The pitfalls of out-of-date slide film.

All film has an expiry date. Some more forgiving than others like black and white film. This can be used years after the expiry date and still produce great results. Colour film will keen its integrity for quite a time many years for major branded film like Kodak or Fujifilm however slide film is a completely different matter.

E-6 slide film is temperamental at the best of times in the processing of the film and especially the handling and storage. It is not advisable to use the film much beyond the expiry date.

There are many things written about adding a stop of exposure to compensate for the out-of-date nature, however this will not actually make any difference to the end result for any of the out-of-date film that you might use. The first thing you will notice with slide film is the blacks in the film. A properly exposed and processed in date slide film with have good blacks, if you hold the film up to a light you should not be able to see through the unexposed parts of the film (the black areas).

 Slide film is a positive image so it works differently to a   negative film. The unexposed parts of a negative film are clear   but in a slide film the unexposed areas are black. With a   negative film if you over expose the film the negative will   appear darker than the normal and in a slide film the reverse so   the image becomes lighter.

With age the emulsion of a slide film will deteriorate so much faster than a negative film and the black areas are the first signs you will notice. They become lighter and the film will show less contrast so with the light bulb test you will clearly see through the film. The blacks become almost milky in appearance. The next visual sign is the colour balance. It is more apparent in the cheaper brands of film that the colour balance starts to shift. Again E-6 film processing has to be done in a consistent manner. The film has to be processed at 38 degrees and the timing of each stage is critical to the second. The PH value of the water can have an effect on the colour balance and if the exact amounts of chemistry are not used this will alter the contrast and the colour balance of the film also. E-6 chemistry has a very short life also so it cannot be kept for much more than two weeks as a made-up solution.

 With out-of-date film the colour balance will drift as the layers   that make up the emulsion deteriorate and start to merge. The   first signs will affect the yellows in the film so the look of the   photographs will take on a bluish pinky tinge as the yellow   layer suffers. But more obvious will be the loss of contrast in   the blacks.
 Post processing of the film becomes difficult with the reduced   contrast it's difficult to obtain a really clean crisp image with   muddy highlights and milky blacks. The colour balance can be   adjusted to a certain degree but never really back to how it   should appear with fresh film.

With many outlets selling out of date film we would always urge a note of caution particularly when it comes to out-of-date slide film. We would not advise processing it as a slide film as there are alternative methods that could be applied to give you satisfactory results even with the film being expired.

 The first alternative is to cross process the film, so you process it as a negative film processing it through a C-41 chemistry which is the standard process today for most colour negative films. This will give you a slightly different look to a traditional colour negative film but you will end up with acceptable results.

The second alternative would be to process the film as a black and white. The first part of all slide film processing is a black and white stage to get the film to a black and white negative before the film is fogged and developed in reversal and colour developer, then bleached and fixed to make the image permanent. So virtually all slide film can be processed in black and white chemistry and then fixed straight away to achieve an acceptable black and white negative which like the cross processed film can be scanned or printed to a good end result.

 Our advice is to research the date of all slide film if you want   to use it like it was intended in the first place and if there is any   doubt about the age of the film then avoid the expense and   waste of time to get far from acceptable images from it. Or   proceed if you want to treat the film in a different processing   method as described earlier.

 Don't be fooled if the film is cheap and looks like a bargain!   there is often a reason for that and it will be at your expense in   terms of the cost for one and the end results secondly. Things that look too good to be true often turn out to be that way.

Look out for the signals, slide film is marked as process E-6 or AP-44, it is normally called Chrome or will have CT on the box in the case of old Agfa film. Lomography might sell you this film at a vastly over inflated price and call it some sort of creative name just like a brand of their film which is actually standard colour negative film loaded into the cartridge backside towards the lens and you are advised to over expose the film by three stops to compensate!! There are better ways to be creative in post processing than wrist an expensive journey down a dark hole in experimentation. Keep inside the guidelines purchase in date slide film and you will end up with good results. If you want to purchase out of date film then consider one of our alternative suggestions so as not to be disappointed.

Remember with slide film leave nothing to chance, the exposure of the film (that is a whole new topic) the handling of the film and the processing of the film has to be consistent and accurate. Not enough exposure your results will be dark, too much exposure your results will be light so correct exposure is essential.

Test 0ne Ilford ID-11 against Kodak Tmax

Developer Ilford ID-11
ILFORD ID-11 is widely regarded as the industry standard powder developer. Catering for general, scientific and technical photography, this popular film developer produces excellent results with all black & white films.

