The Kodachrome was created by Leopold Mannes and Leopold Godowsky, who were funded by the Kodak company to develop and produce their revolutionary invention. Like most color photography of the time, development was very complex and time-consuming.

Unlike previous versions of color photography, such as the autochrome, the Kodachrome put colored dyes onto the images during development, rather than emulsion. In essence, the Kodachrome is a black-and-white film to which colored dyes are added during repeated development, dying, and bleaching.

Because of its complexity, photographers could not develop the Kodachrome on their own – instead, they would send their film to the company for development and coloring. This became the standard coloring process for many years.