A full-color photographic printing process that was popular between the 1920s and the 1950s. In these prints, three layers of dye—cyan, magenta, and yellow—are applied sequentially, by hand, to one emulsion layer. The process involves many steps and painstaking alignment of each dye layer, and as a result dye transfers are rare and were seldom made by amateurs. They are very stable, and, when executed correctly, they allow the photographer exceptional control over the final color balance.
Dye transfer print
7 examples
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Ernst Haas Corner of 38th Street 1952
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Syl Labrot Burlap: Close-up study #9 1956
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Eliot Porter Blue-Throated Hummingbird, Chiricahua Mountains, Arizona May 1959
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Marie Cosindas Sailors, Key West 1966
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Lee Friedlander Miles Davis from the portfolio Jazz & Blues 1969
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William Eggleston Outskirts of Morton, Mississippi, Halloween 1971
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Helen Levitt New York 1972