ID-11 gives the perfect blend of fine grain, sharpness and tonal rendition producing negatives which allow a high degree of enlargement. It particularly excels on slow to medium speed films as well as occasions when a wide range of films and film speeds have been used.

Developer Tmax
Kodak T-Max Film Developer
Kodak T-Max Film Developer is a liquid concentrate black and white film developer. You will get a good balance of fine grain, sharpness, and tones. It will give you particularly good shadow detail.
T-Max Film Developer works well with normally exposed film as well as pushed film.

Ideal for processing T-Grain films such as Ilford Delta or Kodak T Max. Kodak T-Max Film Developer has been specially designed to get the most out of these modern films. Additionally, it will also work well with a wide range of black and white films.

We use Ilford ID-11 as our standard go to black and white developer. It is one of the industry standard products. You can process virtually any type of black and white film using it from the slowest ISO speeds to the fastest.

We have conducted this test as a guide to show in our opinion what characteristics each developer that we offer gives to the overall look of the images. In this test we have processed two films taken at exactly the same time and cut into sections to be processed in each developer solution simitaniously. Each different developer test will be compared to our standard ID-11 solution to see any differences. We have scanned each section of film to a large Tiff file. No adjustments have been made to the scans, no sharpening, no change in contrast, they are as you will see them. The film used is 100 iso Kentmere film.

ID-11 DEVELOPER IMAGES

TMAX DEVELOPER IMAGES

Our observations
In the outset you might think that Tmax developer would have slightly more contrast than the long standing ID-11 but in our test the Ilford developer has more contrast, deeper blacks and a higher white value in its appearance.
The Tmax developer gives a lower contrast in the highlight areas such as the white tones in the flowers and a marginally softer back in the shadow areas thus giving the appearance of a lower contrast.
Enlarged to 5 times the size there is no visible difference in the film grain
All in all the differences are quite subtle, but you can see a difference between the two so if you want a tiny bit more contrast then ID-11 will have the edge but if you want a bit more detail in the whites then the Tmax is the choice but we will stress tha the differences are subtle.

Oskar Barnack: Information gathered from https://www.britannica.com/technology/calotype and https://iphf.org/inductees/oskar-barnack/

Oskar Barnack was born on November the 1st 1879 in Lynow, Brandenburg, Germany and was the first designer of the precision miniature camera that became available commercially. He turned a small instrument used for taking exposure samples for cinema film into the world’s first 35mm camera known as the Leica I. This was first introduced in 1924 by the Ernst Leitz Optical Firm whom Barnack joined in 1911. Although a prototype of the Leica was produced in 1913, World War 1 and post war difficulties led to the final production of the camera to be delayed. The camera was known as the “quintessential miniature camera”, according to historian Robert Hirsch. He wrote, “it was not only smaller and lighter than other hand-held cameras, but it utilized inexpensive standard movie stock, letting a photographer rapidly and unobtrusively make 36 exposures without reloading. Faster, high-definition, interchangeable lenses and a built-in coupled rangefinder followed.”

Barnack was a brilliant mechanic and inventor and went on to determine the standard 24 × 36-millimetre picture size for 35-millimetre film and was partly responsible for designing the Leitz Elmar lens. The great success of his Leica I also promoted the use of all 35mm and small cameras.

After inventing this new camera, Barnack used it extensively to document the relationship between people and the environment such as the historic flooding of Wetzlar in 1920.

In 1979 Leica created the “Leica Oskar Barnack Award” to mark the 100th anniversary of Barnack’s birth. Photographers from around the world submit photographs that document the human relationship with the environment. It is an annual award with an international jury. The prize is worth 5.000 Euro or a Leica camera of the same value.

Oskar Barnack became part of the International Photography Hall of Fame and Museum in 1984. His honorary plaque is sponsored by the University of Princeton, Class of 1934, to honour Frederick Quellmalz. Barnack’s creation of the Leica 35mm camera was argued to be the single most influential camera, and the most imitated.

Henri Cartier-Bresson

Information gathered from https://www.biography.com/artist/henri-cartier-bresson

‘Henri Cartier-Bresson was a French photographer whose humane, spontaneous photographs helped establish photojournalism as an art form’

Henri Cartier-Bresson was born on August 22nd, 1908 in France. He was considered one of the major artists of the 20th century and was a pioneer of photojournalism. He came from a wealthy family where his father made fortunes as a textile manufacturer and was the eldest of 5 children.

