The application of dyes to silent B/W film prints emerged c. 1895, an extension of existing chromatic techniques used in still photography (tinted by hand; printed as monochrome images; or, sometimes as the happy result of inadvertent chemical coloration) and from the use of dyes applied to color lantern slides (Bedding, 1909; Timby, 2020). Artisanal methods, such as stencil color and hand-coloring, were labor-intensive as they required close attention to detail within each frame of the film. However, the use of tinting or toning enabled a strip or reel of film to be bath-dyed a single hue, making the process more viable for mass production. 

Tinting and toning could be applied separately, or in tandem, to add color to a single piece of film. There were two primary methods for toning: first, the use of a chemical solution to convert, or “bleach”, silver in the images, before a second step converted it into a colored metal compound; second, a mordanting process that made the matrix of silver and gelatin receptive to colored dye. Tints and tones could also be combined with other applied color processes, such as hand-painting or stenciling, to highlight details of the image deemed salient to the meaning of the film (e.g. red to signal a fire in Les Martyrs de l’Inquisition, 1905). Motion Picture Photography stated: “In many cases pleasing effects may be obtained by tinting film which has already been toned. The result is that the clear portions of high lights assume the color of the dye, whilst the shadows and half-tones project a tint intermediate between that of the dye and the toned deposit.” (Gregory, 1927: p.189). Other color combinations seen included brown tone/blue tint and sepia tone/red tint (Cherchi Usai, 1984, plates 33 & 34). 

Combinations of tinting and toning brought additional symbolic meaning to film images. For example, the nonfiction film Holland in ijs (1917) used a range of tints, tones and tint/tone combinations: from images of seagulls flying above the ice, to footage of sailboats silhouetted against a winter sky, toned blue and tinted pink. The blue tone and pink tint combination is also seen in the drama De Molens die juichen en weenen (1912): B/W images were interspersed with other color practices, including stenciling (e.g. local color differentiates a red jumper worn by a boy against green-colored grass); tints (e.g. amber tint emblematic of artificial lighting, red tinting symbolic of the heat of a fire); blue tones (signaling night), and blue tone with pink tint (depicting a man standing next to a windmill silhouetted against the dusk sky). The ‘language’ of color seen in De Molens differs from a ‘natural color’ image, which aims to replicate the true gamut of hues perceived in the world around us, in that it seeks to serve the symbolic and poetic realism of the film narrative as the drama culminates (Neale, 1985: p 119). (For further information on color in De Molens see Ruedel, Currò et al. (2013); Fossati, 2009).

De Molens (1912), Holland en ijs (1917), Sur la mer Caspienne (1912) and The Great White Silence (1924) all utilize the blue tone/pink tint combination for the depiction of sunsets, the midnight sun and ice. Notes about aesthetic symbolic “language” are found in film laboratory handbooks and sundry correspondence: “The most successful combination of toning with tinting is in the production of sunset and moonlight effects over water. First tone blue and subsequently tint ‘orange‘ or ‘red.’ The following combinations will cover most cases required: Yellow Brown tone with pink tint. Green and Blue tones with light yellow tint. Blue and violet with almost any delicate shade.” (Gregory, 1927: p. 189). Gregory’s text indicates a use of color that finds its referent in the hues of a sunset and the ethereal effects of moonlight on water. Such color combinations gestured toward nature (sunset, light refracted by ice) and were integral to the imagined world of the film. The combination of tints and tones provided an artistic tool to elevate selected sections of a film: imparting them with greatly enhanced dramatic and sensuous effect (Yumibe, 2012). 

