After one year...

One year ago I had to stop my experiments. I am restarting, and I have new results about developing color with coffee... and CD4!

I had, after many not convincing results, established a formula for my universal developer with wich I got some good pictures, color and B&W:

800 ml water
3 g Potassium Metabisulfite
6 g CD4 (color developer for C-41)
20 g Soluble coffee
30 g Potassium Carbonate
1,5 g Potassium Bromide
Water to make 1 Liter

Develop for 15 minutes for both C-41 and B&W at room temperature with constante agitation.

I never had a confirmation off the need of coffee in this recipe. So, I tried to reduce the content of coffee and increase the content of the color developer CD4. But the results showed, clearly, that the coffee content is important. Some people argued with me that beeing coffee a B&W developer, it would compete with CD4, stilling silver that would contribute to more color when developed by CD4.

But the theory was not confirmed by the praxis. Here is a photo developed with the recipe above:

Photo developed with Caffenolcolor

And here is a photo developed with 10g/liter of CD4 and only 10g/liter of coffee:

Less coffee and more CD4

It is obvious that the first photo is more color saturated than the second, and perahps the coffee content should be even increased...

Have a nice time with coffee!