Color processing bleach

noacronym · Apr 6, 2013

May and Baker. Promicrol--that's an oldie. So after all this talk, what's the best kit out there--one that PE would approve of. If he doesn't approve of it, I don't think I'd care much for it either.

Roger Cole · Apr 6, 2013

Photo Engineer said:
You cannot make a single part color developer or blix and you certainly cannot make a color monobath.

PE

Well apparently you can indeed make a single part (concentrate) color developer and blix, because Tetanal did. I've used it. It sucked as hrst says, but they made it.

Prints actually looked pretty good if there weren't extensive very light areas and if you trimmed off the yellow borders. So I believe him that the developer worked.

Its attraction was that they advertised it as ambient temperature, which it was. It came with a time/temperature chart and produced pretty much identical results (maybe 5cc color variation max from the coldest to the warmest on the chart) at all temperatures, but all of them had the yellow whites problem. At the time I didn't realize you could do pretty much the same thing with Kodak chemistry with no problems.

hrst has it exactly right about mixing the stuff.

noacronym · Apr 6, 2013

I don't think I've ever heard of Eastman Kodak manufacturing anything that wasn't top-notch. You guys are making me uneasy. With EK knocked off as the big boy on the block, are we just going to get stuck with second-rate stuff?

Ian Grant · Apr 6, 2013

Photocolor made a superb 3 part E6 kit, it was made by Champion in later years for Paterson who took over Photocolor which was itself the chemistry side of Johnsons acompany involved with Photograpghy for decades before Eastman founded Kodak

There's a lot of garbage written against 3rd party products, some correct but often dismissing extremely good products designed by world experts in their fields.

Remember Kodak needed to constantly buy in expertise and the classic is Mees, and his insistance they take over the company he was a director of Wratten & Wainwright.

noacronym said:
I don't think I've ever heard of Eastman Kodak manufacturing anything that wasn't top-notch. You guys are making me uneasy. With EK knocked off as the big boy on the block, are we just going to get stuck with second-rate stuff?

You're joking.

They stole ideas like Polaoids Instant film and made huge errors of judgement with investments in rubbish like 110 and Disc cameras.

Ian

noacronym · Apr 6, 2013

Yeah I remember the 110 cameras. My grandmother had a perfectly good X-15 and bought a 110. I had forgotten about the disc cameras. That was a bunch of junk. But think about it--the 126 Instamatics were the i-phone of the day. And I think we're seeing ipods and iphones grow tired now. What's AAPL going to do next? Every dog has his day. As for the Kodak polaroids, they knew full well they were infringing on trademark. That WAS dumb.
But back to these color processing kits--which is the good stuff NOW, and which is junk?

Photo Engineer · Apr 6, 2013

Roger, that is my point. It is pretty poor and as said before, some are very hard to mix.

As for other Kodak products, t is not widely known that Kodak engineered and coated Polaroid colo products for Land, as he could not make them himself. Some of Land's ideas were entirely incorrect and under a rigid contract, Kodak did the R&D to fix these problems. Land never acknowledged this work though.

Kodak then went on to engineer two totally different methods of instant imaging that they were advised did not infringe. In fact, due to double patenting, it could later be shown that Land had blocked the field with incorrect patents. But this is hindsight.

Kodak chemicals were made on site at Kodak Park until recently, by Champion. In fact, they made the news here when a tank truck of one of the processing chemicals upset and spilled next to the old P&S building (Powders and Solutions).

PE

Prof_Pixel · Apr 6, 2013

noacronym said:
As for the Kodak polaroids, they knew full well they were infringing on trademark. That WAS dumb.

Nonsense! I worked on the Kodak Instant Photography System for 7 years and the technology involved was completely different. Polaroid won the patent case with a female judge in their hometown of Boston based on the idea of a 'concept patent' - the 'concept' of instant photography. I'm so glad to see the Kodak technology live on in the form of Fujix Instant Film while Polaroid is long gone.

noacronym · Apr 6, 2013

I stand corrected. Better to be corrected by your betters and take it like a man, than to remain ignorant. Thank you. So what's the best chemical kit in April 2013 for the process herein? As an aside, I wonder if this Champion is the same one of the old Champion paper that I once bought so much of.

