Here’s a secret: you can develop black & white film cheaply and cleanly in your very own bathroom. The site has a list of all the things you’ll need, where to get them and a good step by step (with black and white photos) on developing your own film. The comments are a great too for some additional tips too Link.
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I have developed hundreds of rolls of film in the past. The instructions jibe very closely to the way I used to do it. Of course with bw negative you still have to print them (or scan them)which ads to the cost.
There are some BW films that use the color (c-41) development process that are quite good. Note that true BW film often doesn’t work with the automatic dust removal.
You can also turn color scans into BW using photoshop to match balck and white films color sensitivity (and also ad filters). This doesn’t match BW nice grain structure though.
Link:To black and white
Link:more”>http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/b-w_better.shtml”>Link:more info on black and white
It is important to remember that developer and fixer is extremely hazardous to the environment and everyone who lives from it (everybody: you, your friends, their friends, their kids, their pets, etc), and should NEVER be dumped down the drain. The author of the otherwise-great article glosses over this. BE RESPONSIBLE!
This is a good quicky intro to DIY film developing, but hardly qualifies as a hack and does not add any thing new to a technique that has been practiced in bathrooms (I use the kitchen) for – what- a hundred years?
here’s a hack I use. Add reticulation (crackled texture) for a cool effect. While doing a final rinse after fixing, use hot water from the tap. After setting for about a minute run really cold water. You are basically causing the emulsion to expand and contract rapidly and cracking it up into little peices. Caution: there is no Undo function.