![]() Once the tank is full, cap it then start your time. When the developer hits the 39.5☌ mark, dump the water in the developing tank and pour in the developer. Pour some water from the holding bath into your development tank and then set the filled tank into the holding bath while your chemicals finish heating. This rinse also serves to warm the tank and get rid of your film’s ant-halation backing. This will allow water to saturate the emulsion so that the chemicals will have a more efficient effect. This is also a good time to give your film its first rinse. Keeping the correct temperature usually means injecting a blast of hot water whenever you see the thermometer reading start to drop it’s pretty simple. Once this temperature is reached, you will need to maintain it for the rest of the process. While you are waiting for the chemicals to warm, go ahead and fill the holding bath using hot and cold taps until you reach exactly 39☌. ![]() ![]() This is actually half a degree too hot, but I find that in pouring the chemicals into the developing tank the chemicals will cool enough to place you right on target. Insert a thermometer into the developer bottle and wait for it to reach 39.5☌. Start by placing the chemical bottles into the heating bath. I’m assuming that you already know how to load your film onto reels and then place them into a developing tank, but just in case you do not, you can learn here. I have both of these baths set below a faucet so that I can inject hot and cold water when needed and I use two thermometers, one to monitor the holding bath and the other to keep an eye on the developer as it is heating. The second bath is a holding bath kept at 39☌ and that keeps the chemicals at just the right temperature once they have been heated. I use this to bring the chemicals quickly up to temperature. The first is a heating bath filled with extremely hot water. The most important thing to note is that I use two water baths. We’re almost ready to get started, but first I need to say just a few words on my setup. When finished, store each chemical in a lightproof plastic container. Make sure not to breathe in the powder while mixing, as this stuff is far from benign. The developer goes into one liter of hot water, blix A and blix B are mixed together in another liter, and the stabilizer gets yet another. It will include four easy-to-mix powdered chemicals and according to the box, should develop 12-15 rolls of 35mm film (online reports have put this number closer to 25-30). This kit is also sold under the names Jobo and Unicolor, but they’re all the same. The most common chemical kit out there is the Tetenal C-41 Press Kit. At any rate, don’t let the process frighten you I stand by my earlier words of encouragement. But what I am saying is that developing color negative film has greater tolerances if you are planning to scan your negatives as any colorcasts can be easily corrected via Photoshop. Now, I’m not saying that you can’t get consistent results indeed if you follow my method, your negatives should be VERY consistent. Working with digital scanners today, this is not nearly so much of an issue. In the days of old, getting these conditions wrong caused big problems since photographers needed a solid baseline from which to color-balance their enlargements. Failing that, you will get odd color shifts and poor contrast. For the C-41 process to work, you need to carefully monitor the developer’s temperature to the degree, and stick with the prescribed methods of timing and agitation. If that doesn’t make it simple enough, the process only takes about 15 minutes from start to finish. There is one basic method with one set of chemicals and one set of times. This is not the case for color print film. You see, with the black and white process, there are any number of film/chemical/time/agitation combinations that can be utilized to achieve a vast array of results. Truth be told, in many ways color negative development is actually easier than that of black and white. Sure, the process can be a bit finicky but I will go so far as to say that the C-41 process is well within the capabilities of any photographer who has even the most basic knowledge of black and white film development. That’s right so don’t let the naysayers tell you otherwise. And to show us he has put together a very informative step by step process on how to develop colour yourself.Ĭolor negative development, or C-41, isn’t hard. But Horatio insists it is not as hard as you might think. I have done it once in college and I messed it up. ![]() Admittedly the thought of doing this puts most of us in jitters. Horatio Carney has been kind enough to put together a guest post for us about how to develop colour film. Developing colour film is not as hard as you think ![]()
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