Black and White developing at Jessops

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pgemini

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I Have had problems with Jessops in the past. Recently i took an Ilford 400 black and white film in to be developed. I collected them to find negatives and prints all had a pinkish tinge to them and were not black and white. Sales person at store told me it was not black and white film and was not possible to have B & W. Quite unbelievable considering that as what it says on the box! Someone has suggested i takethemback and ask for developing to be done again but for them to turn colour mode off. Any suggestions?........ I am planning to buy a camera in the next month, possibly the Canon 450d but with the lack of expertise at Jessops doubt i will be giving them my money.:(
 
perhaps have a look at a different printer?
talk photography have got a deal with Colab, or one vision as it is now called. http://www.colab.co.uk/ discount code talk10. only just placed my first order, so i dont know what they are like though
 
I had some black and white film pics developed at jessops a few years ago. Won't ever use them again. They came back with a really bad green tint to them. Didn't bother taking them back but I wish I had now.

All they'd have to do is tweak their colour management to black and white specific, that's what I do on my printer now (Epson r2400) to get round any problems, and it works an absolute treat.
 
To be fair to Jessops, some films such as XP2 are black and white films designed to be processed in a standard C41 colour process, and it's normal for the results to have a slight colour cast, the colour of which can vary, but green is the most common.

Unfortunately true black and white processing is becoming more and more specialist as far as the high street processors are concerned and more the preserve of the specilaist labs.
 
I'm guessing the film you used was either XP-2 or BW400CN. These are dye based films that give a monochrome result. They are then printed via a conventional mini lab. Unfortunately it is very difficult ( but not impossible) to get a neutral B&W image this way. The eye is very sensitive to variations within the grey tone,so even a small caste will be seen. Kodak used to manufacture a B&W paper that went through the mini lab RA4 process. This did give better results but from memory had a slight warmish tone. ( A warm black rather than a blue black). I don't know if they in fact produce it anymore.

You may need to approach a specialist lab to see if they can help Colab AKA One Vision may be a good starting point.
 
Black and white film processing has a much larger tolerance for temperature variations during processing, so it's much simpler to process in some temporary Heath Robinson setup in your average bathroom or kitchen. Once the film is safely in the tank, then everything is done with the room light on. You don't need to think about a dark room then unless you're going on to print the negs, but today we have the option of scanning the negs onto the computer, and this might be the most convenient way to go for most users.
 
All they'd have to do is tweak their colour management to black and white specific, that's what I do on my printer now (Epson r2400) to get round any problems, and it works an absolute treat.
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Printing onto photographic paper from negatives is a very different game to inkjet printing though dangleman and you can't just "turn off" the colour.

Basically, you print in either colour or B&W and each has totally separate papers and chemistry to process it in.

(As an aside and a fairly geeky one at that, does anyone know if B&W processes have a name like the colour ones do....E6, C41, RA4 etc?)

Colour printing from negs is all about balancing out the cast created by the film material itself. These casts are often there in colour prints too but it's less noticeable......to most folks anyway. ;)

If you look at the negs you get from these b&w films that go through a colour film process (that's the one called C41 btw), they do usually have a pinkish tinge to the film material. This is totally normal and when you stick this film in an enlarger and print onto real b&w paper, that colour cast is ignored.

When you place that film through a normal minlab machine churning out colour prints (that's the RA4 process for anyone collecting geek points), that pinky tinge is reversed out to a green cast. Given to a good printer, it's easily removed and a neutral b&w print is totally achievable. It does take time though and time is money and your not paying for that kind of service with a jessops d&p.

I've always considered those sorts of prints to be nothing more than a proof or contact sheet service to see which shots are worth actually printing.
 
dazzajl said:
(As an aside and a fairly geeky one at that, does anyone know if B&W processes have a name like the colour ones do....E6, C41, RA4 etc?)
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I'm getting D70 from the fuzzy memory banks, but it's been a while so I could be wrong. :D
 
I didn't realize black and white (lab) film printing was so complex. I confess to knowing b****r all about it tbh.

