Film

Developing

Name : JAMEEL
Roll No .: 1711605002
Course : BSC Visual

communication
 1. Introduction

Photographic film is a strip or sheet of transparent plastic film base coated on one side with a
gelatin emulsion containing microscopically small light-sensitive silver halides crystals. The
sizes and other characteristics of the crystals determine the sensitivity, contrast and
resolution of the film.

Photographic processing or development is the chemical means by which photographic film or

paper is treated after photographic exposure to produce a negative or positive image.
Photographic processing transforms the latent image into a visible image, makes this
permanent and renders it insensitive to light.

There are mainly three kinds of standard films :

 Black and White

 Color Negative
 Infrared films

Kodak Ektachrome Infrared Color 35mm Color Film (Expired: 1970's)

An example of color infrared.

Film developing is the processs through which the photographers could easily learn about the
digital sensor and the working and the change between the digital and the chemical.

There are a number of developing processes, many of the upcoming and current photographers
are unaware of which is more interesting and challenging process, than the current digital
processing.So i wish to bring it up to the attention of others.

And so by understanding this process the photographers would be able to undertsand and work
with camera and its technical aspects more carefully.

2. Project Background

Since the Renaissance era, artists and inventors had searched for a mechanical method of
capturing visual scenes. Using the camera obscura , artists would manually trace what they
saw, or use the optical image in the camera as a basis for solving the problems
of perspective and parallax, and deciding color values. The camera obscura's optical reduction
of a real scene in three-dimensional space to a flat rendition in two
dimensions influenced western art, so that at one point, it was thought that images based on
optical geometry (perspective) belonged to a more advanced civilization. Later, with the advent
of Modernism, the absence of perspective in oriental art from China, Japan and in Persian
miniatures was revalued. In the early seventeenth century, the Italian physician and
chemist Angelo Sala wrote that powdered silver nitrate was blackened by the sun, but did not
find any practical application of the phenomenon.
The discovery and commercial availability of the halides: iodine, bromine and chlorine a few
years earlier (iodine was discovered by Courtois in 1811, bromine by Löwig in 1825
and Balard in 1826 independently, and chlorine by Scheele in 1774) meant that silver
photographic processes that rely on the reduction of silver iodide, silver bromide and silver
chloride to metallic silver became feasible. The daguerreotype is one of these processes, but
was not the first, as Niépce had experimented with paper silver chloride negatives while
Wedgwood's experiments were with silver nitrate as were Schultze's stencils of
letters. Hippolyte Bayard had been persuaded by Arago to wait before making his paper
process public.
Previous discoveries of photosensitive methods and substances—including silver
nitrate by Albertus Magnus in the 13th century, a silver and chalk mixture by Johann Heinrich
Schulze in 1724, and Joseph Niépce's bitumen-based heliography in 1822 contributed to
development of the daguerreotype.
The first reliably documented attempt to capture the image formed in a camera obscura was
made by Thomas Wedgwood as early as the 1790s, but according to an 1802 account of his
work by Sir Humphry Davy:
The images formed by means of a camera obscura have been found too faint to produce, in any
moderate time, an effect upon the nitrate of silver. To copy these images was the first object of
Mr. Wedgwood in his researches on the subject, and for this purpose he first used the nitrate of
silver, which was mentioned to him by a friend, as a substance very sensible to the influence of
light; but all his numerous experiments as to their primary end proved unsuccessful.

The earliest practical photographic process was the daguerrotype; it was introduced in 1839 and
did not use film. The Daguerreotype process , or daguerreotypy, was the first publicly available
photographic process, and for nearly twenty years it was the one most commonly used.
Invented by Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre and introduced worldwide in 1839, daguerreotype
was almost completely superseded by 1860 with new, less expensive process yielding more
readily viewable images. During the past few decades, there has been a small revival of
daguerreotypy among photographers interested in making artistic use of early photographic
processes.
To make the image, a daguerreotypist would polish a sheet of silver platted copper to a mirror
finish, treat it with fumes that made its surface light sensitive, expose it in a camera for as long
as was judged to be necessary, which could be as little as a few seconds for brightly sunlit
subjects or much longer with less intense lighting; make the resulting latent image on it visible
by fuming it with mercury vapor; remove its sensitivity to light by liquid chemical treatment, rinse
and dry it, then seal the easily marred result behind glass in a protective enclosure.
The image is on a mirror-like silver surface, normally kept under glass, and will appear either
positive or negative, depending on the angle at which it is viewed, how it is lit and whether a
light or dark background is being reflected in the metal. The darkest areas of the image are
simply bare silver; lighter areas have a microscopically fine light-scattering texture. The surface
is very delicate, and even the lightest wiping can permanently scuff it. Some tarnish around the
edges is normal.
Several types of antique photographs, most often ambrotypes and tintypes, but sometimes even
old prints on paper, are very commonly misidentified as daguerreotypes, especially if they are in
the small, ornamented cases in which daguerreotypes made in the US and UK were usually
housed. The name "daguerreotype" correctly refers only to one very specific image type and
medium, the product of a process that was in wide use only from the early 1840s to the late
1850s.

