Dye imbibition is most commonly known by the Kodak product trade name, Kodak Dye Transfer. While there were many dye imbibition processes beginning in the 1880s until the 1990s, Kodak Dye Transfer was the most widely used and will therefore be the focus of this page. Dye Transfer was a subtractive color assembly process that was based on the ability of dichromated gelatin to take up (imbibe) and release dye. The process was relatively time consuming, required great skill, and had many steps, but it offered the photographer great control over color and contrast and produced beautiful, high quality color prints.

From a chromogenic color transparency three separation negatives were made each exposed through a red, green or blue filter onto silver gelatin panchromatic film. Each separation was a record of the red, green, or blue light reflected in the imaged scene. The separation negatives were then printed onto matrix film, a special orthochromatic film coated with unhardened gelatin. Matrix film was exposed through the base, and developed with a tanning developer that hardened the gelatin in proportion to the amount of silver present while bleaching the silver image. The unhardened gelatin remained soluble and was washed off in warm water creating a gelatin relief with the thickest gelatin in the shadows. The size of the matrices determined the final size of the print. Alternatively, the three matrices could be produced by exposing a chromogenic color negative through red, green and blue filters directly onto panchromatic matrix film.

The matrices were then dyed with their corresponding subtractive color dye; the matrix film absorbed the dye in proportion to the thickness of its gelatin. The red matrix was dyed cyan, the green matrix was dyed magenta, and the blue matrix was dyed yellow. The dye was then transferred from the dyed matrices in succession (cyan, magenta, yellow) in exact register onto a sheet of gelatin coated receiving paper. The paper was a baryta paper containing dye mordants and no silver. The result was a full color image.

One of the benefits of Dye Transfer printing was the amount of control the photographer had over the final color of the print. After dying, the matrices were placed in two, one percent acetic acid rinse baths. The first acid rinse cleared excess dye from the matrices. This bath was also used to control the color balance of the final image by altering the pH of the bath which controlled contrast and density of the dye. Sodium acetate acted as a density reducer and a stronger acetic acid solution acted as an intensifier.

In 1880 Charles Cros patented the first three color dye imbibition process, Hydrotype, after his discovery that dichromated gelatin could take up (imbibe) and release dye. Following Cros there were many dye imbibition processes. However, color photography was not truly possible until the 1906 introduction of panchromatic silver gelatin binder layers, sensitive to the full spectrum of visible light. The further technical success of dye imbibition was due to twentieth century advances made in the synthetic dye industry. The first major commercially successful dye imbibition process was Technicolor motion picture film introduced in the 1920s. In 1946 Kodak Dye Transfer was introduced as an improvement and replacement to the earlier Eastman Wash-off Relief process (1935). Dye Transfer allowed for significant color control over the final image, faster transfer of dyes, and a better registration technique.  In the years following WWII dye transfer became popular for fashion and advertising photography and was embraced by artists beginning in the 1970s. The process was not commonly used by amateur photographers.