AshigrainColour print · Print film
Gasparcolor Print
Dye-bleach prints from Gaspar's 1930s Berlin process.
A labelled surrogate of Gaspar's 1930s dye-bleach print, used mainly for animation and advertising: saturated graphic colour. Original vs Ashigrain.
At a glance
- Introduced
- early 1930s
- Discontinued
- Process
- Gasparcolor silver dye-bleach print (dyed layers on both sides of the base; dyes destroyed in proportion to the developed silver, then silver removed)
- Maximum density
- ≈ 2.7
About the film
Gasparcolor was a three-colour silver dye-bleach print film, which the Timeline of Historical Film Colors calls the first three-colour multilayer film available for practical use.
Béla Gáspár and his brother Imre founded Gasparcolor Naturwahre Farbenfilm GmbH in Berlin in 1930, and Film Atlas dates the film's introduction in Germany to 1932, the Timeline to 1933. The film was coated on both sides, with a cyan layer on one side and magenta and yellow layers on the other. Its dyes were in the gelatin before exposure and were bleached in proportion to the developed silver, so it printed positive images from black-and-white separation records. Gáspár could not sensitise each layer to the complement of its dye, so he paired printing lights and layers arbitrarily. It was used mainly for animation, advertising and avant-garde films by Oskar Fischinger, Len Lye, George Pal and Alexandre Alexeïeff among others, and for very few live-action films, since long successive separation exposures caused colour fringing. After 1935 the German company was merged and, in Film Atlas's word, Germanised; Gáspár left Germany, and a long patent dispute with Agfa hindered the process. Production ceased in the early 1940s, and Ciba later revived the dye-bleach principle as Cibachrome.
Sources for this history
- Gasparcolor (Noemi Daugaard), Film Atlas (FIAF / George Eastman Museum)
- Gasparcolor OR Gaspar Color, Timeline of Historical Film Colors
- History of Color Photography (1945), chapter 24: Gasparcolor and the Silver-Dye-Bleach Process, J. S. Friedman
The look
Gasparcolor was a three-colour silver dye-bleach print film introduced in Germany in the early 1930s, used mainly for animation, advertising and avant-garde films. Its dyes were in the film before exposure and were bleached where silver formed. Ashigrain's version is a labelled surrogate, a model inspired by the print rather than a reproduction.
Best for
- 1930s abstract animation and advertising films
- Saturated graphic colour
- Comparing dye-bleach with dye-transfer prints
Compare print films
The same Vision3 500T night frame on each print film: how deep the blacks go, how the highlights roll off and how the colour separates.
The same Vision3 500T night frame on each print film: how deep the blacks go, how the highlights roll off and how the colour separates.
The same Vision3 500T night frame on each print film: how deep the blacks go, how the highlights roll off and how the colour separates.
The same Vision3 500T night frame on each print film: how deep the blacks go, how the highlights roll off and how the colour separates.
The same Vision3 500T night frame on each print film: how deep the blacks go, how the highlights roll off and how the colour separates.
The same Vision3 500T night frame on each print film: how deep the blacks go, how the highlights roll off and how the colour separates.
The same Vision3 500T night frame on each print film: how deep the blacks go, how the highlights roll off and how the colour separates.
The same Vision3 500T night frame on each print film: how deep the blacks go, how the highlights roll off and how the colour separates.
The same Vision3 500T night frame on each print film: how deep the blacks go, how the highlights roll off and how the colour separates.
The same Vision3 500T night frame on each print film: how deep the blacks go, how the highlights roll off and how the colour separates.
The same Vision3 500T night frame on each print film: how deep the blacks go, how the highlights roll off and how the colour separates.
The same Vision3 500T night frame on each print film: how deep the blacks go, how the highlights roll off and how the colour separates.
The same Vision3 500T night frame on each print film: how deep the blacks go, how the highlights roll off and how the colour separates.
The same Vision3 500T night frame on each print film. On this two-colour print (a labelled surrogate) every colour falls between blue-green and red-orange: how deep the blacks go, how the highlights roll off and which lights keep their hue.
The same Vision3 500T night frame on each print film: how deep the blacks go, how the highlights roll off and how the colour separates.
The same Vision3 500T night frame on each print film: how deep the blacks go, how the highlights roll off and how the colour separates.
The same Vision3 500T night frame on each print film: how deep the blacks go, how the highlights roll off and how the colour separates.
The same Vision3 500T night frame on each print film: how deep the blacks go, how the highlights roll off and how the colour separates.
The same Vision3 500T night frame on each print film: how deep the blacks go, how the highlights roll off and how the colour separates.
The same Vision3 500T night frame on each print film: how deep the blacks go, how the highlights roll off and how the colour separates.
