Color developer experiment

steelneck · Apr 8, 2010

I have been messing around with ascorbic acid, phenidone and glycol kind of developer for B/W and become quite pleased with it. AA and Phenidone in glycol in one stock solution and the activator in another. Now i have started to think about a home made color developer for C41 films, in the same line of simplicity and long shelf life for stock solutions. I am close to order some CD4 and start experimenting.

What would come out if i mix CD4 in glycol, maybe with some ascorbic too, and then use just a simple carbonate solution in water as activator? Lets say that i aim for a Ph of 10. Or maybe use lye and bicarbonate.

Would i get an image, or just complete disaster?

Mike Wilde · Apr 8, 2010

I home mix a c-41 developer. My approach is to build a stash of exposed films, and when there are between 4 and 8 process them all in a short period of time from a single litre of freshly mixed developer. The stop bath I use is a one shot acetic, and the bleach and fixer are stable, reuseable, and last 3-6 months minimum before I consid

Athiril · Apr 8, 2010

You'll get an image.. at pH 10 the ascorbic acid will be ascorbate from the carbonate.. and will also develop... develop silver only.. so what I would think, is that you'll have a wider contrast b&w negative, not all of the develop contributes to dye formation, so less dye build up, something I've been wanting to try.. not sure what it'd look like but Im sure it might have a use. Possibly just a thin colour image like Rodinal can form, but not nearly that thin.

Photo Engineer · Apr 8, 2010

The entire range of color developers require additional ingredients including Potassium Iodide and Sodium Bromide among others. These control the relationship between the many developing layers present. If they are not correct, color balance, speed, crossover and sharpness are all degraded. The pH is critical.

PE

steelneck · Apr 8, 2010

Mike Wilde said:
... My approach is to build a stash of exposed films, and when there are between 4 and 8 process them all in a short period of time from a single litre of freshly mixed developer. ..

If i would do like that, i would probably only develop once or twice a year. Waiting a year to get my negs.. no! This is also the reason why i was thinking if it is possible to home-brew some concentrated stock solutions with _very_ long shelf life that is easy to mix to a working solution just when i need it.

With B/W i have found what i needed, with a lot of qudos to Patrick Gainer and his writings. As i understand, before mr. Gainer went public with his experiments it was common knowledge that potassium this and that, sulfite and what not was necessary, but obviously it was not. My thought was - could it be the same with color developers?

steelneck · Apr 8, 2010

Photo Engineer said:
The entire range of color developers require additional ingredients including Potassium Iodide and Sodium Bromide among others. These control the relationship between the many developing layers present. If they are not correct, color balance, speed, crossover and sharpness are all degraded. The pH is critical.

PE

A "range of color developers", i mentioned CD-4, what others are there?

What exactly do CD-4 _really_need_ and why, in which purpose and so on. What do the other developers need and why. Do you happen to have a good link to do some reading on the subject?

What would actually be the result if i mix CD-4, lets say 5g/L and use lye and bicarbonate targeting a ph of 10, nothing else?

I am quite shure that there are other ways than some close copy of Kodak recipes, that have limited shelf life anyway, in my searches on the net i found people getting images using hair dye! Yes, with a lot of strange colors of course.

Are there anyone doing something like what mr Gainer did, but in color?

Photo Engineer · Apr 8, 2010

Color developers include RA4, E6 and C41. Color developing agents include CD4, CD3, CD6, CD2 and etc. The former is the solution we use to develop film or paper and the latter is the image forming chemical in the solution that helps form dye by developing the silver halide latent image to silver metal + dye.

Presence of a B&W developer such as ascorbic acid will interfere with dye formation.

Other ingredients include diethyl hydroxyl amine oxalate and hydroxyl amine sulfate depending on developer solution. Sulfite must be present as well as carbonate or phosphate again depending on developer.

PE

RPC · Apr 8, 2010

A typical home brew C-41 formula only has about six or seven chemicals in it, not that complex, and not that much more complex than many b&w formulas. I have used some with results nearly identical to official C-41. So why not just try one you can find here on APUG? You can mix just what you need, or store working solution in filled, tightly sealed glass jars. Doing this I have had it last a year.

RPC

steelneck · Apr 8, 2010

@RPG: Do you have a link? There does not seem to be a category for color under articles.

I have found this "out there" with recipes for both C41, RA4 and both blix and fixer, any one tried it?
http://www.bonavolta.ch/hobby/en/photo/c41_ra4_chemicals.htm

That recipe do not include any Iodide, has only 5 ingredients beside water, and the RA4 developer also uses TEA..

BTW, what is the difference between potassium and sodium carbonate/hydroxide and more..

steelneck · Apr 8, 2010

@PE: You call C41 and RA4 a "range"? Well. ok. All those CD*, i know that CD4 is meant for film and CD3 for paper, what about the others? Do you have a link to some easy to understand info? Your answers is not really helpful, they do not get me anywhere.

