Tiny first result with hair dye and modern C-41 film

The negative of the picture above was made on a Fujicolor 200 film and developed for 1 hour with the same developer that gave in just 15 minutes a much dense image using Fuji Eterna 250D, a movie film long expired. I already posted that image, but here is it again:

I think that modern films just need a higher pH, so I will be trying that as next.

Hair dye and C-41 again

In the first post about this matter, I also said:

The film I used was a movie film, Fujicolor Eterna 250D, and I first soaked for 30 minutes in just Soda to remove the remjet and then washed and developed. I then fixed to see the silver image but the film was already transparent like bleached. But I used then a Blix bath to be sure that only dyes are on film.

A friend suggested that maybe the first bath of just soda was helping too. I may agree now, after having tried to develop a normal modern C-41 film without the first soda bath. It didn't produce decent images and no color at all. On the other hand it seems that the resulting dyes are easely damaged by handling, this is also true for Fujicolor Eterna 250, which is much more stable than the modern emulsion I used. This one could be pealed by passing a finger on it, the other only gets marks.

Yesterday, after the disaster with normal C-41 film, I repeated the test with Fuji Eterna just to see whether the developer was to blame; I used the same batch I prepared on Thursday. Well, maybe a little different, less quality, but still working.



And below is one of the pictures I made with a modern C-41 film, whose brand I can't say because it was in a Fuji cartridge but loaded from another. I often divide a 36 exp. film in 4 parts for tests. It was probably a Fuji or a Kodak.

So, the work must go on! The good results so far were just a consequence of a lucky junction between Fujicolor Eterna 250D and the developer.

Colors developed with Hair dye

On the right side a palette of colors, the so called MacBeth chart, picked up at internet. On the left side a photo of the same chart developed with hair dye developer, version 3, HD3 baptized. This version uses:

50ml hair dye with PPD
5g Sodium Hydroxide
10g Sodium Bicarbonate
5g soluble coffee
2g Potassium Metabisulfite

Color from scratch?

To make a B&W developer from scratch is today very easy. You may use coffee, tea, potatos, wine and so on, all of them can develop silver. But color is very difficult because you need a substance that developing silver produces the right stuff that combined with the dye couplers on the film will generate the dyes. For C-41, the right stuff is CD4 (a complex derivative of PPD, paraphenylenediamine). Ok, other derivatives like CD1, CD2, CD3, will also develope and also PPD alone does it like a friend of this blog did some time ago and shared with us. He offered me to send some PPD but I didn't take the chance because it is also a special stuff and my goal is to use a common stuff like coffee is used for B&W.

Unfortunately there aren't common substances with those potential color developers, one of the only ones are some hair dyes containing PPD. Some people have already tried it, but only a few had some success. I have been trying this for a long time but I couldn't realy get an acceptable result, until today. I also tried para-aminophenol, aka paracetamol, reported also as a weak color developer with tenuous results.

Today, because the wether is bad for walking, I decided to try again with hair dye, following partly the experience of Robert (neelin) . I loaded a piece of film in a camera and from my balcony I made some 6 shots to several directions.

Then I prepared a «soup» containing hair dye and developed the piece of film for 1 hour at more or less 37ºC (100ºF) in my kitchen sink. OK, not only a time, it was the third attempt. I first used 15 min. at room temperature, then 30 minutes at room temperature and finally full one hour at 37ºC.

And my recipe was this one:

50 ml hair dye containing PPD
0,05 g phenidone
1 g sodium sulfite
5 g sodium hydroxide
10 g sodium bicarbonate
5 g potassium bromide
Water to make 500ml

The film looked like a B&W one but at scanning I saturated the colors and also with software afterwoods.

The film I used was a movie film, Fujicolor Eterna 250D, and I first soaked for 30 minutes in just Soda to remove the remjet and then washed and developed. I then fixed to see the silver image but the film was already transparent like bleached. But I used then a Blix bath to be sure that only dyes are on film.

Note: The only special stuff I used was Phenidone like suggested here, and I still don't know if it goes without it. I will try it later because it is important that the developer is realy made from scratch.
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10-2-2016
Update: I did another modification, without phenidone and without Potassium Bromide. Yes, it works too, I will be publishing the results very soon. So, the recipe is now as follows:

50ml hair dye containing PPD
5g Sodium Hydroxide
10g Sodium Bicarbonate
2g Potassium Metabisulfite
Water to make 500ml

Preparation:

I first dissolved the hair dye in some 100 ml water and Sodium Hydroxide also in some 100 ml warm water. I mixed both and stir a lot and let it react for 3 hours. I did this because hair dye is oily and reacting with Sodium Hydroxide will change a part of it to soap. During this three hours I stired sometimes too. But maybe the PPD also reacts with Sodium Hydroxide, I don't know. Then, after three hours I added Sodium Bicarbonate that will also react with Sodium Hydroxide giving Sodium Carbonate. This will lower pH a lot. Finally I added water to make 500 ml and Metabisulfite as preservative.

It works much faster, I only needed 20 minutes to develop. I think this is because it has no Potassium Bromide which is a restrainer. But I couldn't see differences until now. Maybe with KBr you get sharper images but this is not a problem for who just want to use common substances and KBr is, somehow special. Maybe salt, Sodium Chloride may be used instead.

I used a squeezer but it produced horizontal lines.