The light-sensitive chemicals were formed on the surface of a silver-plated copper sheet. The
calotype process produced paper negatives. Beginning in the 1850s, thin glass plates coated
with photographic emulsion became the standard material for use in the camera. Although
fragile and relatively heavy, the glass used for photographic plates was of better optical quality
than early transparent plastics and was, at first, less expensive. Glass plates continued to be
used long after the introduction of film, and were used for astrophotography and electron
micrography until the early 2000s, when they were supplanted by digital recording methods.
Ilford continues to manufacture glass plates for special scientific applications.
The first flexible photographic roll film was sold by George Eastman in 1885, but this original
"film" was actually a coating on a paper base. As part of the processing, the image-bearing layer
was stripped from the paper and attached to a sheet of hardened clear gelatin. The first
transparent plastic roll film followed in 1889. It was made from highly flammable nitrocellulose
now usually called nitrate film
Although cellulose acetate or safety film had been introduced by Kodak in 1908,[11] at first it
found only a few special applications as an alternative to the hazardous nitrate film, which had
the advantages of being considerably tougher, slightly more transparent, and cheaper. The
changeover was completed for X ray films in 1933, but although safety film was always used for
16 mm and 8 mm home movies, nitrate film remained standard for theatrical 35 mm films until it
was finally discontinued in 1951.
Hurter and Drifield began pioneering work on the light sensitivity of photographic emulsions in
1876. Their work enabled the first quantitative measure of film speed to be devised.They
developed H&D curves, which are specific for each film and paper. These curves plot the
photographic density against the log of the exposure, to determine sensitivity or speed of the
emulsion and enabling correct exposure.

3. Existing System
Today most of the companies have either stopped or slowed down the film production that led
most of the photographers to abandon this method and migrate to the digital photography that
was at its development at that time, But at the recent of times they have realized its importance
and its challenge and started rehabilitating the method.Companies like Kodak, Fujifilm, Ilford,
etc are the ones that are still producing the photographing Films of different variants.

Conventional photographic films and paper need to be chemically processed after they have
been exposed in order to produce the desired negative or positive image. Development does
three things : it transforms the latent image into a visible image that can be seen, it makes the
visible image permanent and resistant to deterioration with time, and it renders the film
insensitive to light.

Darkroom

A Darkroom is a workspace, usually a separate area in a building or a vehicle,

made dark to allow photographers to use light – sensitive materials to develop film and
photographic paper to make photographic prints.

Processing :

a. Black and White:

In processing, the film is removed in a light proof bag from which it is then
treated in chemical baths. These baths are maintained at closely monitored temperatures and
specific time periods

The developer , which makes the latent image visible.

A stop bath, which stops the action of developer – typically a dilute solution of
Acetic acid. This neutralizes alkaline developer carry-over and removes excess developer
reducing cross contamination of the acid fixer.

The fixer makes the image permanent and light-resistant by dissolving any remaining silver
halides. The fixer is often reffered to as “hypo”.
An optional “Hypo Cleaning Agent” or washing aid bath, which renders fixer more easily
removable by the washing process. Before the use of washing aid , the majority of the fixer is
removed in a brief rinse in water. The wash aid helps remove the remaining hypo.

Clean water wash to remove any fixer, as it is corrosive and can dissolve the elemental silver
over time leading to staining and fading. The washing process can be shorter in time if a
washing aid is use after fixer.

Final immersion in film conditioner is commonplace. This is a solution of alchohol, wetting

agents formaldehyde in de-ionised water. This hardens the film surface, helps drying and
eliminates drying marks from hard water.

Film is then dried in a dust free environment, and finally cut, and put into protective sleeves.

b. Color Development

In color and chromogenic black and white photography, a similar development

process is used except that the reducing silver catalyses the production of dye stuffs in the
emulsion. There are three distinct proicess used here. There C41 process is used for almost all
color negative films and this process dye couplers in the emelsion react with dye reforms in the
developer to generate the visible dyes. An almost identical process is then used to produce
color prints from films. The developing agnets used are derivates of paraphenylene diamine.

Layers of 35mm color film: 1. Film base; 2. Subbing layer; 3. Red light sensitive layer; 4. Green light
sensitive layer; 5. Yellow filter; 6. Blue light sensitive layer; 7. UV Filter; 8. Protective layer; 9.
(Visible light exposing film).

3.Conclusion
Although modern photography is dominated by digital users, film continues to be
used by enthusiasts. Film remains the preference of some photographers
because of its distinctive "look".
Despite the fact that digital cameras are currently by far the most commonly used
photographic tool, and that the selection of available photographic films is much
smaller than it once was, sales of photographic film have been on a steady
upward trend, and companies such as Kodak, which declared bankruptcy in early
2012, among other companies have noticed this upward trend, the president of
Kodak Alaris' film, paper and photo chemical's division Dennis Olbrich has stated
that sales of their photographic films have been growing over the past 3 or 4
years, UK-based Ilford have also confirmed this trend, and have conducted
extensive research on this subject matter, their research showed that 60% of
current film users had only started using film in the past five years, and that 30%
of current film users were under 35 years old.

In 2013 Ferrania, a Italy-based film manufacturer which ceased production of

photographic films between the years 2009 and 2010, was acquired by the new
Film Ferrania S.R.L taking over the old company's manufacturing facilities, and
re-employed some workers who had been laid off 3 years earlier when the
company stopped production of film. In November of the same year, the
company started a crowdfunding campaign with the goal of raising $250,000 to
buy tooling and machines from the old factory, with the intention of putting some
of the films that had been discontinued back into production, the campaign
succeeded and in October 2014 was ended with over $320,000 being raised.\
In February 2017, Film Ferrania unveiled their "P30" 80 ASA, Panchromatic
black and white film, in 35mm format.
Kodak announced on January 5th, 2017, that Ektachrome, one of Kodak's most
well known transparency films that was discontinued between 2012 and 2013,
would be reformulated and manufactured once again, in 35mm still and Super 8
motion picture film formats.
Japan-based Fujifilm's instant film "Instax" cameras and paper have also proven
to be very successful, and have replaced traditional photographic films as
Fujifilm's main film products, while they continue to offer traditional photographic
films in various formats and types.