First time doing the whole developing thing

Hey all

Had my first taste of developing this week, a near(ish) university allows the use of it's darkroom and chemicals for a pretty modest annual fee, all you have to do is provide your own paper. They were even kind enough to provide me an introduction of sorts, developed a roll of B&W and did a couple of prints to cover the basics.
The dark room is reasonably well equipped, albeit a bit of a mess.
I have to say, developing my own prints for the first time was a whole other level of satisfying! Seeing your image appear of of nowhere on a white pice of paper, thats pretty damn impressive!

Anyway, i'm gonna want to move on to colour pretty soon and that seems to be where things get a little more tricky.
The film developing side appears to be strait forward enough and pretty similar to B&W, but the RA4 process has got me confused.
I'm struggling to find and decent information or guides online, and what i can find can be a bit contradictory...
Some people are saying you can do it in trays under a safe light, others only in a machine, some claiming if you do it in trays the chemicals go bad in a matter of hours and other saying it lasts months.
And be damed if i can find any kind of decent info on developing times etc.

I know the darkroom has a small machine of some type for doing it, i only got a quick glance but it's kept under the sink and was in a pretty sorry state.
If it can for sure be done in trays easily i'd prefer that option, but not if i have to do it in total darkness and unnecessarily waste chemicals. That's just hard work and wasteful.

If anyone could clear this up a bit or point me in the right direction, would be much appreciated

Ta muchly

You might want to ask the moderators to change your thread title ,
Something like: Darkroom colour printing - advice needed
Just click on the "Report This Post" link at the bottom left and make the request.
Photo Engineer is a regular poster on this site who is a retired Kodak engineer. IIRC, he does tray processing of RA4 materials in room temperature trays.
But you do have to work in what is essentially absolute darkness.
I would recommend developing tubes instead, and a rotary agitator.
The old Cibachrome tubes and the old Cibachrome agitator would be a good choice.

TattyJJ said:

but the RA4 process has got me confused.
I'm struggling to find and decent information or guides online, and what i can find can be a bit contradictory...

Click to expand...

Hi, have a look at "Post Exposure ..." by a guy known as Ctein, available for free download on his site: http://ctein.com/booksmpl.htm

In particular, read the section about room-temperature processing of RA-4 in trays. I've never done it, my experience (lots of it) is with high-volume machinery running at spec, but I would tend to trust Ctein's take on it.

Essentially you have to do everything in the dark. In reality, a certain safelight (Kodak #13) is permissible, but is necessarily so dim that finding your way in the darkroom is about all you can do. But it's not too difficult to learn how to tray develop in the dark.

As a note, to do professional-grade work with color, you need to control the FILM processing fairly rigidly with respect to time and temperature. A lot of people think it's not as critical as the process specs say, and if it's not real critical work, they're probably right. With RA-4, apparently you can get pretty good results at lower temps, provided that you use the "proper" time for your actual temp. I base this mostly on what Ctein says, not actual experience.

To be clear, you do all of your color work according to a predetermined time and temperature, not by visual appearance like you can with B&W.

One other thing you should do is read the MSDS on the color chemicals, especially the parts about color developers being potential skin sensitizers. I'd suggest always using something like those disposable nitrile rubber gloves. At the very least, wash your hands thoroughly afterwards, preferably with a low-pH hand soap. In the good old days, recs were for pHisohex or pHisoderm; I don't know if there are any modern equivalents, though. Don't take this lightly if you are serious about color processing; you can probably get away with it, but there is a very slight possibility of developing a sensitivity so bad that you can never come in contact with the chemicals again without severe contact dermatitis.

Best of luck in your color work.

Check out Kodak's J39 publication for tray and rotary drum print processing:
http://wwwau.kodak.com/global/en/professional/support/techPubs/j39/j39.pdf

The process is not difficult using a drum (old Cibachrome brand drums I found are best), a Unicolor Uniroller Model 352 base, and Kodak Ektacolor RA4 chemicals.

Mr Bill said:

Hi, have a look at "Post Exposure ..." by a guy known as Ctein, available for free download on his site: http://ctein.com/booksmpl.htm

In particular, read the section about room-temperature processing of RA-4 in trays. I've never done it, my experience (lots of it) is with high-volume machinery running at spec, but I would tend to trust Ctein's take on it.

Essentially you have to do everything in the dark. In reality, a certain safelight (Kodak #13) is permissible, but is necessarily so dim that finding your way in the darkroom is about all you can do. But it's not too difficult to learn how to tray develop in the dark.
....

Click to expand...

I have done room-temperature RA-4 processing in trays with the Kodak #13 safelight using the Kodak RA-RT chemicals. See this thread:

(there was a url link here which no longer exists)

Ok, some good stuff to work with there.

The paper i ordered online arrived today so really itching to get back and do some more, hoping to find time one evening next week.
I honestly have no idea what RA4 chemicals are available, while i'm there will have to have a good rummage around and see what there is to work with.
I know there is a tetenal c41 kit though so very tempted to have a pop at some colour film developing.
From what i understand the darkroom was mostly filled with very old donated kit, and only regularly used by a few people, is a shame really.
Reasonably sure (i think) it was a JOBO rotary processor thingamabob i saw lurking under the sink, poor thing really looked like it had seen better days though. If i cant get it working will have to go down the tray route, otherwise think it will be easier, at least while i'm on the learning curve.

Thanks all

For me, colour isn't so interesting. The process is fixed. Do it according to the formula and it works the same every time. I prefer to use a lab to develop and scan/print because it would be no different to me doing it myself. B&W printing is a whole different ball-game. The subtleties of developer, paper, contrast, exposure, toning + ability to use alternative processes like lith, are much more of an art form. Colour has it's place, but I love B&W

There are ways to manipulate color processes to alter the look. I prefer optical prints to ink-jet, and since making RA-4 prints in trays is as easy as b&w, I love to shoot color negative film and print it optically. I generally don't need to do any manipulation, since I like my results to look natural, but as I said there are ways, and they are there if I need them.