| Abstract: | Dye diffusion instant color photography has been a commercial success ever since its introduction in 1963. No doubt this is partly due to the spectacular nature of this innovation, and for the same reason it has never really rid itself of its gadget image. Moreover, the picture quality was inferior to that of traditional color photography. Photographic materials are now available whose image quality approaches that of the traditional color print. It is not well known that chemistry, and organic chemistry in particular, is the cornerstone of these new photographic products. Insights from this field have spurred creativity, not only in the fields of dye and polymer chemistry, but above all in the search for more efficient and, hopefully better, dye diffusion transfer systems. The result of all these efforts is a finely tuned microscale chemical factory which continues to open rewarding perspectives for the photographic industry. |