He was educated in France where he studied literature and the Arts before beginning a two year gap studying painting under early Cubist, André Lhote in 1927. Later, he moved to Cambridge university to continue in courses revolving once again around Art and Literature.

In 1931 Cartier-Bresson travelled to Africa to hunt for boar and antelope. Although he never really took to the sport of hunting, being in Africa did spark his interest in photography. From then on he began experimenting with a box brownie camera given to him as a gift.

He’d say, "I adore shooting photographs," "It's like being a hunter. But some hunters are vegetarians—which is my relationship to photography." To the annoyance of his editors, it later became apparent that Cartier-Bresson preferred taking the photos rather than producing prints and showcasing his work.

Later that year, he bought himself his first 35mm Leica and took to taking photos in the simplest of ways. Being a naturalist, Cartier-Bresson didn’t care for editing the photos once the shot had been taken by means of cropping and/or darkroom affects; but that everything should be as required as the shot is being taken. He often carried around limited equipment such as a 50mm lens and possibly as 90mm lens.

Commercially, Cartier-Bresson was extremely successful and by the mid 1930’s he’d shown his work in major exhibits in New York, Mexico and Madrid. It is during this time that he befriended another photographer named Paul Strand who was experimenting in the art of film. Finding inspiration from Strand, Cartier-Bresson took to working with French film maker Jean Renoir. He worked for a few years here and helped in the production of films such as Renoir’s most critically acclaimed, La Règle Du Jeu (1939).

After his escape from a prison-of-war camp in 1943, he created a photo department for the resistance and then after the war had come end he was commissioned by the United States to direct a documentary about the return of French prisoners.

His other successes in photography include:

- His photos of Mahatma Gandhi and subsequent documentation of his later death.

- Teaming up with Robert Capa, George Rodger, David 'Chim' Seymour, and William Vandivert in 1947 where he founded Magnum Photos, one of the world's premier photo agency. Which he later quit.

- In1952 he published his first book, The Decisive Moment, a rich collection of his work spanning two decades.

- Travelling around the world to capture all manners of history. He was there for the Spanish Civil War and the Chinese revolution and he also documented George VI's coronation and told the story of Khrushchev's Russia. Among other events.

In 2003 he and his family took an important step in securing his legacy as an artist with the creation of the Foundation Henri Cartier-Bresson in Paris to help preserve his work. A year later he died on August 3rd, 2004.

"To take a photograph is to align the head, the eye and the heart. It's a way of life"

- Henri Cartier-Bresson

Ansel Adams

Ansel Easton Adams (February 20, 1902 – April 22, 1984) was an American photographer and environmentalist. He was known for producing black- and- white landscape photographs of the American West, focussing specifically on Yosemite National park.

Many of his works were and are still seen in calendars, books and the internet.

Adams and Fred Archer developed the Zone System to determine proper exposure and adjust the contrast of the final print. The result of this characterized his photographs.

Adams was an only child of his relatively elderly parents. As well as this, his affluent family history, and the live-in presence of his mother’s maiden sister all combined to create an environment that was supposedly Victorian and both socially and emotionally conservative.
As the grandson of a wealthy timber baron, Adams grew up in a house located around the sand dunes of the Golden Gate. 

However, a year after the Great earthquake and fire of 1906, The Adams’ family fortune collapsed during the financial panic occurring during 1907.

Adams’s mother spent much of her time fretting over her husband’s inability to restore the Adams fortune, leaving an ambivalent imprint on her son. Charles Adams, on the other hand, influenced, encouraged, and supported his son.

In later life Adams noted that he might have been diagnosed as hyperactive and there is also the possibility that he may have suffered from dyslexia. He did not have much success in the many schools to which his parents sent him and so his father and aunt tutored him at home.

Though, ultimately, he managed to earn what he termed a “legitimizing diploma” from the Mrs. Kate M. Wilkins Private School.

The most important link to his interest in photography was his love for nature and the natural world.

He enjoyed hiking and walking through the dunes of the Golden Gate or meandering along Lobos Creek, down to Baker Beach.

Adams began using the Kodak No. 1 Box Brownie his parents had given him as his first camera and took delight in landscape artistry from which his major works stemmed from.

In 1919 he joined the Sierra Club and spent the first of four summers in Yosemite Valley, as “keeper” of the club’s LeConte Memorial Lodge.

