B &W processed as C-41

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I have a roll of T-Max 400 that was mistakenly processed as a C-41 B&W. Of course the prints are blotto, and I was wondering if there was a way to save these critical negs?? Scan and adjust on the digital brain waster? (My PC) What do you suggest? (Other than shooting at sunrise the nice young lady that perpetrated this crime) ...........thanks, jim

-- Jim Martin (jimm@apsmaterials.com), January 15, 2001

Answers

Jim, unfortunately once the negs are proccessed, there is no reversing the processsing. especially in the case of c-41 proccessing

You might be able the scans and save "SOME" of the negs (hopefully), but other than that, shooting the lady is the only retribution you will get my friend. Sorry.

Perhaps telling the pimple-headed hormone bags that it is black & White film not colour may save you this loss in the future :)

Regards,

Nauman

-- Nauman Saghir (nsaghir@hotmail.com), January 15, 2001.


C-41 is a four-step process: Developer, Bleach, Fixer, Stabilizer.

There is no recourse at this point for the development stage, and who knows what C-41 bleach does to B&W films, but T-Max films require longer fixing times than others and they need a thorough wash to remove the purple anti-halation backing. If the negatives are purple, I would wash them to remove the stabilizer, refix, rinse, treat with Perma-Wash or Kodak Hypo Clearing Agent, and then do a final wash and see how the negatives look.

At least they should be properly fixed and cleared.

Compare the negs to negs you know to be properly processed. If they are thin (sounds likely), and they are really worth the effort, you might get some improvement by treating them with Selenium Toner or Chromium Intensifier. If they are too dense (I doubt it, but who knows?), you might try a reducer. Of course you will never get back detail that's been lost, but you might get more printable negatives.

-- David Goldfarb (dgoldfarb@barnard.edu), January 15, 2001.


If your film was processed in C-41 then you should have absolutely no image on your film, not the writing on the side saying KODAK TMY or any image made by the camera. The C-41 process is designed to remove ALL of the silver from your film. If you have any image then whoever processed your film has a processor that is severely out of whack. Maybe the other possibilty is that they just screwed up in processing your T-Max and are hoping that you will by the C-41 story. Sounds suspicious to me.

-- Jeff White (jeff@jeffsphotos.com), January 15, 2001.

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