a device for obtaining a color image by optically superimposing two or three color-separated black-and-white photographic images that are illuminated through specially selected light filters of different colors. The first chromoscopes were built in 1862 by the French scientist L. Ducos du Hauron and were used by him in 1868 and 1869 to produce the first color photographs.

The chromoscope is used in identifying and studying image details that are not present simultaneously on all of the superimposed images and that cannot be singled out (because of the strong dependence of the reflection coefficients on the wavelength of light) by direct photography in light with a continuous spectrum or in light with an unsuitable spectral composition. The chromoscope is used in multiband photography with black-and-white films, particularly in multiband aerial photography and biological microphotography (including photography in the ultraviolet region of the spectrum).