newsevents/news/newsrecords/2011/04Apr/JamesClerkMaxwell.aspx
| publisher    = King's College London
| date         = 3 January 2017
| access-date  = 3 January 2017
| archive-url  = https://web.archive.org/web/20170104000418/https://www.kcl.ac.uk/newsevents/news/newsrecords/2011/04Apr/JamesClerkMaxwell.aspx
| archive-date = 4 January 2017
| url-status   = live
}}</ref><ref name="Maxwell">{{cite news
| title        = From Charles Mackintosh's waterproof to Dolly the sheep: 43 innovations Scotland has given the world
| url          = https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/charles-mackintosh-chemist-waterproof-google-doodle-scotland-inventions-innovation-bicycles-a7499911.html
| work    = The independent
| date         = 2 January 2016
| access-date  = 2 December 2017
| archive-url  = https://web.archive.org/web/20171002171029/https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/charles-mackintosh-chemist-waterproof-google-doodle-scotland-inventions-innovation-bicycles-a7499911.html
| archive-date = 2 October 2017
| url-status   = live
}}</ref> The foundation of virtually all practical color processes, Maxwell's idea was to take three separate black-and-white photographs through red, green and blue [[filter (photography)|filters]].<ref name="King's College" /><ref name="Maxwell" /> This provides the photographer with the three basic channels required to recreate a color image. Transparent prints of the images could be projected through similar color filters and superimposed on the projection screen, an [[additive color|additive method]] of color reproduction. A color print on paper could be produced by superimposing [[carbon print]]s of the three images made in their [[complementary color]]s, a [[subtractive color|subtractive method]] of color reproduction pioneered by [[Louis Ducos du Hauron]] in the late 1860s.
[[File:Colonel William Willoughby Verner, Sanger Shepherd process, by Sarah Acland 1903.png|thumb|left|Color photography was possible long before [[Kodachrome]], as this 1903 portrait by [[Sarah Angelina Acland]] demonstrates, but in its earliest years, the need for special equipment, long exposures, and complicated printing processes made it extremely rare.]]
Russian photographer [[Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii]] made extensive use of this color separation technique, employing a special camera which successively exposed the three color-filtered images on different parts of an oblong [[photographic plate|plate]]. Because his exposures were not simultaneous, unsteady subjects exhibited color "fringes" or, if rapidly moving through the scene, appeared as brightly colored ghosts in the resulting projected or printed images.

Implementation of color photography was hindered by the limited sensitivity of early photographic materials, which were mostly sensitive to blue, only slightly sensitive to green, and virtually insensitive to red. The discovery of dye sensitization by photochemist [[Hermann W. Vogel|Hermann Vogel]] in 1873 suddenly made it possible to add sensitivity to green, yellow and even red. Improved color sensitizers and ongoing improvements in the overall sensitivity of [[Photographic emulsion|emulsions]] steadily reduced the once-prohibitive long exposure times required for color, bringing it ever closer to commercial viability.

[[Autochrome]], the first commercially successful color process, was introduced by the [[Auguste and Louis Lumière|Lumière brothers]] in 1907. Autochrome [[photographic plate|plates]] incorporated a [[mosaic]] color filter layer made of dyed grains of [[potato starch]], which allowed the three color components to be recorded as adjacent microscopic image fragments. After an Autochrome plate was [[reversal film|reversal processed]] to produce a positive [[reversal film|transparency]], the starch grains served to illuminate each fragment with the correct color and the tiny colored points blended together in the eye, synthesizing the color of the subject by the [[additive color|additive method]]. Autochrome plates were one of several varieties of additive color screen plates and films marketed between the 1890s and the 1950s.

[[Kodachrome]], the first modern "integral tripack" (or "monopack") color film, was introduced by [[Kodak]] in 1935. It captured the three color components in a multi-layer [[Photographic emulsion|emulsion]]. One layer was sensitized to record the red-dominated part of the [[visible spectrum|spectrum]], another layer recorded only the green part and a third recorded only the blue. Without special [[film processing]], the result would simply be three superimposed black-and-white images, but [[complementary color|complementary]] cyan, magenta, and yellow dye images were created in those layers by adding [[color coupler]]s during a complex processing procedure.

[[Agfa-Gevaert|Agfa's]] similarly structured [[Agfacolor]] Neu was introduced in 1936. Unlike Kodachrome, the color couplers in Agfacolor Neu were incorporated into the emulsion layers during manufacture, which greatly simplified the processing. Currently, available color films still employ a multi-layer emulsion and the same principles, most closely resembling Agfa's product.

[[Instant film|Instant color film]], used in a special camera which yielded a unique finished color print only a minute or two after the exposure, was introduced by [[Polaroid Corporation|Polaroid]] in 1963.

[[Color photography]] may form images as positive transparencies, which can be used in a [[slide projector]], or as color negatives intended for use in creating positive color enlargements on specially coated paper. The latter is now the most common form of film (non-digital) color photography owing to the introduction of automated photo printing equipment. After a transition period centered around 1995–2005, color film was relegated to a niche market by inexpensive multi-megapixel digital cameras. Film continues to be the preference of some photographers because of its distinctive "look".

=== Digital ===
{{Main|Digital photography}}
{{See also|Digital camera}}
[[File:Early digital!.jpg|thumb|201x201px|Kodak DCS 100, based on a [[Nikon F3]] body with Digital Storage Unit]]
In 1981, [[Sony]] unveiled the first consumer camera to use a [[charge-coupled device]] for imaging, eliminating the need for film: the [[Sony Mavica]]. While the Mavica saved images to disk, the images were displayed on television, and the camera was not fully digital.

The first digital camera to both record and save images in a digital format was the Fujix DS-1P created by Fujifilm in 1988.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.fujifilm.com/innovation/achievements/ds-1p/ |title=Research & Development |website=fujifilm.com |access-date=13 January 2022}}</ref>

In 1991, Kodak unveiled the [[DCS 100]], the first commercially available digital single-lens reflex camera. Although its high cost precluded uses other than [[photojournalism]] and professional photography, commercial [[digital photography]] was born.

Digital imaging uses an electronic [[image sensor]] to record the image as a set of electronic data rather than as chemical changes on film.<ref>Schewe, Jeff (2012). The Digital Negative: Raw Image Processing In [[Lightroom]], [[Camera Raw]], and [[Photoshop]]. Berkeley, CA: Peachpit Press, {{ISBN|0-321-83957-9}}, p. 72</ref> An important difference between digital and chemical photography is that chemical photography resists [[photo manipulation]] because it involves [[photographic film|film]] and [[photographic paper]], while digital imaging is a highly manipulative medium. This difference allows for a degree of image post-processing that is comparatively difficult in film-based photography and permits different communicative potentials and applications.

[[File:Smartphone photography.jpg|thumb|left|Photography on a smartphone]]
Digital photography dominates the 21st century. More than 99% of photographs taken around the world are through digital cameras, increasingly through smartphones.