The Reproduction of Colour in Photography, Printing and Television by R. W. G. Hunt (review)

312 Books-Licres mathematical theories that seem more a projection of his own intensively inquiring mind than an explanation of how the artist really worked. His interpretations of the artists’ philosophic intentions seem also to go beyond reality. In conclusion, the reader can find much of significance here but will have to wade through a good deal of heavy reading to get at it and sift out a lot of superfluous material along the way. Norman Narotzky Corcega, 196, Barcelona 1I, Spain. The Reproductionof Colour in Photography, Printing and Television. R. W. G. Hunt. Fountain Press, London, 1967. 500 pp., illus., f 5 5s. The second edition of R. W. G. Hunt’s fundamental work has recently been published. The addition of new material has doubled its length. It is a very important contribution to the subject of the reproduction of colour, as it takes into account many recent research developments. The main value of the book is the association of theory to practice. Hunt combines with great ease aspects of physiology, psychology, physics and chemistry when dealing with the actual results of various processes and he carefully explains the advantages and faults of each process. Sometimes he points out gaps in our knowledge. For example, the abrupt limit of resolution of the eye is well illustrated by moving gradually farther and farther away from a newspaper photograph: its dot structure will quite suddenly vanish. If at this distance the photograph is rotated through 45“, the dot structure at once reappears. This is a physiological problem that has never been fully solved. The first part of the work is devoted to fundamentals with chapters on: physical colour reproduction , trichromatic colour reproduction and the additive principle, additive methods, the subtractive principle, visual appreciation, the colour triangle, colour standards and calculations, light sources, and assessing the final result. The last three chapters will be difficult for a non-specialist, who had better defer reading them until he understands the remainder of the book. As a sample of Hunt’s style and approach, I quote a part of the introduction to the chapter on visual appreciation: “The beginnings of colour photography are thus to be found in the works of a physiologist and a physicist. But the honours for the remarkable commercial success of the modern colour photographic process are undoubtedly due neither to physiologists nor to physicists but to chemists. It is they who have produced the photographic emulsions with the required sensitivities in the different parts of the spectrum; it is they who have developed the techniques of colour development that play so vital a part in the modern process. “When it comes to the question of assessing how successful the chemists have been, however, the physicist once more plays his part. Most of our detailed knowledge of the nature of the colour Colour piciure \ I I U Original objecis Fig. 1. Diagrammatic representation of the processes involved in viewing a colour reproduction of grass (upper line), and (lower line) in viewing original grass. The physical, physiological, and psychological effects differ in the two cases, and also from one original area of grass to another. The standard conception in the memory, therefore, of the usual colour of grass is so vague that the desaturation of grass green inherent in colour reproductions often passes unnoticed, and this applies to many other colours also. mechanism of the human eye has so far come as a result of the work of physicists. They can, therefore , tell us what particular concentrations of dyes or intensities of light are required to reproduce any particular colour asin the original. They are also able to explain, as will be shown in Chapter 6, why this exact colour reproduction is impossible to achieve by simple means. The physicist can indeed prove his assertions, in a very striking way, by making critical comparisons between the colours of objects and the colours of their reproductions in colour photographs or on colour television tubes: the differences are both real and considerable.” The diagram reproduced in Fig. 1 will be of interest to the artist. It shows the processes involved in viewing a colour reproduction of grass and in viewing original grass. Colour...