Page "Color photography" Paragraph 35

The Joly Screen process had some problems.

First and foremost, although the colored lines were reasonably fine ( about 75 sets of three colored lines to the inch ) they were still disturbingly visible at normal viewing distances and nearly intolerable when enlarged by projection.

This problem was exacerbated by the fact that each screen was individually ruled on a machine which used three pens to apply the transparent colored inks, resulting in irregularities, high reject rates and high cost.

The glass used for photographic plates at the time was not perfectly flat, and lack of uniform good contact between the screen and the image gave rise to areas of degraded color.

Poor contact also caused false colors to appear if the sandwich was viewed at an angle.

Although much simpler than the Kromskop system, the Joly system was not inexpensive.

The starter kit of plate holder, compensating filter, one taking screen and one viewing screen cost $ 30 ( the equivalent of at least $ 750 in 2010 dollars ) and additional viewing screens were $ 1 each ( the equivalent of at least $ 25 in 2010 dollars ).

This system, too, soon died of neglect, although in fact it pointed the way to the future.