Background
Eduard Valenta was born in 1857 in Vienna, Austria.
Eduard Valenta was born in 1857 in Vienna, Austria.
He attended the Schottenfelder Realschule and studied chemistry at the Technische Hochschule in Vienna.
Valenta served as chemist and then director of F. Fischer's chemical factory in Unterlaa, near Vienna (1884-92), then became a professor of photochemistry at Graphische Lehr- und Versuchsanstalt in Vienna (1892). While there he headed the research department of scientific and applied photography and photomechanical reproduction. In 1899 he took over the photochemistry chair at Technische Hochschule in Charlottenburg after the death of Professor Hermann Vogel, and upon J. M. Eder's retirement in 1923 Valenta became director of the Graphische Lehr- und Versuchsanstalt.
The chemist began his published contributions to photography in 1880 with an article co-written with Eder on iron oxalate and its salts. In 1894 he published a book on color photography, emphasizing the Lippmann color process and Valenta's improvements on it. He and Eder next collaborated on studies in the new field of X-ray, publishing a treatise on Roentgen photography in 1896. In the same year Valenta developed the first stereo X-rays and published a book on printing-out papers. His other work included the discovery of the use of glycin red and ethyl violet as sensitizing dyes (1898-99); spectral analysis of hundreds of aniline dyes and their suitability as light filters and printing inks (recorded in a 1904 volume co-written with Eder and in a 1911 atlas); and research on photomechanical reproduction that led to two volumes on photochemistry in the graphic arts and three volumes on the raw materials of printing.
He was Honorary Member of the Photographische Gesellschaft in Wien and Honorary Member of RPS.