His first published photographs and writings appeared in the club’s 1922 Bulletin, and he had his first one man exhibition in 1928 at the club’s San Francisco headquarters.

He made his first fully visualized photograph- Monolith, the Face of Half Dome in 1927 and came under the influence of Albert M. Bender, a San Francisco insurance magnate and patron of arts and artists.

Shortly after Bender set off Adams’ first portfolio - The Parmelian Prints of the High Sierras.

Adams continued with his photography until his death in 1984 and had produced many collections and portfolios throughout his life, all congregating from his black-and-white landscape theme.

Researched and written by Grace Smith (16) (apprentice) 

Lens Chromatic Arberration is an optical fault in a lens that creates a less than perfect image. Below you will find the cause and ways to correct the effect.

Chromatic aberration, also known as “color fringing”, is a common optical problem that occurs when a lens is either unable to bring all wavelengths of color to the same focal plane, and/or when wavelengths of color are focused at different positions in the focal plane.

Chromatic aberration is caused by lens dispersion, with different colors of light travelling at different speeds while passing through a lens. As a result, the image can look blurred or noticeable colored edges (red, green, blue, yellow, purple, magenta) can appear around objects, especially in high-contrast situations.

A perfect lens would focus all wavelengths into a single focal point, where the best focus with the “circle of least confusion” is located, as shown below:

In reality, the refractive index for each wavelength is different in lenses, which causes two types of Chromatic Aberration – Longitudinal Chromatic Aberration and Lateral Chromatic Aberration.

Longitudinal Chromatic Aberration
Longitudinal Chromatic Aberration, also known as “LoCA” or “bokeh fringing”, occurs when different wavelengths of color do not converge at the same point after passing through a lens, as illustrated below:

Lenses with Longitudinal Chromatic Aberration problems can show fringing around objects throughout the image, even in the center. Red, Green, Blue or a combination of these colors can appear around objects. Longitudinal Chromatic Aberration can be dramatically reduced by stopping down the lens. Fast aperture prime lenses are typically much more prone to LoCA than slower lenses. 

The bottom crop was corrected in Lightroom’s “Lens Corrections” sub-module with a single click. The same can be done in Photoshop, but involves more steps (if not using the Camera RAW tool).

Lateral Chromatic Aberration

Lateral Chromatic Aberration, also known as “transverse chromatic aberration”, occurs when different wavelengths of color coming at an angle focus at different positions along the same focal plane, as illustrated below:

Unlike LoCA, Lateral Chromatic Aberration never shows up in the center and is only visible towards the corners of the image in high-contrast areas. Blue and purple fringing is often common on some fisheye, wide-angle and low-quality lenses. Unlike Longitudinal Chromatic Aberration, Lateral Chromatic Aberration cannot be removed by stopping down the lens, but can be removed or reduced in post-processing software.

Unfortunately, many lenses have both longitudinal and lateral chromatic aberrations present at the same time. The only way to reduce these aberrations, is to stop down the lens (to reduce LoCA) and then fix lateral CA in post-processing software like Lightroom and Photoshop.

While many modern lens manufacturers employ specific techniques to reduce chromatic aberrations using achromatic/apochromatic optical designs and special extra-low dispersion elements, chromatic aberration is still an issue on most prime and zoom lenses that we just have to learn how to get around with.

The good news is that many modern DSLRs incorporate special in-camera post-processing techniques to reduce and even eliminate lens chromatic aberrations and plenty of software packages are also capable of dealing with chromatic aberrations.

Dealing with fringing
More expensive lenses often suffer less from chromatic aberration – an example of where the adage, ‘you get what you pay for’ rings true. However, even if you can’t afford the very best lenses money can buy, all is not lost.

Click the Lens Correction tab in Adobe Camera Raw to tackle chromatic aberration
If you shoot raw files, Chromatic aberration can often be removed, or at least reduced, in post-processing software such as Abobe Lightroom, Adobe Camera Raw and DxO OpticsPro.

The automatic detection and defringing process in Adobe Camera Raw is very quick and very effective, while using the manual sliders enables you to tackle more resilient purple and green halos that sometimes continue to cling to the edges of objects at the extreme edges of the picture.

Extracts taken from : 

https://photographylife.com/what-is-chromatic-aberration

And

https://www.techradar.com/news/the-a-to-z-of-photography-chromatic-aberration

Understanding how exposure works in a camera is possibly the most fundamental task you need to learn. The three elements of exposure are: 

Shutter Speed, Aperture and ISO settings.

