Be pacient, I think it will work better and better, until the final result, a satisfactory color print made with Caffenol. I also will come to homemade Bleach and Fixer, with help of some other experimenters.
PS - Meanwhile I finished the 5th experience with 20 ml hair dye component containing P-Phenylenediamine and the result is identical with the 4th, no significant changes for better. Well, I am back to the first experience, with the color developer. This time I measured 30 ml for a bath of 700 ml Caffenol. I am waiting to see.
6 comments:
This will not work.
A color developer like the one in C-41, CD-4, is a develper in it's own. When this developing agent develops the exposed silver, the oxidation products tar results from this, activates the dyes in the film. To get a color, this dyes needs the oxidation products to become a color.
If you use caffenol, the caffeinic acid and ascorbic acid will do the developing, and they doesn't produces the correct oxidation products, so the dyes will not be activated.
You need to loose the caffenol and use only the color developer.
With hair-dye, you won't get all the colors, maybe one or two, but you won't get all the neccessary oxidation products.
Get a small box of CD-4 instead. This is the only developng agent that will give you a good result.
Agree to this, but don't let this deter you!
Find CD4 (or CD3) both color developing agents should work better than this.
Mix a simple developer from soda, borax, sodum sulphite and potassium bromide, essentially the very substances we use for caffenol, save for the coffee and vitamin C, and strart experimenting to try to balance this developer to get good solidly developed negatives, truecolors and all this at 20 centigrade!
If you manage that you have done everyone a GREAT service!
Thank you for commenting here! It is always better to talk to someone about what is going on. Right now I finished developing a piece of film following the first procedure, as described in the second post. There is clearly more image in this negative, in some minutes I will post the result.
CD4 is P-Phenylenediame, the same component that is in the hair dye. Ok, but maybe it is not enough to produce results like the ones I obtain with the color developer added to caffenol.
At this time I should already be in bed, but not until I see this last result.
Yes, I agree that the way is to get CD4 pure and add it to a developer like caffenol or caffenol-c or what else. Wich is not so elegant like finding an every day product containing the needed color developer agent.
But I will keep trying, no doubt about it.
Thanks again for your good sugestions.
No, NOT add it to a developer like caffenol or any other B&W developer.
This because the development done by the B&W develper doesn't produce any color. If 20% of the development is done by the CD4, you get 20% color development, the rest developed by the B&W developer gives you absolutely no color. That's whay you get only faint images.
You say that "CD4 is P-Phenylenediame". Well, it isn't. It is based on P-Phenylenediame, but is has other chemicals bound to the developer, and it is them that results in the correct oxidation products that fits into the molecules of the dyes and makes them a complete color dye. Think of it as a switch. The dyes are there in the flm, but they are completely translucent. When adding the correct chemical, they are switched on and becomes cyan, magenta and yellow. All three of them reacts on the same chemical. They makes a complete color spectrum because they are in three separate layers in the film, separated by color filters so that only the correct part of the color spectrum reaches each layer and exposes the silver.
The upper layer has no fler, but it is only sensible to one color, so it doesn't need any filter.
If you want to pursue this quest finding an everyday product the can act as a developer, please loose the caffenol. It will only make problems for you.
Try with hair-dye and some washing soda. I bet you will get better results with taht than with the caffenol in the mix.
Anonymous, you are wright in what you say, maybe I have to give up using coffee in the mixture. I understood now, and only now, two things, thanks to you and someone else at Flickr: CD4 is not P-Phenylenediamine witch is present in hair dye. Hair dye may give results alone, without coffee or vit. C. I am trying now a suggestion of a friend at Flickr, 60 ml Tetenal with soda, almost equivalent to CD4 + soda. I am waiting for the CD4 to come in some days, weeks...
No, the suggestion came from ErikP in another post. Sorry for the mistake!
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