MattKing · Apr 6, 2013

noacronym said:
I stand corrected. Better to be corrected by your betters and take it like a man, than to remain ignorant. Thank you. So what's the best chemical kit in April 2013 for the process herein? As an aside, I wonder if this Champion is the same one of the old Champion paper that I once bought so much of.

Here is some history about Champion: http://www.championphotochemistry.com/milestones.php

noacronym · Apr 6, 2013

Thank you for the post Matt. No, it is not the same as Champion Paper formerly with a plant in Canton NC. And I looked up their RA4 chemistry. It is a 2-part process. I wonder who makes a process these days meeting PE's standards. I've got a backlog of color negatives, but don't want some amateur kit.

MattKing · Apr 6, 2013

noacronym said:
Thank you for the post Matt. No, it is not the same as Champion Paper formerly with a plant in Canton NC. And I looked up their RA4 chemistry. It is a 2-part process. I wonder who makes a process these days meeting PE's standards. I've got a backlog of color negatives, but don't want some amateur kit.

I am confident that PE has said before that bleach-fix ("blix") can indeed be designed to work well with RA4 chemistry.

It is C41 (and E6) where it is a problem.

By the way, Champion only lists their own products on their website - they don't list the Kodak (and other?) products that they aren't marketing directly.

noacronym · Apr 6, 2013

OK, thanks. I remember him not liking it on film, now that you mention it. But I figured it stands to reason... But some other guy on here claimed it gave yellow borders and dingy tones. The last RA4 I bought was Fuji Xtal Archive paper, and whatever house brand of chemistry at Freestyle at the time. It's been a couple years now. But in just those same few years, film and chemistry in general has slowed to a trickle. It's really getting tight out there. And I still have 25 more years to live. Wonder which will kick the bucket first--me or film.

nworth · Apr 6, 2013

noacronym said:
Yeah I remember the 110 cameras. My grandmother had a perfectly good X-15 and bought a 110. I had forgotten about the disc cameras. That was a bunch of junk. But think about it--the 126 Instamatics were the i-phone of the day. And I think we're seeing ipods and iphones grow tired now. What's AAPL going to do next? Every dog has his day. As for the Kodak polaroids, they knew full well they were infringing on trademark. That WAS dumb.
But back to these color processing kits--which is the good stuff NOW, and which is junk?

Yes, they were not great. But Kodak loaded them with state of the art stuff. Also remember that the 126 cartridge was the first truly precision (.0001 inch tolerances in places) injection molded plastic part and that it was even self compensating for changes in temperature. A real engineering breakthrough that led the way to many more precision plastic parts. Some of Kodak's injection molded lenses actually worked better than many of their glass lenses. The 110 cartridge was not quite the same quality as the 126, but it was still the same sort of thing. Kodak made some very top notch things cheaply for the ordinary consumer.

Back to being on topic. I notice the ECN-2 process recommended for many Vision 3 products has a recommended alternate ferricyanide bleach (SR-29) and that the recommended production bleach (SR-33) is also a ferric (ferric nitrate) based bleach. VNF-1 also recommends a ferricyanide bleach (SR-40), but RVNP does not (only a persulfate bleach). I know motion picture films are not the same as still films, but the dyes are probably similar in both products. If modern color negative motion picture films tolerate a ferricyanide bleach, it seems that still films a likely to as well. The situation with color reversal films is less clear, since the recommended process for Ektachrome motion picture film (RVNP) does not list a recommended a ferricyanide bleach, although VNF-1 does. I suspect something like SR-29, which is simple and cheap, could be used ahead of the blix for C-41 processing in the current kits. It might be worth a cautious try in the E-6 kits. Persulfate bleaches get a bit exotic for the home formulator.

Photo Engineer · Apr 6, 2013

The RA4 process can work just fine with a blix due to the low silver levels and the absence of Iodide and DIR couplers! C41 cannot do that very well and neither can E6.

