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Color Photography & Creating Color Images
Color photography came later than many innovations because it proved to be complex and costly. But early innovators brought color to the movie screen and to stills from just before 1900 on.
Here are some sites where you can see what was happening, even when this was not economic for all applications.
Auguste and Louis Lumière, known as the Lumière Brothers, patented a color photographic process in 1903. They added this to the earliest color movies. Examples of their work.
Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii (1863–1944), photographer to the Tzar of Russia, created an amazing portrait of a world now lost in the years leading up to the First World War. Capturing medieval churches and monasteries of old Russia, to the railroads and factories of an emerging industrial power, to the daily life and work of Russia's diverse population the faces of people capture the imagination. His specially equipped railroad car was provided by the the Ministry of Transportation. Library of Congress Exhibit
Processes which made color available (photomechanical prints, primarily in color and on warm white stock; 3.5 x 5.5 inches or smaller)for more generalized use, for instance post cards. - ca. 1898-1920s. See this collection from the NY Public Library drawn from the Detroit Publishing Company.
The tinting of individual photos was also common and produced a cottage industry which engaged many women workers.
Lantern slides were generally hand tinted and served as an early tool for bringing the world alive to people where they lived.
