Question

The mid-nineteenth-century introduction of the daguerreotype fundamentally disrupted the established hierarchy of commercial portraiture in Europe. Prior to this innovation, the portrait miniature—a meticulously hand-painted watercolor on ivory—served as the primary medium for personal keepsake portraits among the affluent bourgeoisie. Miniature painters operated within a highly codified aesthetic framework, emphasizing idealized features and subtle tonal gradations over strict anatomical realism. The daguerreotype, conversely, provided an exact, unmediated optical record, capturing idiosyncratic facial topographies with a relentless precision that initially unsettled contemporary sensibilities.

However, it is a historical misconception that the daguerreotype immediately rendered the portrait miniature obsolete. While the mechanical nature of early photography democratized portraiture by drastically reducing costs and sitting times, the medium was initially constrained by its monochrome palette and the fragile, highly reflective surface of the silvered copper plates. Consequently, a transitional hybrid market emerged during the 1840s and 1850s. Many established miniature painters, recognizing the economic imperative, repurposed their studios to offer "overpainted" daguerreotypes. By applying translucent pigments to the photographic base, these artisans sought to synthesize the irrefutable veracity of the camera with the flattering warmth and personalized chromatic nuance traditional to the miniature. This adaptation allowed miniaturists to survive the initial technological shock, though the eventual advent of the cheaper, reproducible carte-de-visite in the late 1850s ultimately marginalized both the traditional miniature and the unique daguerreotype plate.

Based on the passage, it can be most reasonably inferred that an "overpainted" daguerreotype produced in the 1840s differed from a traditional hand-painted portrait miniature in which of the following ways?