Learn how they work together and you will be able to take control of what your images look like.

Whether you want to make your subject the item of focus or capture the whole image, move the water around in the sea scape or freeze a waterfall, you will need to understand the basics of exposure.

There are many variations and combinations of shutter speeds and F Stops and in the modern cameras you could just leave it to your camera, however using a manual setting will give you greater scope to get the effect you want. 

The principles of film and digital photography work in exactly the same way. 

ISO : Film comes in pre-set iso speeds, the iso determines the sensitiveness of the film emulsion to light, so the higher the iso the more sensitive the film is to lower levels of light and fast-moving objects, allowing for faster shutter speeds and smaller apertures.

Digital iso works the same adjusting the sensitiveness of the camera sensor like putting a faster film in the camera.

SHUTTER SPEED : This controls the speed that the shutter operates at, the slower the shutter speed, the more light is allowed onto the film or the sensor of the camera because of the time factor. The faster the shutter speed the easier it is to freeze the action of a fast-moving object for crisper images with no motion blurring at all.

APERTURE : The aperture is an iris inside the camera lens, a series of leaves to form a circle which will get smaller or larger depending on the settings. Aperture works in F Stop numbers with the smallest number F-1.2 the greatest amount of light passing through the lens and the largest F Stop number on your lens, say F-22 will be the tiniest hole not letting much light through at all.

The aperture of your lens works exactly the same way as the iris in your eye; in dark conditions the iris will open wide so you will have a larger pupil and in bright sun the pupil will appear really small so the iris has closed down so not letting much light in.

To get the best from your photography we recommend using manual mode when you need total control over the exposure and depth of field. This will teach you how to be creative with your pictures. 

Creating the correct exposure is about accuracy and compromise. If you increase the aperture you will need to slow down the shutter speed for example: a standard bright day at 100 iso might give an exposure of 125th sec @ F-8, to lower the depth of field to get the foreground sharp and the background out of focus you will need to open the aperture to a smaller value say F4. F stops work in doubling or halving the light depending in which direction you open or close the aperture on the lens. and shutter speeds work in the same way, this is why each shutter speed number is half or double the preceeding one. The chart below may help in understanding more.

For based on our example to get to F-4 from F-8 the exposure would adjust as follows:

F-8 is our exposure @ 125th sec shutter speed.

F-5.6 would need a 250th sec shutter speed.

F4 would need a 500th sec shutter speed.

For each stop on the aperture that you make an adjustment to open the lens, to keep the correct exposure ratio in you will need to double the shutter speed to keep the exposure value constant. The reverse would be the case if you were closing the aperture in the opposite direction.

Remember the smaller the lens aperture the more depth of field you will have and the greater the chance of keeping your subject in the plane of focus.

Using a light meter is the most accurate way of defining the exposure for your photos, especially in manual mode. With todays modern technology there are many great and useful apps available for use with your smart phone so download a free light meter app and be absolutely accurate with the exposures.

Correct operation of the meter will be covered in future articles but in the short-term, light is measured as an average. The best usage of your light meter is a 45 degree reading off a 50% grey card or if you do not have one then 45 degrees angle to the floor will give you the best average of reflective metering.

Point the meter in the direction that you are taking the photograph and then at 45 degrees to the floor. This will not work with light surfaces like snow or sand but for any average surface, eg: grass, road, pavement, it will work perfectly accurately. We will cover correct use of the light meter in future articles.

So in summary exposure is the key element to getting your photographs right, get the exposure accurate by using the right combination of ISO, Lens Aperture and Shutter Speed and you will have great exposure results.

Photographic processing

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

 

Photographic processing is the chemical means by which photographic film and paper is treated after photographic exposure to produce a negative or positiveimage. Photographic processing transforms the latent image into a visible image, makes this permanent and renders it insensitive to light.^[1]

All processes based upon the gelatin-silver process are similar, regardless of the film or paper's manufacturer. Exceptional variations include instant films such asPolaroid and thermally developed films. Kodachrome required Kodak's proprietary K-14 process. Kodachrome film production ceased in 2009, and K-14 processing is no longer available as of December 30, 2010.^[2] Ilfochrome materials use the dye destruction process.

