Kodachrome is back!!!... sort of

OK, this is the type of stubbornness that I appreciate.

Background: Kodachrome, with such vibrant colors that Paul Simon even wrote a song about it. It was created by "God and Man" (Leopold Godowsky Jr. and Leopold Mannes) in the 1930s. SADLY, I did not take many Kodachrome photos myself.
The process went kaput when the last lab shut down and it's not a process that people can just do at home, unlike other slide films. So when a company that sells digital presets that simulate film-look wanted to release a Kodachrome preset, they just asked people to send in their Kodachrome slides.

No, wait, they spent two years painstakingly recreated the Kodachrome development process and chemicals.
I APPROVE OF THIS STUBBORNNESS / FOOLISHNESS. I mean, we went to the Moon because it is not easy.

https://petapixel.com/2020/09/15/vs...create-an-authentic-kodachome-film-simulation

Wow! I have two unshot rolls of Kodachrome.

Someone from that company, VSCO, posted here in search of Kodachrome film and later updated the thread to explain what they'd been doing with it and the process: https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/wtb-well-preserved-kodachrome.173500/#post-2309772

reddesert said:

Someone from that company, VSCO, posted here in search of Kodachrome film and later updated the thread to explain what they'd been doing with it and the process: https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/wtb-well-preserved-kodachrome.173500/#post-2309772

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Wonderful. Some of the responses are amusing, heh

This is the only snippet of that past thread worth memorizing: “So, Kodachrome is still dead...”. LOL

To echo a comment in the linked thread - it seems like an immense amount of effort to go to for a fairly simple preset for an app (that doesn't have terribly great impersonations of films) - which clearly could have been more practically put to work revivifying the Kodachrome process for small scale use.

Richard Man said:

OK, this is the type of stubbornness that I appreciate.

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Ditto!

BrianShaw said:

This is the only snippet of that past thread worth memorizing: “So, Kodachrome is still dead...”. LOL

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I think this is worth quoting as well: "This sounds like an awful lot of effort to just make a fake film preset with."

And from the Petapixel article: "an Authentic Kodachome Film Simulation"

WTH is an "authentic simulation"???

paulbarden said:

WTH is an "authentic simulation"???

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IDK but it sounds double plus good.

paulbarden said:

WTH is an "authentic simulation"???

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I imagine they would say that the simulation is authentic because they started with film and chemistry to develop their preset rather than poking around Flickr for example files to mimic. Maybe there was a better term to use but I get what they're saying.

I admire their perseverance for sure.

I wouldn't be surprised if they had hoped to revive the Kodachrome process on a small scale, but found it was just too difficult.

Yes - it's true VSCO developed Kodachrome and I will say this with 100% truth as I'm the one who did the the majority of the developing: It's unbelievably difficult and not worth the effort to develop this stuff on a small scale. The reason it went bust is because it's too expensive to develop and makes zero sense when there are much simpler and more obtainable C-41 and E-6 processes. Digital photography didn't help it's plight either.

Kodachrome is a beautiful film stock, but it's very romanticized, mainly due to the beautiful imagery that was created with it over the decades. I think this is why it's put on such a high pedestal in the film community.

If Kodak (rather Kodak Alaris) decided to bring this back in a way that was scalable and had a good ROI, I would applaud them, but I just don't see it happening. Ektachrome was made to replace Kodachrome with the much simpler E-6 process.

Yes, we were crazy to pursue it, but it was an incredibly fun and challenging project to work on.

Mad scientists at home that decide to pursue this are going to come to the same conclusion I did throughout this process: It's tedious, expensive, time consuming and your results are going to vary wildly depending on how tight your development process is and the quality of your film. If your film was not freezer stored or shows any signs of age fogging (which is hard to determine from buying rolls from folks here or on ebay), throw the roll of KC in the trash.

Mowrey has confirmed this many times on this forum and having pursued and successfully developed it, I can say with 100% confidence it's not worth the trouble on expired Kodachrome and a non-existent K-14 process. May he rest in peace.

Kodachrome was essentially a motion picture process, with all the volume that was inherent in that.
if the volume were to come back, the film and process would be viable again.

Kyle Hale said:

Ektachrome was made to replace Kodachrome with the much simpler E-6 process.
.

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the earl Ektachrome was created so that Military users could get results right away without having to send potentially Classified images to Kodak. even overnight service is too slow if you are deciding if you need to send out a second Bombing run.

I am a mad scientist and even with access to a decent laboratory and any chemicals money can buy I'm not going to attempt the K14 process....I doff my metaphorical hat to those who have. I miss Kodachrome but 10 years ago reluctantly accepted it's not coming back.