Hermann W. Vogel (1834-1898)

In 1873, a professor of photochemistry at the Technische Hochschule in Berlin named Hermann Wilhelm Vogel developed a process called "optical sensitizing". His discovery eventually led to film that was sensitive to all colors in the visible wavelengths (panchromatic). With film that was sensitive to other visible wavelengths more vivid pictures were produced and pushed photography as an art form in the coming decades.

The collodion plate used at the time was only sensitive to the most energetic blue wavelengths and not any of the longer wavelengths (green and red). Vogel's process sensitized the plate to longer wavelengths using a poisonous benzene derivative, aniline, which was used in the manufacturing of rubber, dyes, resins, pharmaceuticals, and varnishes. The sensitized plate was called an "orthochromatic plate" which was sensitive to green light, but not red and deep orange.

Later, in 1906, Wratten and Wainwright in London created a photographic plate that was sensitive to all the visible colors (blue, green and red). 1935 was the breakthrough year when two gentlemen named Leopold Mannes and Leopold Godowsky created "Kodachrome" while working at the Eastman Kodak Research Lab. With this film color photography became common place.