Film Processing

Film processing is one of the big part of film photography. Unlike digital camera nowadays, you can’t just download and copy to your computer to view and print. For film photography, you either need to send it to lab or do the processing yourself. It is troublesome but also very interesting. There are various reason to doing film processing, but for most photographers, the most obvious reason is probably the satisfaction of “making” a photograph, in the literal sense, from beginning to end.


Sending exposed film off to be developed can leave you feeling that you have cut short the creative process. Of course there will be occasions when, because of time pressure or film type, you will have to rely on a commercial processor. But when you can do it yourself, you will have far greater control over the results, in many instances with greater economy, which is an important consideration if you shoot lots of pictures.


Most of us are initiated to the darkroom experience by processing black-and-white films. Traditionally, black-and-white films had greater latitude than color films and therefore were more forgiving both in exposure and processing. Color processing was more exacting and required more care than black-and-white.
 

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