Editing Autochrome Lumière (section)

== Artistic considerations ==
If an Autochrome was well made and has been well preserved, color values can be very good. The dyed starch grains are somewhat coarse, giving a hazy, pointillist effect, with faint stray colors often visible, especially in open light areas such as skies. The smaller the image, the more noticeable these effects are. Autochrome has been touted as "the colour of dreams."<ref>This term was first coined by John Wood in his book The Art of Autochrome: The Birth of Colour Photography (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1993) and has subsequently become familiar terminology used in reference to autochrome images. Josef Maria Eder, ''History of Photography'' (New York: Dover Publications Inc, 1978), 639.</ref> The resulting "dream-like" impressionist quality may have been one reason behind the enduring popularity of the medium even after more starkly realistic color processes had become available.{{Citation needed|date=February 2021}}

Although difficult to manufacture and fairly expensive, Autochromes were relatively easy to use and were immensely popular among enthusiastic amateur photographers, at least among those who could bear the cost and were willing to sacrifice the convenience of black and white hand-held [[snapshot (photography)|snapshot]]s." Autochromes failed to sustain the initial interest of more serious "artistic" practitioners, largely due to their inflexibility. Not only did the need for diascopes and projectors make them extremely difficult to publicly exhibit, they allowed little in the way of the [[photo manipulation|manipulation]] much loved by ''aficionados'' of the then-popular [[Pictorialism|Pictorialist]] approach.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://blog.scienceandmediamuseum.org.uk/autochromes-the-dawn-of-colour-photography/ |title=History of the autochrome: The dawn of colour photography |author=<!--Not stated--> |date=5 June 2009 |website=National Science and Media Museum blog |publisher=[[National Science and Media Museum]] |access-date=4 May 2020 |quote=For many photographers, the autochrome, unlike printing processes such as gum and bromoil, was a totally unresponsive and therefore ultimately unsatisfactory medium, inherently unsuited to the ‘pictorialist’ aesthetic.}}
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