 

Key stages in production of Ag-based photographs. Two silver halide particles, one of which is impinged with light (hν) resulting in the formation of a latent image (step 1). The latent image is amplified using photographic developers, converting the silver halide crystal to an opaque particle of silver metal (step 2). Finally, the remaining silver halide is removed by fixing (step 3).

All film and paper is treated in a series of chemical baths, which are closely monitored and maintained at a specific temperature and treatment time. Developer baths are most sensitive to deviations from the standard time and temperature of treatment; other baths are less sensitive.

Black and white negative processing

1. The film may be soaked in water to swell the gelatin layer, facilitating the action of the subsequent chemical treatments.
2. The developer converts the latent image to macroscopic particles of metallic silver.^[3]
3. A stop bath,^† typically a dilute solution of acetic acid or citric acid, halts the action of the developer. A rinse with cleanwater may be substituted.
4. The fixer makes the image permanent and light-resistant by dissolving remaining silver halide. A common fixer is hypo, specifically ammonium thiosulfate.^[4]
5. Washing in clean water removes any remaining fixer. Residual fixer can corrode the silver image, leading to discolouration, staining and fading.^{[citation needed]}

The washing time can be reduced and the fixer more completely removed if a hypo clearing agent is used after the fixer.

1. Film may be rinsed in a dilute solution of a non-ionic wetting agent to assist uniform drying, which eliminates drying marks caused by hard water. (In very hard water areas, a pre-rinse in distilled water may be required - otherwise the final rinse wetting agent can cause residual ionic calcium on the film to drop out of solution, causing spotting on the negative.)
2. Film is then dried in a dust-free environment, cut and placed into protective sleeves.

Once the film is processed, it is then referred to as a negative. The negative may now be printed; the negative is placed in an enlarger and projected onto a sheet of photographic paper. Many different techniques can be used during the enlargement process. Two examples of enlargement techniques are dodging and burning.

Alternatively (or as well), the negative may be scanned for digital printing or web viewing after adjustment, retouching, and/or manipulation.

^† In modern automatic processing machines, the stop bath is replaced by mechanical squeegee or pinching rollers. These treatments remove much of the carried-over alkaline developer, and the acid, when used, neutralizes the alkalinity to reduce the contamination of the fixing bath with the developer.

Black and white reversal processing

This process has three additional stages:

1. Following the stop bath, the film is bleached to remove the developed negative image. The film then contains a latent positive image formed from unexposed and undeveloped silver halide salts.
2. The film is fogged, either chemically or by exposure to light.
3. The remaining silver halide salts are developed in the second developer, converting them into a positive image.
4. Finally, the film is fixed, washed, dried and cut.^[5]

Colour processing

Chromogenic materials use dye couplers to form colour images. Modern colour negative film is developed with the C-41 process and colour negative print materials with the RA-4 process. These processes are very similar, with differences in the first chemical developer.

The C-41 and RA-4 processes consist of the following steps:

1. The colour developer develops the silver negative image, and byproducts activate the dye couplers to form the colour dyes in each emulsion layer.
2. A rehalogenising bleach converts the developed silver image into silver halides.
3. A fixer removes the silver salts.
4. The film is washed, stabilised, dried and cut.^[6]

In the RA-4 process, the bleach and fix are combined. This is optional, and reduces the number of processing steps.^[7]

Transparency films, except Kodachrome, are developed using the E-6 process, which has the following stages:

1. A black and white developer develops the silver in each image layer.
2. Development is stopped with a rinse or a stop bath.
3. The film is fogged in the reversal step.
4. The fogged silver halides are developed and exhausted developing agents couple with the dye couplers in each layer.
5. The film is bleached, fixed, stabilised and dried as described above.^[6]

In some old processes, the film emulsion was hardened during the process, typically before the bleach. Such a hardening bath often used aldehydes, such asformaldehyde and glutaraldehyde. In modern processing, these hardening steps are unnecessary because the film emulsion is sufficiently hardened to withstand the processing chemicals.

Further processing

See also: photographic print toning

Black and white emulsions both negative and positive, may be further processed. The image silver may be reacted with elements such as selenium or sulphur to increase image permanence and for aesthetic reasons. This process is known as toning.

In selenium toning, the image silver is changed to silver selenide; in sepia toning, the image is converted to silver sulphide. These chemicals are more resistant to atmospheric oxidising agents than silver.

