<Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> This article needs additional citations for verification . Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources . Unsourced material may be challenged and removed . (December 2016) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) </Td> </Tr> <P> The Daguerreotype (/ dəˈɡɛrəˌtaɪp, - roʊ -, - riə -, - rioʊ - /; French: daguerréotype) process, or daguerreotypy, was the first publicly available photographic process, and for nearly twenty years it was the one most commonly used . </P> <P> Invented by Louis - Jacques - Mandé Daguerre and introduced worldwide in 1839, daguerreotype was almost completely superseded by 1860 with new, less expensive processes yielding more readily viewable images . During the past few decades, there has been a small revival of daguerreotypy among photographers interested in making artistic use of early photographic processes . </P> <P> To make the image, a daguerreotypist would polish a sheet of silver - plated copper to a mirror finish, treat it with fumes that made its surface light sensitive, expose it in a camera for as long as was judged to be necessary, which could be as little as a few seconds for brightly sunlit subjects or much longer with less intense lighting; make the resulting latent image on it visible by fuming it with mercury vapor; remove its sensitivity to light by liquid chemical treatment, rinse and dry it, then seal the easily marred result behind glass in a protective enclosure . </P>

French artist who developed process for permanently capturing images