The same Vision3 500T night frame on each print film: how deep the blacks go, how the highlights roll off and how the colour separates.
The same Vision3 500T night frame on each print film: how deep the blacks go, how the highlights roll off and how the colour separates.
The same Vision3 500T night frame on each print film: how deep the blacks go, how the highlights roll off and how the colour separates.
The same Vision3 500T night frame on each print film: how deep the blacks go, how the highlights roll off and how the colour separates.
The same Vision3 500T night frame on each print film. On this blue-sensitive black-and-white print the colour negative turns grey: how deep the blacks go, how the highlights roll off and how dark the reds and greens print.
The same Vision3 500T night frame on each print film: how deep the blacks go, how the highlights roll off and how the colour separates.
The same Vision3 500T night frame on each print film. On this blue-sensitive black-and-white print the colour negative turns grey: how deep the blacks go, how the highlights roll off and how dark the red neon and skin print.
The same Vision3 500T night frame on each print film: how deep the blacks go, how the highlights roll off and how the colour separates.
The same Vision3 500T night frame on each print film. On this black-and-white print the colour negative turns grey: how deep the blacks go, how the highlights roll off and how the coloured lights and skin translate to grey.
The same Vision3 500T night frame on each print film. On this blue-sensitive black-and-white print the colour negative turns grey: how deep the blacks go, how the highlights roll off and how the coloured lights and skin translate to grey.
The same Vision3 500T night frame on each print film: how deep the blacks go, how the highlights roll off and how the colour separates.
The same Vision3 500T night frame on each print film: how deep the blacks go, how the highlights roll off and how the colour separates.
The same Vision3 500T night frame on each print film: how deep the blacks go, how the highlights roll off and how the colour separates.
The same Vision3 500T night frame on each print film: how deep the blacks go, how the highlights roll off and how the colour separates.
The same Vision3 500T night frame on each print film: how deep the blacks go, how the highlights roll off and how the colour separates.
The same Vision3 500T night frame on each print film. On this two-colour print (a labelled surrogate) every colour falls between a blue and a red dye: how deep the blacks go, how the highlights roll off and which lights keep their hue.
The same Vision3 500T night frame on each print film: how deep the blacks go, how the highlights roll off and how the colour separates.
The same Kodak Vision3 500T night frame, printed on each film.
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Science & sources
A three-colour model inspired by the print, not a reproduction of Gasparcolor, shown after Agfacolor Typ 432. It shares the dye shapes and separation-record sensitivities of Ashigrain's Gasparcolor process model, themselves named assumptions guided by the dyes Friedman named in 1945, and its print curves are assumptions tuned for the most neutral grey. The dye-bleach step and the two-sided coating are not simulated, and no MTF or granularity is printed for it.
Response curves and the evidence behind the model
Compare manufacturer data with Ashigrain’s response on the same axes. These curves show how the model is calibrated to its sources; they do not establish a match to photographed film.
Characteristic response
Model limits
These images show the film model in use. Spectral response, lighting and viewing conditions include approximations. Halation, bloom, grain size, weave and flicker are not fully measured for each film. The look of real film also depends on development and print timing.
- This is a three-colour model inspired by the Gasparcolor print, rather than a reproduction of it. No characteristic curve, spectral sensitivity, dye spectrum, MTF or grain measurement of a Gasparcolor print exists in the sources.
- The dye shapes and separation-record sensitivities are those of Ashigrain's Gasparcolor process model, derived from the dyes Friedman named in 1945 (Chicago blue, Sirius ruby and chrysophenine) and from named assumptions.
- The print curves (record gammas 2.6, 1.8 and 1.9) are assumptions chosen for the most neutral grey. The dye-bleach step and the separation positives are folded into them, not simulated.
- The arbitrary printing lights, the two-sided coating and successive-exposure colour fringing are recorded but not modelled. No MTF or granularity is printed for it.
- The source gives no printer lamp or filter spectra. Their spectral response is approximated.
- The available sources do not measure veiling flare during projection. The model approximates its contribution to lifted blacks on screen, so the result is not a measured projection contrast.
Reciprocity: not modelled. Exposure time has no effect on this film.
Film guide: assumptions and practical choices
This preview combines the print film with the named camera negative. In this comparison, the print has no separate exposure index or measured grain response.
Sources
- Reconstructed: FILM ATLAS entry 532: Gasparcolor, Wayback capture 20261019104855 of www.filmatlas.com/entry/532, p. 1
- Process: Timeline of Historical Film Colors: Gasparcolor OR Gaspar Color (entry 1264), live page filmcolors.org/timeline-entry/1264/ as served 2026-10-28, p. 1