A survey of the history of photography, up to and including albumen paper, or black-and-white negative and positive materials until the present, of the so-called noble processes, and color material. The social development at the turn of the 18th century stimulated the need for a mechanical reproduction of images, drawings being the indirect way of producing images for reproduction by lithography. Daguerre invented his daguerreotype procedure in 1839. His products are still unrestorable. Fox Talbot and Henneman discovered the benefits of using silver halide in paper as a photosensitive material, and a surplus of halide (salt) as a fixing agent. Later they discovered chemical development and fixing. The history of paper positives is described and illustrated by albumen paper, collodion daylight paper, gelatin daylight paper, and gaslight paper. The building up of the modern PE black-and-white paper is sketched. Historic black-and-white negative materials are wet plate collodion (homemade by photographers), factory-made dry plate gelatin, nitrate film as a carrier for gelatin emulsion and acetate film. Some typical conservation problems are mentioned. Objects made by the noble processes are as good as the carrier upon which they have been applied (paper, porcelain with, e.g., carbon, platinum, or Prussian blue as stable pigments). Most of the color film and color photo material presents great conservation problems with lightfastness. Expensive exceptions are Kodachrome film, Cibachrome prints of color transparencies, Fresson prints, and Kodak Dye-transfer prints. Concludes that a simple approach is not satisfactory; the problems are multiple. Each person involved should care for almost every photograph individually.