Processing B&W Photos

First, load the film onto a reel and place it in the tank. All this must be done in the dark. Lay out your tools in front of you: film cassette, can opener, film reel, tank and tank cover. Make sure you know their positions. Turn off the light and you're ready.


Step 1: Remove the film from the cassette. Pull the flat end off the 35mm canister with a can opener. Unwind the film and take off the end of the film from the spool by peeling off the tape that joins it.


Step 2: Load the film onto either a metal or plastic film reel. With plastic, you slide one end of the film into a slot on the outer edge of the reel and "walk" the film in until it is loaded. Following the instructions that come with the tank, practice loading a few times with a sacrifical roll in daylight so you can see and get the feel for it. Once you feel like you're ready, close your eyes and try it. You're going to mess up, but keep trying. The first roll you actually try to develop should not have important material on it.

Step 3: Put the reel in the film tank and cover it. You may now turn on the light. "Soup" Time! Lay out the chemicals in front of you: a film developer (nickname: soup), a stop bath, and a fixer with hardener, and a hypo eliminator bath.


Step 4: Be sure you're controlling the temperature of the chemicals. Development time is directly affected by two things: the speed of the film and the temperature of the developer. The suggested temperature is 68-70 degrees for processing. Most film is processed between 65 and 75 degrees. Higher temperatures could lead to "reticulation", which gives film a coarse, overly-grainy appearance.


Step 5: Without opening the tank, pour developer into the open part of the sealed film tank. This is known as the pour spout. Cover it. To keep fresh chemical on the film surface, quickly turn the tank upside down every minute. When it is upright again, tap it a few times against your work surface to remove air bubbles. Develop film for the time recommended on the packaging. When you're finished, take the lid off the tank's pour spout and pour it out.


Step 6: Pour running water into the pour spout for one minute so that you can stop development. If not, you can mix a little bit of glacial Acetic Acid with water (a 1:30 ratio) and leave the film in there for 30 seconds to wash off the developer. Both of the these methods are known as "stop bath."


Step 7: We can now fix the image so it's viewable in normal light. Be sure to use a fixer with hardener. This will help protect the negative from getting easily scratched. It should take about 5 to 10 minutes depending on whether or not you used the normal or rapid fixer. By the time you're done, you'll be able to check the negatives,but you'll probably want to wait until you're all done.


Step 8: Now that there's no need to worry about the film being exposed to light, take the tank cover off and put the film in cold running water for five minutes. You may take out a little bit of film to see if your negatives are there.


Step 9: Take off all of the fixer so that the negatives don't look like they have white stains on them. Pour in a tankful of Hypo Eliminator (also called Hypo Clearing Agent) and leave it in there for two minutes.


Step 10: Last wash for five minutes.


Step 11: Without touvhing the surface of the negatives, pull them out of the tray.


Step 12: When the film is dry, use scissors & cut the film into strips. The strips should be six negatives long. Make sure you'll cut the images in the spaces between. Last but not least, put them in clear glassine enevelopes or PVC plastic negative pages.