Photochrom

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This photochrom illustrates Hildesheim town hall in the 1890s, and shows the evocative coloration characteristic of the process.

Photochrom of Wilanów Palace circa 1900

Photochrom or photochrome is a colorizing process combining photography and color lithography. Photochrome may also refer to the modern age of color postcards in America.

Photochrom is used to create a color print from a black and white photo negative, using between four and fourteen lithograph stones, made from rocklike substances, to colorize the print with several different inks.

The photochrom process was most popular in the 1890s, when color photography was first being developed but commercially impractical. Photochrom was developed in Zürich, hence its proper name being spelled without the final 'e,' and was brought to popularity by the Detroit Photographic company. When the US Congress authorized the one-penny postcard, thousands of photochrom prints, usually of cities or landscapes, were created and sold as postcards. Photochrom typifies the look and feel of "postcard pictures."