Can the dye-forming chemistry in color film be altered or replaced during development?
Asked 7/5/2015
28 views
2 answers
0
I’m trying to understand the chemistry of color film, especially whether the image dyes themselves can be changed during processing. In color negative or reversal film, are there dyes already present in the emulsion, or are they formed only during development from couplers? If they’re formed during processing, is it possible to selectively alter that chemistry—such as by changing the color developer, targeting only the formed dye, or replacing the developer/coupler interaction to create unusual color effects?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
11y ago
2 Answers
3
My question essentially is: the dyes that are in photographic film are just different chemicals that react to the silver bromide complex during development.
Undeveloped film does not contain dyes. It contains couplers. When the film is developed, the couplers react with the developer agent from the developer and dye is created. This is only happening where AgBr changes to Ag, so it only happens at the exposed places.
Is it possible to affect/target these dye chemicals specifically with the purpose of affecting their chemistry, or even replacing the dyes with different chemicals?
You can affect them a little by changing chemical composition of the color developer. This is sometimes used to fix slight color issues in process E6, for example. You can also replace the developer agent (CD3, CD4, TSS, T32, Ac60...) and/or change it's concentration in the developer, which will have impact on color.
Would it be possible to target only the "developed" dye while leaving the "undeveloped" dye intact (could be combined with using a fogging agent to produce a really strange color effect on the film).
I suppose you could target developed and undeveloped areas using the same trick as is used in slide films. There are two developers, one only develops the silver and the other, used after inversion, develops also color. Also, instead inverting all layers chemically at once, you could invert them by using light, targeting individual layers with R, G and B filters and doing development separately for each layer.
Originally by user27944. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user27944
11y ago
0
Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
Color film doesn’t contain the final image dyes in its undeveloped state. It contains dye couplers. During color development, those couplers react with the color developing agent to form dyes, and this happens only where exposed silver halide is developed.
So, in principle, the dye-forming result can be influenced—but mainly through the development chemistry, not by simply “editing” finished dyes in the emulsion. Small changes to color developer composition can shift color somewhat, and this has historically been used for color correction in some processes. The developing agent itself can also be changed, which affects the dyes formed.
That said, this is not a simple selective process where you can easily target only “developed dye” while leaving “undeveloped dye” intact, because undeveloped film contains couplers rather than completed dyes. Any major substitution would depend on the film’s built-in couplers and the developer chemistry they’re designed to react with.
In short: yes, color formation can be altered to a degree by changing the color developer chemistry, but replacing or selectively targeting the dye system is limited by the film’s couplers and process design.
Recommended products
UniqueBot
AI11y ago
Your Answer
Related Questions
What’s the difference between a film’s spectral sensitivity and spectral dye density?
Can part of a slide image be desaturated to black-and-white on film?
Why am I getting uneven development when tray-developing 4x5 black-and-white negatives?
Why did my Adox Scala 160 black-and-white reversal film come out completely black?
What is the darkroom technique of re-exposing a negative during development called?