RPC · Apr 8, 2010

I have not tried the C-41 at the link you have, but I have tried the RA-4 formula and it does not seem to work well with Kodak Endura paper but I have heard it works well with Fuji papers. As for C-41, here is one I have had success with:

Water, distilled (50° C)................. 800 ml
Potassium carbonate (anhy) ........ 37.5 g
Sodium sulfite (anhy) ................. 4.3 g
Potassium iodide ....................... 0.002 g
Sodium bromide ......................... 1.3 g
Hydroxylamine sulfate ................. 2.0 g
CD-4 ....................................... 4.8 g
Water to make .......................... 1.0 l
pH 10.00 +/- 0.03

I believe sodium carbonate can be substituted but I don't know how much to use. After mixing, add acetic acid to lower the pH to the correct amount. 10.1 seems to work best.

You should be able to find more formulas by searching here on APUG, try home-brew .

RPC

thisismyname09 · Apr 8, 2010

steelneck said:
Are there anyone doing something like what mr Gainer did, but in color?

Right now, actually, I'm experimenting with mixing color developer in propylene glycol instead of water in an effort to extend shelf life of a working solution of C-41 developer. I'm using the 'real' kodak developer, parts A, B, and C. I've also considered trying dilute C-41 developer, so that it could be used one-shot, with extended development times, but that just sounds like problems and a whole lot of testing.
To be honest, I'm not expecting this experiment with glycol to work all that well. C-41 developer is likely sold in parts A, B, and C because the chemicals in each react with each other, thus reducing its usable life to a few weeks. Propylene glycol shouldn't be as reactive as water, but its not the only problem. If anything, it'll probably be the fact that propylene glycol is much more pure than the water that comes out of my faucet that extends the shelf life.

thisismyname09 · Apr 8, 2010

So... by the way...
Propylene glycol and C-41 developer is a horrible idea. Upon mixing in part B (hydroxylamine sulfate), a white precipitate formed. When I finished mixing everything, the precipitate didn't appear to be there anymore, but the solution was cloudy. I figured I might as well try it since I already mixed it. The negatives were completely blank.

steelneck · Apr 8, 2010

@thisismyname09: Now we know that hydroxylamine sulfate do not go well in glycol, but i guess someone could have told you that.

What i thought about was something like this:

Part A:
Glycol
CD-4
??

Part B:
Water
Sodium Carbonate
Bromide?
??

The idea is to keep the developing agent out of both water and the activator, somehow i think that CD-4 is stable in glycol, but i do not know. PE ought to have all the knowledge, but he do not seem that willing to share. Well i think i shall try to just use carbonate and CD-4 just to see what happens, i might learn something.. But i bet there are other things to use as developing agent, those experiments with hair dye suggests that.

steelneck · Apr 8, 2010

RPC said:
.. I have tried the RA-4 formula and it does not seem to work well with Kodak Endura paper but I have heard it works well with Fuji papers. ...

I believe sodium carbonate can be substituted but I don't know how much to use.

Do you know if RA4 papers have a bit of developer in the emulsion like BW RC-papers usually have? That could mean that the papers are not that sensitive to the formula in use.

I just read in a google part of photographers cookbook that 13 parts of potassium carbonate can be substituted to 10 parts of sodium carbonate.

Thanks for the report of a working developer.

Photo Engineer · Apr 8, 2010

steelneck said:
@PE: You call C41 and RA4 a "range"? Well. ok. All those CD*, i know that CD4 is meant for film and CD3 for paper, what about the others? Do you have a link to some easy to understand info? Your answers is not really helpful, they do not get me anywhere.

CD3 is also used for E6 as I stated earlier. CD3 and CD6 are used for Kodachrome.

As far as the formulas go, I had to hand in all of my "black books" when I retired from Kodak so all I have to go on are personal notes and patents. I do the best I can. Sorry if this angers you.

An RA formula is an RA formula and in the industry will work properly with Kodak, Fuji, Konica, and Agfa papers (back when the latter two were still made) if the formula is correct. Although, to be fair, Fuji claims that their new CAII paper will not work properly with RA4 chemistry and reports here say that the filter pack goes to cyan + magenta if Kodak chemistry is used. IDK personally.

As for formulas, try the one posted in this thread for C-41. It looks close to my weary old eyes. But, you must remember that they are weary because this question has come up many times, and there are as many C-41 formulas as there are threads asking about the formulas. You may wish to research them for more information.

PE

thisismyname09 · Apr 8, 2010

steelneck said:
The idea is to keep the developing agent out of both water and the activator, somehow i think that CD-4 is stable in glycol, but i do not know. PE ought to have all the knowledge, but he do not seem that willing to share. Well i think i shall try to just use carbonate and CD-4 just to see what happens, i might learn something.. But i bet there are other things to use as developing agent, those experiments with hair dye suggests that.

