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Photography Question 

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How to Develop Black and White Slide Film?


Is it the same process to develop slide film as it is negative film? I currently develop b/w film and would like to go to slides. Also can I print the slide film without special equipment?


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December 01, 2002

 

Jeff S. Kennedy
  There are only a few types of b&w slide films out there. The most popular is Agfa Scala and you have to send it off to be developed. Polaroid makes some instant slide films that you can develop yourself with one of their kits. There is a process called Dr5 that takes standard b&w negative film and makes slides out of it but you have to send it off as well. Printing slide film would of course give you a negative image on your paper. It could probably be printed on Ilfachrome paper but I'm not sure what's involved with that. In short b&w slide film is not developed the same way as b&w negative film.


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December 02, 2002

 

BetterPhoto Member
  Thank you Jeff for your response. Can you mention any labs that do quality black and white work? With slides or print film?


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December 02, 2002

 

Jeff S. Kennedy
  There's only a handful of places that do b&w slides. It's very specialized. If you do a search for Dr5 online you should come up with some info. Scala is developed by a limited number of places as well. If you are looking for a good b&w lab for negatives I used to use The Photo Factory in California. They did good work for me.


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December 03, 2002

 

BetterPhoto Member
  Thank you once again. I have emailed them and was quite impressed by their web site. BetterPhoto certainly is a helpful photo chat site - the best I've found.


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December 03, 2002

 

Ricky Lloyd
  Well its an old thread but if anyone is still interested most black and white film is fairly tough these days and can be processed as a slide film, this is known as reversal processing.

Ilford have a detailed *.pdf on their website which will explaine it better than I can. Also I've never done this so im not sure of the results.

If printing yourself you'll need different paper because most black and white papers are for negatives.

Hope that helps.


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April 11, 2003

 
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