However, it is important to note that the selection of tints, tones (and their combination) was influenced both by aesthetic intent and the technical characteristics of the image. For example, although the use of tinting tended to reduce the contrast of the B/W print – producing a less clearly defined image, often assumed to be a fault of the process – this characteristic could be used strategically to create a desirable effect: “The use of delicate tints both removes the contrasting black and white effect and adds a touch of warmth to the black deposit of silver, even in cases where the highlights are insufficiently stained to be noticeable. In many cases the result is equal to that obtained by partial toning”  (Eastman Kodak, 1927: p. 197). The Gaumont Company made a similar tactical use of tinting, in combination with toning, when printing Douglas Mawson’s Home of the Blizzard (1916) from a damaged negative. Correspondence between Gaumont and Mawson, a polar explorer, negotiated variations in printing a lighter, or darker image with different saturations of tinting and toning to accommodate the cinematographer Frank Hurley’s deteriorated, yet irreplaceable, film footage of the Antarctic. In this instance the combination of blue tone and a light red tint for “transparent and semi-transparent ice” was recommended as a way to blend the shots with the general color scheme of the film while presenting the best-quality image possible: the color contrast and intermediate colors (blue, pinks, purples) were intended to render the finer details of the ice more visible. Yet the choice of colors often reflected culturally received and specific notions of the symbolism and meaning of certain colors. For example, in The Great White Silence (1924), Herbert G Ponting’s edit of his film footage of Robert Falcon Scott’s fatal 1910–13 South Pole expedition, a combination of a green tone and sepia tint accompanies wildlife topics (such as scenes of seals – relying on a color effect that might evoke the natural world (e.g. green fields and trees in temperate sunlight) in an environment other than the frigid Antarctic. The green-sepia combination symbolized nature in a landscape more familiar to cinema audiences in New Zealand and the British Isles, where the film was largely viewed. The color coding of meaning was aligned to the cultural expectations of the intended audience. Guidance on the use of color combination for specific topics was provided in the Eastman Tinting and Toning catalogue (1927).

A complicating factor (as well as a source of intrigue) in researching applied-color processes in silent film, is the mutability of the subject matter: multiple prints of a single film title could be produced and distributed using different color tints, tones, and tint and tone schemes, for a variety of reasons. For example, in 1915, work on the Home of the Blizzard used an amber stain, in place of a previously specified sulfide-brown tone, because the Gaumont laboratory had “found some difficulty in toning on account of warmth of solution in the summer” (Gaumont Papers, 1912–15). Tinting could also be susceptible to fading following faulty processing in the laboratory, or substandard storage conditions, either of which can adversely affect both the film substrate as well as the coloration chemistry itself. Fading can completely alter the color balance and effect of tints and tones. For example, the intensity of blue tones can fade over time to become barely perceptible, leaving the appearance of a plain, untoned B/W image; green tones can fade to browns (Fossati, 2009: Fig. 6 & Fig. 7). 

In addition, many film positives have been damaged, re-edited and lost – leaving incomplete narratives and B/W negatives as the only primary sources – further complicating archival research, and rendering restoration projects somewhat challenging. 

The variety of chemicals used in tint/toning baths, the large number of dye manufacturers and film laboratories, as well as diverse approaches to allocating and recording the use of applied color processes, all mean that it can be challenging to reverse-engineer the combination of tinting and toning used to achieve the effects found in a single frame. For example, British trade papers, such as the Kinematograph Weekly, The Bioscope, as well as newstand paper reviews, often simply use the phrase “tinting and toning” for whole films in which distinct processes were applied to separate sections of the footage. Such reviews tend to describe color in greater detail where its use was considered to be of particular interest, either for its “unnatural nature” (Kinematograph Weekly, 1910b) or for its subtle effects. There are a few exceptions, in which the effect of combined colors is noted. For example, a review of Pathé Frères films Enchanted Glasses (1907) and The Highwaymen (1907) noted “some remarkable effects of tinting and toning which are introduced in the course of the subject, and which in parts give the closest approximation to natural tints, which we imagined would be impossible to get without colour photography. By the use of two colours for tinting, which acting together seem to produce a third Pathé have in this subject achieved really fine effects” (Kinematograph Weekly, 1907). The surviving prints of the trick film The Enchanted Glasses (Les Verres Enchantés) vary: sometimes B/W, or with stenciled frames, or toned. 