Ferricyanide can be used with some films. Image stability should be tested.

PE

Roger Cole · Apr 7, 2013

noacronym said:
OK, thanks. I remember him not liking it on film, now that you mention it. But I figured it stands to reason... But some other guy on here claimed it gave yellow borders and dingy tones. The last RA4 I bought was Fuji Xtal Archive paper, and whatever house brand of chemistry at Freestyle at the time. It's been a couple years now. But in just those same few years, film and chemistry in general has slowed to a trickle. It's really getting tight out there. And I still have 25 more years to live. Wonder which will kick the bucket first--me or film.

No one claimed yellow borders and dingy tones just from blix - combined bleach-fix. Two of us got such results specifically from the Tetanal RA4AT kit that uses single part concentrates. That was the problem - one big bottle of hard to mix concentrate apparently makes a bad blix, or a bad developer, or maybe both. Regular kits that mix the blix from separate components work fine.

Photo Engineer · Apr 7, 2013

Guys;

You can look at it this way. A Blix is a mixture of an oxidant and a reductant. They do not like each other. It is walking a knife edge to balance these chemicals so that they do not rapidly self destruct. There are knobs to turn to extend the lifetime, and through replenishment, the solutions can appear to last forever due to turnover. But, they should never be shipped as a single part because they go bad on the shelf! That is why they ship as a part A AND PART B.

Now, as for developers, well, we live in an oxidizing and acidic environment. A developer is a basic solution of a reducing agent (or agents). The ingredients should be stored apart and in sealed bottle up to the last minute and then they can be mixed. Now, a B&W developer can be made up in a single part in an organic solvent (like TEA in HC110), but a color developer is harder, much harder to prepare that way. I've dreamed of ways to do it, but it is beyond my means at the present time.

So, be content with bleaches and fixes for film, and blixes for paper, and enjoy parts A, B and C for color developers.

PE

mike-o · Apr 14, 2013

Prof_Pixel said:
. . . Polaroid won the patent case with a female judge . . .

Just wondering what the sex organs of the judge had to do with the case?

Photo Engineer · Apr 14, 2013

Well, she certainly did not know or understand any of the chemistry related points brought up in the trial.

PE

fotch · Apr 14, 2013

Why didn't Kodak appeal to the next higher court? I am sure there were good reasons, just wondering.

Photo Engineer · Apr 14, 2013

Not sure, but I think that they did appeal and it was turned down. Someone else would have to verify this.

PE

Roger Cole · Apr 14, 2013

You can't win an appeal just because you think the decision stinks. There have to be other grounds like legal procedures or disallowed evidence that shouldn't have been or allowed evidence that shouldn't have been. "Judge was chemically ignorant" is not sufficient.

EdSawyer · Apr 14, 2013

and why bother worrying about blix in C41? Just buy the flexicolor product which is easily the best anyway, and be done with it.

Roger Cole · Apr 14, 2013

EdSawyer said:
and why bother worrying about blix in C41? Just buy the flexicolor product which is easily the best anyway, and be done with it.

Because apparently no one sells that direct to consumers any more.

Photo Engineer · Apr 14, 2013

I bought 2 gallons of bleach III at our local store about 2 years ago. They were under $50 for both. The store is now gone.

PE

MattKing · Apr 14, 2013

Photo Engineer said:
Not sure, but I think that they did appeal and it was turned down. Someone else would have to verify this.

PE

Polaroid sued, claiming $2.5 billion.

Polaroid won part of the case, when the trial court ruled that some, but not all its patents had been infringed. Some of Polaroid's patents were also ruled invalid as part of the ruling.

A long, protracted trial on the issue of damages took place.

The award at trial was only $925 million (after correction).

Appeals and cross-appeals were filed with respect to both the patent infringement ruling, and the amount of the damage award.

The parties settled at the $925 million amount.

The entire process took ten years.

Polaroid was bankrupt not too many years after.

Color processing bleach

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