Old Roll Of Film

Kirks got a real good idea! Even if you only got the roll processed, you can still get film/slide scanners for around $20 Then play with them in photoshop. I've got a VistaQuest FS-503. Works great to bring back those faded slides the family shot back in the 50s! I remember when you could call Kodak in Rochester New York & they'd literally walk you through step by step! Fine & dandy until you figured it cost you $40 or $45 in long distance charges. Seriously! check out the film slide scanners they're a lot more useful than you'd imagine for the money. Oh, you can cut masks and do 110 or even disk film.
 

I have done a number of old found films, and what I would ask The Darkroom to do, is to process the negatives as black & white, using either HC-110, Rodinal, or maybe Diafine. Then, do what Film Rescue does, which is scan the B&W images, then re-process the film in best-guess color chemicals, after a bath in potassium ferrocyanide and potassium bromide (I think).

If the film has already been processed as B+W. how can you go back and reprocess it as color? (Not trying to be stupid, honestly curious)
 

Maybe you could have gotten Disney to recover and restore the images on the film! They seem to be great at restoring old films and when they re-release them many years later, they make 2,000,000% profit or more by releasing them in DVD's and Blu-Ray disks.:tongue3:


Frank
 

Shucks - the roll of film was empty
 

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I guess I'll be hunting for the '' fat lady photos '' tomorrow - could take me a while . LOL
 

If the film has already been processed as B+W. how can you go back and reprocess it as color? (Not trying to be stupid, honestly curious)

Hi Keith -

It's called "Film Acceleration", and is a two step process.

Here is filmrescue.com's simplified explanation: https://www.filmrescue.com/faq/what-is-film-acceleration-and-why-and-when-do-we-do-it/

And here are two images that they did this way, one came out fine, the other the color was toast: http://www.filmrescue.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/BW-to-color1.jpg

I don't know the exact science behind it, but color films are made up of dye layers. Those dyes can deteriorate over time, as far as color retention goes, but the latent image (the undeveloped image on the film) is still there. The B&W developing chemicals can bring out the image without messing with the dyes. After it's developed in B&W, the film is then processed in Potassium Ferrocyanide, and Potassium Bromide, and then processed again in regular color processing chemicals. The two potassium chemicals do something to the dye layers (I think) that undo some of what the B&W chemicals (the fixer most likely) did to the dyes to make them 'developable' again.

I've been wanting to try it myself, and I even have the Potassium Ferrocyanide, but not the bromide. If you do a search for film acceleration, you'll see how it's done, as well as some alternative ways that people do it. There is also what's called cross-processing, but that has a different (creative) purpose, but essentially, with film acceleration you're cross processing, restabilizing, then processing normally.

Before I started metal detecting, all my free time was spent with a camera around my neck, or developing film.
 

Thanks for the explanation. I still don't fully understand how that can work, so I guess I have some more reading to do.
 

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