Developing colour film is not as hard as you think
Horatio Carney has been kind enough to put together a guest post for us about how to develop colour film. Admittedly the thought of doing this puts most of us in jitters. I have done it once in college and I messed it up. But Horatio insists it is not as hard as you might think. And to show us he has put together a very informative step by step process on how to develop colour yourself.

C-41 Primer:

Color negative development, or C-41, isn’t hard. That’s right; so don’t let the naysayers tell you otherwise. 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.

Truth be told, in many ways color negative development is actually easier than that of black and white. 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. This is not the case for color print film. There is one basic method with one set of chemicals and one set of times. If that doesn’t make it simple enough, the process only takes about 15 minutes from start to finish. Not too bad, eh?

So why the bum rap? That’s easy, too. 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. Failing that, you will get odd color shifts and poor contrast. 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. Working with digital scanners today, this is not nearly so much of an issue.

Now, I’m not saying that you can’t get consistent results; indeed if you follow my method, your negatives should be VERY consistent. 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. At any rate, don’t let the process frighten you; I stand by my earlier words of encouragement.

The Stuff

The most common chemical kit out there is the Tetenal C-41 Press Kit. This kit is also sold under the names Jobo and Unicolor, but they’re all the same. 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).

Mixing the Tetenol kit is simple enough. 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. Make sure not to breathe in the powder while mixing, as this stuff is far from benign. When finished, store each chemical in a lightproof plastic container.

We’re almost ready to get started, but first I need to say just a few words on my setup. The most important thing to note is that I use two water baths. The first is a heating bath filled with extremely hot water. I use this to bring the chemicals quickly up to temperature. The second bath is a holding bath kept at 39°C and that keeps the chemicals at just the right temperature once they have been heated. 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.

Getting to work:

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.

Start by placing the chemical bottles into the heating bath. Insert a thermometer into the developer bottle and wait for it to reach 39.5°C. 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.

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°C. Once this temperature is reached, you will need to maintain it for the rest of the process. 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.

This is also a good time to give your film its first rinse. This will allow water to saturate the emulsion so that the chemicals will have a more efficient effect. This rinse also serves to warm the tank and get rid of your film’s ant-halation backing. 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.

When the developer hits the 39.5°C mark, dump the water in the developing tank and pour in the developer. Once the tank is full, cap it then start your time. Agitate the tank by completely inverting then righting it for the first ten seconds. Then, do the same for four inversions every half-minute thereafter. Make certain to place the developing tank back into the holding bath when you are not agitating, otherwise your chemicals will start to cool.

After starting the development step, I quit filling the heating bath with hot water. The developer is the most temperature-critical chemical as the blix has a tolerance of 3°C in either direction and the stabilizer can simply cool until needed. You will do fine to leave the remaining chemicals in the heating tank for now.

At 3:15, pour the developer back into its bottle and at 3:30, pour in the blix. Blix is a portmanteau of the words bleach and fixer. The bleach removes the three silver emulsions on your film leaving behind only the color dyes while the fixer will desensitize the emulsion to light. Agitate to the same tune as above for 6:30. Also, as the blix gives off gas during this stage, it’s a good idea to leave the chemical port of your tank uncovered so that pressure will not build. When finished, return the blix to its bottle.

Now, you can open the tank lid and wash the negatives for 3:00 beneath a warm, running tap. This will get rid of any remaining blix.

Finally, add the stabilizer and agitate as before for ten seconds. At 1:00, return the stabilizer to its bottle. And that is the final stage of the development process. No final wash, no Photoflo; simply hang your negatives to dry!

 

Although the negatives may look a bit murky straight out of the tank, after a few minutes, they will begin to clear and in a couple of hours you will have crisp color negatives waiting to be scanned and archived.

As a parting piece of advice, it’s important to note that this is just my process. I played around with it and found something that worked for me. I suggest you use this article as a reference point and do the same. So experiment, have fun, and find what works for you!

Horatio Carney has a site that you should check out www.horatiocarney.com (link is now dead) It is filled with useful stuff. He will also be writing a piece about keeping film economical, so watch out for that.
Do you have experience developing colour? Tell us how it went for you in the comments below.

Thanks
Japancamerahunter