Not to fill much frustrated, I returned to the former experience, using color developer from Tetenal Colortec. I had a batch of the 3 baths of Tetenal that I prepared and already used to develop successfully some 4 or 5 color films. I just replaced now the developer bath with a Caffenol base to witch I added this time 30 ml of the prepared Tetenal color developer bath. The recipe was:
Developer:
2 tsp washing soda
4 tsp Soluble coffee
30 ml Tetenal developer solution
water to make 700 ml
The temperature of the developing bath was kept at about 40 ºC, some times more, some times less because I had to poor hot water (I don't have a thermostatic bath). The developing process took 45 min, followed by the other parts, bleach-fix and stabilizer according to Tetenal Colortec.
The negative looked like this example:
The image above, after positivation with GIMP:
The same image, with a slight reduction of saturation, followed by automatic white balancing in GIMP:
The colors in the last picture are quite correct, the appearance of grain is not due to the negative but more to the automatic process in GIMP. But I am not an expert in GIMP. And I didn't care too much with the dust spots in the negative (they are digitized with a digital camera), the purpose is to get color with caffenol!
7 comments:
Now, to asess what you have, try adjusting your formula:
Use NO coffe, keep everything the same, I bet it gets better......
Then after yo have treid that, seek up someone that sell the color developer chemical in its pure powder form, CD4, and use that as a developing agent, ca 3 - 4 gram is a good starting point.
Just soda and CD4, nothing else.
Add sodium sulphite as a preservative, and expect way better results.
But your aim should be a developer that works good at 20 centigrade, not 40.
Thank you, ErikP for commenting, your suggestions are of course to follow. I don't have yet CD4 pure, but the next I will follow your tips. If you have a suggestion on where to buy CD4, please tell me, or I will look for blind in internet, I don't use to buy special stuffs.
In fact, if the color appears with just 30 ml Tetenal already mixed and soda, this is already something, or not? Look, one can make hundreds of films with only a little Tetenal. But that is not my purpose, of course. I want a homemade C41. This purpose of temperature will be left in second line, for now.
The other gentleman commenting on your work has a link, or several links to bothy CD3 and CD4, even the old CD2 might work.
I imported your picture the dark reversed one and used Piassa to change the colors(just one click) with the same result as yu. Since the resolution was low, about 3 megapixels I wonder if the result would been better as far as grain goes if I inverted a full scan in Picassa?
Keep in mind that ascorbate and the color developing agent COMPETES for silver grain to act upon, and in effectr limits boths, so you get a weaker negative.
I'd try as simple developer as I could, I think we might have something here......
Increase tetenal to 60ml keep the soda and loose the coffe & vitaine C!
Good luck.
OK! That is what I am trying right now, preserving time and temperature as before, that is to say, 45 min at 40 ºC. Thanks for the suggestion.
I finished now, it looks very dark but has image and I hope color as well. I am going to dry and post result.
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