home made developing chemicals for color

<p>Hi,<br>

I have been experiementing with some home made B&W developers, using coffee and washing soda and ascorbic acid. The problem is that this developer only creates black and white negatives from ANY kind of film. I was wondering if anyone had a simillar recipe for developing color, in color, from similar chemicals?<br>

Thanks Mick</p>

<p>Unfortunately, the answer to your question is "no", and if you read up on the chemistry of colour film you'll see why. Colour development requires that one or more specific couplers be present in the developer. These couplers are fairly complex organic compounds and are not used for any other purpose.</p>

<p>Try using a detergent marketed for washing coloured clothes, instead of the washing soda ;-)</p>

<p>way back when a company sold a kit<br>

to mix color chemicals from bags of chemicals measured with spoons.<br>

I think they were called ZONE V.<br>

Patrick Dignan had a cookbook for film developing, but he may not have gone as far as suggesting " home brew" color solutions.</p>

<p>I do recall when I was duping slides usink the Kodak E-4 kits, I tried the unichr\me kits. the film came out very blue.<br>

Results with the kodak kit were excellent.<br>

color balance was almost perfect.<br>

( I used up at least 200 feet of film in less than a year.</p>

<p>If Unichrome, could not "get it right"<br>

how can someone get even close at home?<br>

BTW Unichrome told me what was wrong, but never offered a free kit, or any kind of real apology.</p>

<p>See:<br>

http://www.apug.org/forums/forum223/34413-dignan-ncf-41-divided-color-negative-developer.html<br>

and take it from there.<br>

PE suggests it needs KI (1.6mg/l) but to which bath? :-)<br>

Murray</p>

<p>If you are going to try to mix your own color developers, try color negatives. The overall process is far more forgiving than slides. The Dignan color developer formula should produce an image and it might be printable. If you are good at Photoshop, you can always scan it and correct for the deficiencies. </p>

<p>There used to be formulas for E-6 and C-41 available for purchase (actually license) for several thousand dollars. Those who purchased these licenses complied with the requirements of non-disclosure. I suspect Kodak also actively enforced those non-disclosure agreements. I have not seen these formulas published anywhere. The best you can get are several rough guesses like the Dignan formula. </p>

<p>so patrick dignan did!<br>

there was a fellow posting here about using print chemicals top process c-41 film<br>

some person david L???. althouh he was critisized he maintained that it worked well for him.</p>

 

<p>In using the words "home made" and mentioning coffee / vitamin C / washing-soda developers, I automatically assumed the OP asking about colour developers that one can make with supermarket ingredients, rather than specialty chemical purposes. If this is what he meant, the answer is that they don't exist.</p>

<p>As others have posted, even "best guess" approximations to the Kodak C-41 formula are fraught with problems. And you'll need to find a source of CD-4 if you want to mix it yourself.</p>

<p>I've seen some recipes for color chemistry (E-1 through E-4, for example); but, from what I've noticed of it; well, have a look at the ingredients list on an E-6 Single Use Chemistry Kit. There are some relatively common items in there, but, pretty much, you would need to rebuild the kit from scratch.</p>

<p>Some of that stuff was downright toxic; and may be difficult to find. Color developer ingredients, especially, would be on the rare side enough to supersede most casual interests in color films.</p>

<p>Here's another detractor: expense. Some of the chemicals involved are produced by industrial labs, but may be sold in very small volumes at very high prices. Meanwhile, some other items, like plain hypo or hypo clear, would be more like "pennies on the dollar" per use.</p>

<p>Expense and toxicity were two ideas that I saw associated with some color developer ingredients when I was looking around about this type of thing a few months ago. I just went with the kits, and my interest was satisfied. I made some nice color transparencies, and enjoyed it. Too easy.</p>

<p>There are some interesting components that come up; and, I imagine, some substitutions; but, color chem is pretty much dead-on, or dead film.</p>

<p>Try to develop that color film in a banana milk shake (somebody can probably pull it off), and you'll burn more test strips. It'll be just hard enough for you to understand why they have chemical engineers over there.</p>

<p>I'd go with a kit, like for the E-6 or C-41 processes, and master those. That would be enough of a challenge to teach you something about color process. I think those E-6 Single Use kits would be good enough for beginners; relatively simple, and you're done in about an hour, including preparation and rinse.</p>

<p>You need the CD-4, a derivate of P-Phenylenediame. Some people pretend to have used hair dye, wich contains P-Phenylenediame as well. I tried too, without success. Then I decided to use CD-4 but with coffee and soda. It works, take a look at caffenolcolor.blogspot.com</p>