Similarly, advertisements and newspaper reviews of The Temple of Venus (1923) describe a silent film featuring “marvellous examples of underwater colour photography” (Fleetwood Chronicle, 1924); and “deep sea photography by a new process; rare colour effects; and striking costumes which were specially designed for the feminine players” (Nuneaton Chronicle, 1924). However, the cutting continuity script indicates B/W film images that were colored separately as sepia toning and green tinting. The script details an elaborate color scheme of tones, tint and tone combined, double-toning, and an instruction to “Double Tone Wash Blue”. The film, a silent fantasy romance which juxtaposes modern and mythological sequences, studio scenes and nature studies (seals, nesting birds) on location in Santa Cruz, used a variety of applied colors for spectacular and sensuous effect to underscore the visual and spatial logic of the plot. For example, modern domestic interiors and cultivated gardens predominantly used single tints (yellow, pink), but also tint and tone combinations (sepia/pink, sepia/”Old Rose”, and those which might be a double tint or tint and tone, such as “Lavender” and “Old Rose Tint”), whilst the mythological scenes filmed on location in woodlands, coast and sea use single tints (sepia, green, or blue) and tint tone combinations (blue-grey and violet water; blue-grey and yellow). The script also indicates that nature scenes (nesting birds, seals, underwater) were to be tinted sepia or green. The complementary color schemes distinguish different worlds (modern/domestic and mythological/natural) and locations (interior/exterior). Combinations of supplementary colors, such as a blue tone and yellow tint for water in sunlight which produces a greenish coloration in the mid-toned areas of the image, underscored the oceanic theme. The script indicates the use of combined tint and tone in the final sequence which reinforced color continuity: the first shot, which depicted clouds in a “Blue Grey and Blue”, was immediately followed by a combination of “Blue Grey and Old Rose” for a scene of sea and clouds; and then images of Venus, Cupid and the intertitle “Romance Lives” in a “Sepia and Old Rose tint”; before a final transition to a “Sepia and Yellow” shot of two people in a boat. The pattern of single and combined colors creates a continuity within the sequence, as each subsequent section retains one of the two colors used in the previous shot. 

The cutting and continuity script for the seven-reel film, He Who Gets Slapped (1924) was based on a play by Leonid Andreyev: a scientist attends an Academy of the Sciences to present his research, where a rival, who has plagiarized his work, slaps him. Humiliated, the scientist becomes a circus clown under the name ‘He who gets slapped’ to relive his despair for the amusement of the crowd. The film plot is structured by shifts in color, signaling the start of new scene or location: a dramatic turning point in the plot intercuts shots of the clown alone in the circus spotlight tinted “light amber”, with images depicting his love-interest with his rival in a street scene, colored with a blue tone and amber tint. This practice establishes a spatial logic that emphasizes emotional and psychological tension. 

Whilst the cutting continuity scripts of the 1920s often outlined complicated color schemes, using generic names (blue, sepia, green) as well as those specific to particular manufacturer’s handbooks (“Old Rose”), the practical realities of film laboratory work frequently influenced the final coloration – affected by factors such as chemical availability, dye specificity, and ambient temperature (see comments on Home of the Blizzard above). To accurately reconstruct the applied colors of silent films, researchers must rely on several key resources, which include film laboratory handbooks, interdepartmental correspondence and interarchival research. Tint and Tone catalogues, such as those from Agfa, Gevaert and Pathé, include sample film frames that depict combined tinting and toning. Surviving negatives and prints may be B/W regardless of instructions for coloring, as single film titles could be distributed in a variety of prints – with different color schemes and no tint/tone at all (Mazzanti, 2009). Some films are only preserved as a B/W copy. For the 2010 color restoration of The Great White Silence (1924), the BFI National Archive consulted prints from La Cinémathèque de Toulouse, France, the EYE Filmmuseum, Netherlands, a Pathé Tint and Tone catalogue, as well as instructions for coloring that had been written on blank sections of film and spliced into a print of the film prior to its acquisition by the archive (Watkins, 2013). Each print of Silence differed, but included instructions for blue tone/yellow tint /and blue tone/pink tint.

The demise of combined tint and tone has been linked to the development of Kodak’s pre-tinted film stock, Sonochrome and the emergence of synchronized sound. Carl Louis Gregory did note some issues associated with the use of tint/tone on optical variable-density soundtracks, but considered them surmountable (Gregory, 1927).