{"id":4834,"date":"2026-01-09T11:00:19","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T11:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brianpritchard.com\/wp\/?p=4834"},"modified":"2026-03-16T19:23:57","modified_gmt":"2026-03-16T19:23:57","slug":"tinting-and-toning-of-motion-picture-film","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brianpritchard.com\/wp\/british-motion-picture-laboratories\/tinting-and-toning-of-motion-picture-film\/","title":{"rendered":"Tinting and Toning of Motion Picture Film"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Tinting<\/strong> and Toning of Motion Picture Film<\/b><\/span><\/h3>\n

Tinting and Toning Motion Picture Film<\/strong>s <\/span><\/a>by Carl Louis Gregory F.R.P.S - 1927<\/span> Chapter 11 from Motion Picture Photography.<\/i><\/b><\/i><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Tinting and Toning of Eastman Positive Films 2nd Edition<\/span><\/a><\/strong> <\/i><\/span><\/a><\/strong>Second Edition Published 1918 by Eastman Kodak Company\u00a0 This is a PDF File kindly provided by Michael Betancourt<\/i><\/b><\/i><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Tinting and Toning of Eastman Positive Motion Picture Film<\/span><\/strong><\/a> Third Edition Published 1922 by Eastman Kodak Company<\/i><\/b><\/i><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Tinting and Toning of Eastman Positive Motion Picture \u00a0Films 4th Edition<\/span><\/a><\/strong> 4<\/strong>th Edition Published<\/span> 1927 by Eastman Kodak Company<\/i><\/b><\/i><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Double Toning of Film<\/span> <\/span>\u00a0from the Cinematograph Weekly dated March 19 1931<\/i><\/b><\/i><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Click Links to View PDF files<\/span><\/strong><\/h5>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Tinting is carried out by dyeing the film emulsion or, in the past, by buying film stock where the film base was coloured.\u00a0 All the major manufacturers supplied a range of coloured base stocks.<\/span><\/p>\n

Click images to see larger image.<\/span><\/h5>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
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\"Kodak<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n\n

Kodak Blue Tint<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n

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\"Green<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n\n

Green Tint<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n

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\"Rose<\/span><\/a>\n

Red Tint<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n

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\"Straw<\/span><\/a>\n

Straw Tint<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n

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\"Yellow<\/span><\/a>\n

Yellow Tint<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n

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\"Amber<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n\n

Amber Tint<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n

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\"Tinted<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n\n

Unprocessed pre-tinted orange base emulsion side<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n

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\"Tinted<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n\n

Unprocessed pre-tinted orange base base side<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n

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<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n\n

Yellow pre-tinted stock where the sound track area has not been tinted.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n

<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
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\"Green<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n\n

Green tinted stock<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n

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\"Green<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n\n

Green tinted stock \u00a0that has been partly fixed to show the tint<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n

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<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
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\"Blue<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n\n

Blue Tinted stock<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n

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\"Blue<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n\n

Blue tinted stock that has been partly fixed<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n

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\"Rose<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n\n

Rose printed stock without sound track area tinted<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n

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\"Red<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n\n

Red Tinted Stock without sound track area tinted<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n

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\"Range<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n\n

A selection of pre-tinted stocks<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n

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\"Further<\/span><\/a>\n
Some further pre-tinted stocks.<\/h6>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
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When sound arrived some tint colours caused a drop in sound volume because of the colour sensitivity of the track reader so stock was produced where the area for the sound track was not tinted.<\/p>\n

Most stock manufacturers produced booklets that contained samples of tinting and toning.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0'All the Colours of The World' produced by the Gamma Group and published by Edizioni Diabasis, 1998 contains illustrations from Agfa, Gevaert and Pathe.<\/span><\/p>\n

Johnsons & Sons, Cross Street, Finsbury, London produced a sample book for their Kinocolor Film Dyes.<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

When sound was introduced tinting caused problems with the reproduction of the sound track; different colours caused changes to the sound level, various methods were used to solve this problem. Kodak Ltd\u00a0 patented the following method. Improvements in or relating to the Tinting of Combination Kinematograph and Sound record Films <\/a><\/strong><\/span>This is Patent GB 348372 May 13 1929 and appears by kind permission of the Director of the European Patent Office<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

EPA\/EPO\/OEB , 80298 Munchen, Deutschland<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n

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Toning<\/b> is carried out by converting the black and white silver image to another, usually metallic, element to change the colour.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Iron gives blue<\/span><\/p>\n

Copper gives red to brown<\/span><\/p>\n

Vanadium gives green<\/span><\/p>\n

Uranium gives black to red<\/span><\/p>\n

Selenium gives red-brown<\/span><\/p>\n

Sulphide gives sepia.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It can also be achieved by replacing the silver image by a dye image using a dye mordant.\u00a0 This gives an almost infinite range of colours and was used in many of the early colour systems.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Film known as duplex film was made which had emulsion on both sides.\u00a0 One side could be toned iron blue and the other side could be dye toned orange.\u00a0 Dascolor used such a system. Dascolor:\u00a0 Duplex film, One side toned Iron Blue, The other dye-toned Orange. The two colours can be seen, the orange between the perfs and the blue green on the left edge of the picture frame.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n

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Click images to see larger image.<\/span><\/h5>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
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\"Copper<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n\n

Copper Tone 1916<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n

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\"Blue<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n\n

\u00a0Iron Blue Tone<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n

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\"Dascolor\"<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n\n

Dascolor<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n

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Tinted and Toned Film:<\/b><\/span> Tinting and toning was used to give a combination of colours. The first image ranges from Yellow to Green.\u00a0 This is a yellow tint with a green tone added.\u00a0 The second sample is a blue tone and a rose tint.\u00a0 The blue is Iron toning.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n

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\"Yellow<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
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\"Rose<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Stencil colour:<\/b><\/span> The colours were added by painting over stencils which masked out the areas of the frame that did not need the colour being applied. The right hand frame is the Pathecolor stencil cutter and next to it a stencil\u00a0 - these\u00a0 images were kindly supplied by the Cin\u00e9math\u00e8que fran\u00e7aise\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n

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\"Stencil<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
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\"Stencil<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
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\"Stencil\"<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
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\"Pathecolor<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
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MOTION PICTURE PHOTOGRAPHY by Carl Lewis Gregory, F.R.P.S. Second Edition published by Falk Publishing Co. Inc New York City in 1927. Chapter XI: TINTING and TONING MOTION PICTURE FILMS.<\/b><\/span>\u00a0<\/a><\/span>This information was kindly supplied by Mr David Cleveland.<\/span><\/p>\n

Click Link to view the PDF.<\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tinting and Toning of Motion Picture Films<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4834","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-british-motion-picture-laboratories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianpritchard.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4834","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianpritchard.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianpritchard.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianpritchard.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianpritchard.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4834"}],"version-history":[{"count":30,"href":"https:\/\/brianpritchard.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4834\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6036,"href":"https:\/\/brianpritchard.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4834\/revisions\/6036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianpritchard.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianpritchard.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianpritchard.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}