Developing color as B&W, then bring it back to color?

[koraks]

Yes, precisely. It's like developing color slides; the magic is in the first developer.

 

[vourmat]

Well, I’ll keep experimenting, because expired film is very unpredictable and the timing has to be adjusted carefully. In a black-and-white developer, 12 minutes might be too much — or it might not be enough.

 

[vourmat]

By the way, I haven’t heard anything from Engineer in a long time. Does he still show up on the site forums?

 

[YoIaMoNwater]

Well, I’ll keep experimenting, because expired film is very unpredictable and the timing has to be adjusted carefully. In a black-and-white developer, 12 minutes might be too much — or it might not be enough.

How does your result look like with the current first development time?

I haven’t tried this process yet but will prob give a go with some very expired Agfa CT100 (expired 1988) slides. I’ve done both C41 (normal process) and E6 (pull process and adding 9 mg/L of KI to increase top yellow forming layer) but the image is very very faint even when bracketing shots all to way up to +6 exposure. Hopefully this method will help.

I’ve also tried adding BZT to some other very expired Agfa slides but it actually reduced density so I’ve stopped testing with it. These were with all expired slide films so it’ll prob be different with color negs.

 

[vourmat]

How does your result look like with the current first development time?

I haven’t tried this process yet but will prob give a go with some very expired Agfa CT100 (expired 1988) slides. I’ve done both C41 (normal process) and E6 (pull process and adding 9 mg/L of KI to increase top yellow forming layer) but the image is very very faint even when bracketing shots all to way up to +6 exposure. Hopefully this method will help.

I’ve also tried adding BZT to some other very expired Agfa slides but it actually reduced density so I’ve stopped testing with it. These were with all expired slide films so it’ll prob be different with color negs.

Slide film works a bit differently, and the key here is to find a balance between fogging and the developed image. Ideally, you’d want to have plenty of film from the same batch, so you can determine the right development time for an acceptable result. I haven’t personally tried it yet, but it seems that salt (sodium chloride) gives better results.

It might be worth using Kodak Microdol-X instead of Rodinal. Kodak Microdol-X is designed for heavily fogged film.

 

[Jan de Jong]

Slide film works a bit differently, and the key here is to find a balance between fogging and the developed image. Ideally, you’d want to have plenty of film from the same batch, so you can determine the right development time for an acceptable result. I haven’t personally tried it yet, but it seems that salt (sodium chloride) gives better results.

It might be worth using Kodak Microdol-X instead of Rodinal. Kodak Microdol-X is designed for heavily fogged film.

Just to verify, you want to develop a c41 color film in black and white developer, then let it dry, make some scans for example and then bleach it, and do the color development so you end up with "normal" c41 negative, correct ?

This is what I did, for the first developer on experiments I like to use Retropan320 or Amaloco AM74 because these developers "always" need around 5 minutes or look for another normal PQ developer. My gut feeling says Retropan 320 has a restrainer against fogging in it.

for my examples in the tread above, I used the Retropan 320 developer. After developing and normal fixing with Ilford fix, I dried them, and made the scan. The next evening I bleached them in an open tray and by inspection checked what was happening, you can bleach to completion and then rinse and put in C41 color developer. you will see the colors appear, if you see no further progress you can fix either in BW fix or C41 fix. for the bleaching you can make your own bleach or use C41 bleach. You need in that case the 3 bath C41 kit, not the 2 batch where bleach and fix are combined.

A very rough and easy bleach you can make from K-Ferri = Potassium ferricyanide, same as used for cyanotype. check for some simple recipes.

let me know if you need more info.

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

By the way, I haven’t heard anything from Engineer in a long time. Does he still show up on the site forums?

If you are referring to Ron Mowrey, Photo Engineer or PE, he sadly passed away about 6 years ago. He is greatly missed...

 

[MattKing]

By the way, I haven’t heard anything from Engineer in a long time. Does he still show up on the site forums?

If you are referring to Photo Engineer - Ron Mowrey - I'm sad to advise you that Ron passed away in 2020.
Here is his In Memoriam thread: https://www.photrio.com/forum/threa...rey-aka-pe-photo-engineer-feb-15-2020.173245/

 

[vourmat]

He passed away… what a shame, I didn’t even know. (((((((
It’s really sad — we all miss Ron right now.