Processing pictures from film cameras
Processing pictures from film cameras | ||
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If you used a film camera, you need to process your film. A correctly exposed film differs from an unexposed film only at the atomic level, minute chemical changes forming an invisible or 'latent' image. Developing chemicals must then act on your film in darkness to amplify the latent image into something much more substantial and permanent in normal light. You apply these chemicals in the form of liquids; each solution has a particular function when used on the appropriate film. With most black and white films, for example, the first chemical solution develops light-struck areas into black silver grains. You follow it with a solution which dissolves ('fixes') away the unexposed parts, leaving these areas as clear film. So the result, after washing out by-products and drying, is a black and white negative representing brightest parts of your subject as dark and darkest parts pale grey or transparent. A similar routine, but with chemically more complex solutions, is used to process colour film into colour negatives. Colour slide film needs more processing stages. First a black and white negative developer is used, then the rest of the film instead of being normally fixed is colour developed to create a positive image in black silver and dyes. You are finally left with a positive, dye-image colour slide. | ||