Basically then, if you want quality b&w film developing then you have to go to a specialist. Is it the case that jessops et al will never produce decent prints for you, without some form of colour cast?
 
Black and white printing isn't more complex, in fact it's much, much easier than colour. The fact that no-one is doing it any longer is purely down to the drop in demand for black and white film. Films like XP2 are a compromise solution attempting to produce mono prints in an automated colour processor.

If you really want good mono shots then you need to buy true mono film, FP4, Pan F etc, and either process it yourself, or bite the bullet and send it to a pro lab which will be more expensive but the results will be worth it.
 
Is it the case that jessops et al will never produce decent prints for you, without some form of colour cast?
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That's pretty much exactly it. You are far better off, as you say, sending them off to be printed "properly" on to real b&w paper. Or failing that taking a scan and getting an inkjet done. :)

With so many people on here regressing back to the old ways, perhaps I really should be thinking about setting up a darkroom for fine art printing.
scratchchin.gif
:lol:
 
CT said:
I'm getting D70 from the fuzzy memory banks, but it's been a while so I could be wrong. :D
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Try D76. B&W developer manufactured by Kodak. ID11 Similar product made by Ilford... Sad that I know that. my favorite was Microdol -X
 
CT 's right B&W printing is in fact fairly simple. And can be a lot of fun , if you have the space, time and inclination to do it.

Having been there, done it and acquired several T shirts, I personally prefer to use my ink jet printer. However I must say to get results similar to those I remember on silver rich papers it looks as though it could get expensive.
 
my favorite was Microdol -X
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I think there lies the major difference between b&w and colour work.

All the b&w devs are a little different and we all have our favourite to use. In the colour world, C41 is C41 and the whole idea is that the results will be the same whether you get supplied by kodak, fuji, konica, agfa or whoever.

One is an expressive art where no two people are likely to ever make the same print and right or wrong is hard to pin down.

The other is either right or wrong and dodge and burn aside, should be much the same wherever it's made.
 
dazzajl said:
One is an expressive art where no two people are likely to ever make the same print and right or wrong is hard to pin down.

The other is either right or wrong and dodge and burn aside, should be much the same wherever it's made.
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Here I must disagree.

I have in my time met several pro lab printers that have been able to produce stunning results from colour negs onto photographic papers. Yes OK these guys were at the top of their trade and many of the skills learned came from days in B&W darkrooms. They also very kindly passed on some of their knowledge to me , although I'll never be as good as many of them.

However I take the general point that maybe B&W printing in many ways was individualistic. All I would suggest is that maybe with the digital systems and inkjet printers, software, such as Photoshop we are getting back to the more artistic methods we once saw.

Gets off soap box:)
 
We're not disagreeing at all chappers.

I have in my time met several pro lab printers that have been able to produce stunning results from colour negs onto photographic papers.
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Way way back in a past life I'd like to think I was that kind of printer. I think that if you took five good printers, one b&w neg and one colour one. Had each one make a print off each neg you'd end up with 10 stunning prints but the colour ones would all be near enough the same and the b&w would all be very different.

To me, the two disciplines require a very different approach. b&w requires the printer to bring out the tones and atmosphere, to interpret the neg to some degree and come up with a vision.

Colour can be tricky because getting that print that really sparkles is like hitting a very small target from a long range. It's not easy, requires practice, hard work and is really satisfying when you nail it. :)
 
Sorry to drag this back to the original post but black and white films are now in the main dye based, as opposed to Silver Halide, and have been since Kodak introduced T Max films back in the 80's. The Ilford equivalent is Delta and I guess you used Delta 400. As with TMax this can exhibit a pink dye even when processed in traditional developers such as D76/ID11, and which can be removed through fixation although does not cause any detriment to the images if present. Kodak devised a two bath fixing process for T Max simply to allow "traditionalists" to remove the pink cast and leave themselves un tinted Black and White negatives to work on.
Silver Halide films do still exist HP5, FP4 etc although they are harder to source.
 
