Contemplating Photography

A&P, COFFEE, SANTA CLAUS

Originally uploaded by George Eastman House

For the Holidays! The Carbro is an interesting color photography process, its results can be hit or miss. The process used separation negatives to create a final color print and was most often used by the advertisement industry. Thus, many of the carbro prints can be quite tacky and to a point kitshy. As Richard Benson describes in The Printed Picture: “The carbro print was an odd duck. It was really a variation on the color carbon process, but it gained popularity in photo labs making color masters for the advertising trade. Color was moving onto the printing presses during World War II and separations would also be the basis for printing color in ink. There was a need for superb originals to be reproduced by the presses…The carbro answered this need.”