Actually, the idea I was going for was making a working strength solution that lasts longer than two weeks, since it's unlikely that I'll exhaust the developer in that amount of time, leading to waste. The stock solutions of the kodak chemicals I have will last a very long time, iirc. As for PE being unwilling to share his information, that is rather false, if you ask me. It's more likely that he's answered any given question you may have several times elsewhere on APUG.
There are several other developing agents that will give you a color image, but none will be as 'correct' as CD-4. Rodinal, for example, will give you a faint color image. Most hair dyes, as I understand it, are based on or include paraphenylenediamine, which is similar to all the CD-* developers. I believe Athiril mentioned that he was going to try to develop color film in DMT.

Ray Rogers · Apr 9, 2010

thisismyname09 said:
Athiril mentioned that he was going to try to develop color film in DMT.

That should be an interesting experience. But how long will the colors last?

Athiril · Apr 9, 2010

DMT idea is on the backburner atm until my work load decreases, I have a tv commercial to shoot on film for uni assignment next week, and my final project which involves developing my own colour 16mm. There is a whole bunch of stuff that'd look like it'd work for developing colour, most of it, much safer than ppd stuffs, only probably is getting your hands on any kind of reasonably pure or concentrated form to use it. There's a lot of data about getting your hands on DMT from natural sources..

I saw one hair dye experiment on flickr that gave very intense colour.

"Actually, the idea I was going for was making a working strength solution that lasts longer than two weeks, since it's unlikely that I'll exhaust the developer in that amount of time, leading to waste"

My E6 colour developer expired sometime in 2005, but it works as basically fresh, as I've kept it in the parts, the colour developer part is acidic which might have something to do with it's longeitivtty.

This site here - http://silent1.home.netcom.com/Photography/Dilutions and Times.html - lists a 2 bath formula for C-41, you could use a variation of that since alkali is dirt cheap and thats the only part that gets thrown out.

RPC · Apr 9, 2010

The 2-bath C-41 developer at the above link is the one devised by Patrick Dignan. I have tried it on a number of films and got the best results with Fuji Pro 160s. Portra films came out thin and unusable. The Fuji had a small amount of crossover (cyan layer had lower contrast) and overall contrast was a bit low but it might suffice for non-critical applications. I abandoned working with it further but I encourage anyone ambitious enough to see if it can be improved on, as it is inexpensive to use and is used at room temperature.

steelneck said:
Do you know if RA4 papers have a bit of developer in the emulsion like BW RC-papers usually have? That could mean that the papers are not that sensitive to the formula in use.

I am certain they do not. Don't know why the formula didn't work well, it was mixed carefully several times, perhaps it was bad or contaminated chemicals, or just a bad formula. The problem was low contrast and slightly degraded colors.

steelneck · Apr 9, 2010

Athiril said:
This site here - http://silent1.home.netcom.com/Photography/Dilutions and Times.html - lists a 2 bath formula for C-41, you could use a variation of that since alkali is dirt cheap and thats the only part that gets thrown out.

That two bath developer sounds very attractive, room temperature and all. It also suggests that one can be quite sloppy with both temps and times. I think i will try that formula when i get my hands on some CD-4. I could live with colors that are a bit off, as long as they are off in a predictable way and can be filtered OK.

Athiril · Apr 9, 2010

Rodinal 1+100, 1 hour stand works very well at room temp, if you dont mind extra steps - fix, bleach, colour develop, bleach fix (with wash steps).

thisismyname09 · Apr 9, 2010

Athiril said:
My E6 colour developer expired sometime in 2005, but it works as basically fresh, as I've kept it in the parts, the colour developer part is acidic which might have something to do with it's longeitivtty.

I'm aware that the solutions will keep well in parts, I'm just trying to get a mixed solution that will keep.

Athiril said:
This site here - http://silent1.home.netcom.com/Photography/Dilutions and Times.html - lists a 2 bath formula for C-41, you could use a variation of that since alkali is dirt cheap and thats the only part that gets thrown out.

I stumbled upon that recipe yesterday in APUG's articles sections. That specific formula will have problems due to the lack of certain chemicals (I think iodine and hydroxylamine were among those listed), but I'm thinking about giving it a shot with kodak's chemicals. however, I don't know whether to include part B of the developer with part A or part C when making the two baths.

nickandre · Apr 11, 2010

steelneck said:
If i would do like that, i would probably only develop once or twice a year. Waiting a year to get my negs.. no! This is also the reason why i was thinking if it is possible to home-brew some concentrated stock solutions with _very_ long shelf life that is easy to mix to a working solution just when i need it.

With B/W i have found what i needed, with a lot of qudos to Patrick Gainer and his writings. As i understand, before mr. Gainer went public with his experiments it was common knowledge that potassium this and that, sulfite and what not was necessary, but obviously it was not. My thought was - could it be the same with color developers?

Try mixing 4 liters at a time and storing them in glass bottles. The solution will last for many months stored this way. I have 3-1 liter bottles, 1-500 mL bottle, and 2-250 mL bottles. That way I can always remove a quarter liter, half liter, or full liter and be able to store my developer without air.

Color developer experiment

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