Tuesday, May 30, 2017

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!


5 comments:

Alexander Rutz said...

Good to see you back at this only a few days after I initially discovered your blog and thanks for sharing all this.

Am I right in assuming the mixture you describe is for a single bath + fixing only? And CD4 is without alternative for proper results, I guess?

All the best,

Alex

Henrique Sousa said...

Thanks for commenting!

Well, it is intended as universal developer for both B&W and C-41. However, when developing color, bleach is necessary and then fixing. For B&W only fixing.

CD4 is the official color developer for C-41. But there are alternatives, like PPD and CD3 that may be considered cross development. A common use substance containing PPD, like hair dyes, could be used but I only had peculiar results with an old movie film. For modern c-41 films hair dye didn't work well until now. Faint colors and weak density.

Be always wellcome!

Alexander Rutz said...

Thanks for elaborating. I’ve only just developed my first bw-film in 18 years. Need to catch up :)

Anonymous said...

Did you use bleach for these pics?
Is is possible to use only Ferricyanide for bleaching??

Henrique Sousa said...

Yes, I did use bleach and fixer. Mostly I use copper sulfate and salt as bleach and Sodium Thiosulfate+Ammonium Sulfate as fixer.