If colour negative film is processed in conventional black and white developer, and fixed and then bleached with a bath containing hydrochloric acid and potassium dichromate solution, the resultant film, once exposed to light, can be redeveloped in colour developer to produce an unusual pastel colour effect.^{[citation needed]}

Processing apparatus

Before processing, the film must be removed from the camera and from its cassette, spool or holder in a light-proof room or container.

Small scale processing

A cut-away illustration of a typical light-trap tank used in small scale developing.

In amateur processing, the film is removed from the camera and wound onto a reel in complete darkness (usually inside adarkroom with the safelight turned off or a lightproof bag with arm holes). The reel holds the film in a spiral shape, with space between each successive loop so the chemicals may flow freely across the film's surfaces. The reel is placed in a specially designed light-proof tank (called daylight processing tank or a light-trap tank) where it is retained until final washing is complete.

Sheet films can be processed in trays, in hangers (which are used in deep tanks), or rotary processing drums. Each sheet can be developed individually for special requirements. Stand development, long development in dilute developer without agitation, is occasionally used.

Commercial processing

In commercial processing, the film is removed automatically or by an operator handling the film in a light proof bag from which it is fed into the processing machine. The processing machinery is generally run on a continuous basis with films spliced together in a continuous line. All the processing steps are carried out within a single processing machine with automatically controlled time, temperature and solution replenishment rate. The film or prints emerge washed and dry and ready to be cut by hand. Some modern machines also cut films and prints automatically, sometimes resulting in negatives cut across the middle of the frame where the space between frames is very thin or the frame edge is indistinct, as in an image taken in low light.

Photo processing has been interesting this year with very exciting news through the industry with film production starting again in Italy with Farrania and the UK with Kodak.

PEOPLE HAVE THE POWER

The main asset of FILM Ferrania are people. We cannot imagine such a delicate and magic product like film made by people without a close empathy with its preparation process. The film is something you have to produce in complete darkness, you need to have a sort of intimacy with it to obtain the excellence; no tool can do better than a team of people with over 30 years of experience who live close to the factory.

We are really very proud to present our core R&D and production team: Corrado, Danilo, Renzo, Daniele, Ezio e Marco are the people who can realize the future of the  analog film.

 

Taking pictures is a great hobby and is a lot of fun for you and your loved ones. But when times comes to develop photos that you have taken, things might get a little bit pricey. Photo processing is not as expensive as it was a decade ago, still, if you plan to keep your albums and scrapbooks full, you will need some advice. Here are some tips on how to keep your costs down without cutting back on any of the fun of photography.

* Use overnight photo processing services instead of instant or one-hour ones. Even though it means waiting a bit long for those special shots you took at the party or on family holiday, it can significantly reduce the money you will have to spend to develop photos.

* Be sure to pick only the best photos. Any good photo shop will refund you the costs of any dark, grainy or overexposed images. If you are not fully satisfied, demand your money back. There is no point in paying for low quality images when there are many more than you can invest in.

* Develop photos in bulk. Many shops have special discounts in place for bulk purchases. There may even be seasonal offers and promotions, so be sure to keep your eyes open. Collect a few roles of film while you wait for a promotion or simply take advantage of bulk photo processing discount.

* Stay away from the extra services. Most of these additional services are unnecessary, like buying a CD with your images. Go for services that you actually need and spend the saved money to develop photos you actually like.

* Get a scanner. Once you develop photos and get your prints, you can use the scanner to keep a digital copy of your images. Many shops offer CD services with their photo processing, but the fees quickly add up so it is much wiser to invest into a one-off purchase of a scanner than paying recurring fees.

* Buy a digital camera. A whole article can be written on the advantages of digital cameras over their film predecessors. But how will the digital camera save you money? First off, you will be able to sort out good images from the bad before you develop photos, without wasting money on the images that did not turn out good. Another benefit is to use online photo processing to develop photos. Many sites offer great discounts if you order your prints online. In addition, think of all the money you get to save on film. If you are a real photography enthusiast, you will probably get the value of your digital camera in one year already.

* Try different shops. Many places will offer photo processing, with prices varying significantly. Some cheaper places will deliver poor quality, and some may provide value for money. Shop around and try out a few different services to determine where the quality and good prices meet. You just might be able to save more than you think.

* Buy film in bulk. Watch out for discounts and bulk sales on film and buy it in advance. Most film packages can last for ages so you don't have to worry about expiration date. You will save money on your purchases and as an additional bonus you will always be equipped with enough film. There is nothing worse than running out of film before an important event or a trip.