Question about Kodak T-Max Professional TCN 400

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I brought a roll of Kodak T-Max Professional TCN 400 to be processed at a one hour place, and when I got the prints back, they were sephia toned. When I asked them why they came out like this, they said that they needed "special" chemicals in order to truly make the prints black and white, and it would cost extra for me to have them done this way. Is there any truth to this? Why would the prints come out as sephia toned? Thanks....

-- Joel Feliciano (bastos18@hotmail.com), January 17, 2001

Answers

Because the pictures were printed on color paper: this gives a sepia tone. TCN400 negatives can easily be printed on B+W paper, giving true B+W, but requires other chemicals.

-- Marc Leest (lith@leest.net), January 17, 2001.

I once shot a roll of the Kodak Royal Gold B&W, which was also chromogenic processing, and it came out fine, no sephia tones and I believe it was printed on color paper also...I had it developed at a one hour developer also. I know comparing these to films is like comparing apples to oranges, but is there really that great a difference in the two that when prints are created one will have sephia and the other wont?

-- Joel Feliciano (bastos18@hotmail.com), January 17, 2001.

It really depends on the place you're going to. Our local minilab will give nice almost true b/w prints on colour paper from Kodak TCN 400 and Ilford XP2. Why? Because they took the time to adjust a print channel to these films, so their machine can print them correctly.

Two other bigger processing labs (tourist quality) will print them sepia or brownish, because they are to lazy to adjust the machine properly. So they run a correction towards sepia, because people do not complain enough.

The alternative is a true b/w print on b/w paper with b/w chemistry.

On the other side I saw some good prints which looked like Sepia toned true b/w but were actually printed on color paper.

Regards,

Wolfram

-- Wolfram Kollig (kollig@ipfdd.de), January 17, 2001.


There is also an alternative for your lab claiming that they could print on b&w paper but they needed different chemicals. Kodak makes Ektamax and AGFA also makes a chromogenic paper made to go threw regular RA-4 chemistry. This paper does cost more per square foot so they would probably need to charge more. Also, the Kodak C-41 black and white films are very easy to print to a nuetral gray on color paper, if your lab printer says that it isn't then I would find a new lab.

-- Jeff White (jeff@jeffsphotos.com), January 17, 2001.

Joel, your title is a little confusing. T-Max is a B&W film that requires real B&W processing. T400 CN is a B&W film that requires regular one hour color developing (C-41). Sounds like to me that you are referring to T400 CN.

According to Kodak, T400 CN negatives can be printed with regular B&W paper (assuming with normal enlarger and wet work). They also can be printed by the color lab machine (RA-4 process). Wolfram hit it on the head. The standard filter setup for color prints will yield T400 CN prints with a sepia tone. If your lab processor is knowledgable, they can adjust the filtration so that the prints can be neutral or with any color cast you want. Facts gleaned from:

http://www.kodak.com/global/en/professional/products/films/t400cn/qAnd A.shtml

Sounds like to me that your lab is lazy or doesn't know how to do it. You might want to look into another lab if you don't like the sepia toned prints.

-- Johnny Motown (johnny.motown@att.net), January 18, 2001.



CN will give the tone you got on color paper without filtration. B+W Select, the sister film to T 400 CN, is designed to the printed in a mini-lab's gold channel. If you are going to go the mini-lab, machine print route, then B+W select is a better choice.

There is plenty on the difference between these two films in the photo.net Q&A, if you are willing to do a serach to turn up the results.

-- Chris Gillis (chris@photogenica.net), January 19, 2001.


i used to shoot that stuff and lemme tell ya' i've gotten green tones sepia, bluish, and b&w all from the same lab, it is caused by the paper it was printed on, those lab prints should be used as proofs not as representations of your ability at its fullest, that's why I did the switch and went to the darkroom for some serious b&w mayhem....

"sweet, sweet indicator stop, ooohh how you burn my eye's with your vaporous ways..."

-- Jason Tuck (Jtuck80@csi.com), February 01, 2001.


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