fletch5 said:
perhaps have a look at a different printer?
talk photography have got a deal with Colab, or one vision as it is now called. http://www.colab.co.uk/ discount code talk10. only just placed my first order, so i dont know what they are like though
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Sorry to hijack the thread a little but i'm planning on ordering from colab shortly but am a bit confused as to whether to use Roes or CrystalPixPro, you need to register with Roes, do you need to do that with CrystalPixPro as well?:thinking:
 
Sorry to correct you but both Kodak TMax and Ilford Delta were primarily Silver halide films.

Ilford introduced XP-1 as the first dye based film . Although not designed to be C41 compatible it would go through C41 chemicals. Kodak several years later introduced T400CN which was fully C41 compatible.

The "pink" dye seen on some TMax film was the result of residual sensitizing dye not being fully eliminated in the processing cycle

Regrettably showing my age :)
 
Im glad i asked, lots of interesting information for me to take in and use in the future. Hopefully get true black and white prints next time. :)
 
Off the subject but can anyone give me advice on which camera to buy. I am starting a Digital/SLR course in June and own both but would like to get a DSLR. Have been recommended the Canon 450d but unsure if i should buy as seems very expensive before all the extras. Although i am sure it would be well worth it in the end.
 
pgemini said:
Off the subject but can anyone give me advice on which camera to buy. I am starting a Digital/SLR course in June and own both but would like to get a DSLR. Have been recommended the Canon 450d but unsure if i should buy as seems very expensive before all the extras. Although i am sure it would be well worth it in the end.
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A bit of an open ended question and you should really open another thread ;) however the first question is What is your budget?

B.
 
so what was / is the ilford film pgemini ? i always thought it ( colour cast )was mainly down to the type of paper used to print on , and im not quite sure how you can take them back and be developed again , maybe printed but not developed .
 
Ilford were the first to produce a chromagenic film, XP1. Chromagenic film is really a colour film without the colour dyes, which is to say it produces B+W negs out of C41 processing.

Originally Ilford made a Developing chemistry kit for XP1 called P-31 chemistry. So you had the choice of developing the negs at home with P-31 or getting your local mini lab to knock them out in C41 chemistry with a set of prints from the colour line. By doing this you could get good reliable negs (to print “properly” at home) with a set of proof prints, all be it with a colour cast.

XP1 was refined to XP2 and Kodak introduced CN400. Ilford dropped the P-31 chemistry.

Generally getting good high street processing from a B+W film is quite hard as different films need different handling, but the big labs put them all in the same developer for the same time ect. This results in very poor negs and worse prints. Chromaenic films offer the chance of getting good negs from the high street by using standardised C41 chemistry.
The other advantage of these films is high ISO rating with low grain as the neg is a dye, not silver halide grain.

So get your negs cheaply on the high street (from Jessops perhaps) and then send the goods ones for “proper” printing with a specialist lab.

As far as B+W process types go many manufactures had many types which offered compromise between ease of use, fine grain wide film compatibility etc, here’s a few I can remember:-
Ilford
ID11 (powder)
Mircofen (powder)
Iffosol S (concentrate)

Kodak
D-76 (powder I think)
Technodol LC (low contrast developer for theck pan film)

Patterson
Universal (works equally badly with film and paper)
FX-39 (concentrate and one of the best)
Acu speed (push process concentrate)
Acu lux (I think, Gen purpose concentrate)
Acu pan Like technodol LC ( tech pan was a great film and from astronomical suppliers you can buy it hyper sensitized with an ISO of 400-1200)

Agfa
Had a bunch but I can’t remember them of the top of my head. They did great paper and paper dev.
Sorry to bang on but this takes me back to my youth! Please feel free to delete this post if it’s too prolix.
 
Hi Ben, sorry im new to forum. Still learning. Will make sure i do new thread next time. Truth is i want 450d but seems a lot before extras. Any advice would be appreciated :)
 
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