B&W Reversal with Hydrogen Peroxide

relistan · Dec 11, 2020

I found out recently that people have developed a number of cleaner and safer ways to handle the bleach stage of B&W reversal processing. I saw @Donald Qualls mention this and then I ran into this video about doing it that way:

Has anyone tried this? I'm thinking it's worth a go. I have a bunch of Silvermax, which is on a clear base (same film as ADOX Scala 160), and a good candidate. Interested in success/failure stories and any other tips if you've tried it.

I'm interested in this for primarily two reasons:
1. Less toxic stuff to deal with
2. Don't have to order any more chems, I already have all this stuff

Donald Qualls · Dec 11, 2020

People around here have poo-pooed the idea of using peroxide for film. I haven't yet had a chance to attempt it. Joe van Cleave likes it for paper direct positives, however; a little more work, but much cheaper than Harman Direct Positive paper with similar results.

relistan · Dec 11, 2020

Donald Qualls said:
People around here have poo-pooed the idea of using peroxide for film. I haven't yet had a chance to attempt it. Joe van Cleave likes it for paper direct positives, however; a little more work, but much cheaper than Harman Direct Positive paper with similar results.

Interesting, thanks. I saw Joe's color reversal paper work. I will look that up the B&W as well.

Donald Qualls · Dec 11, 2020

There are a number of other YouTube channels that cover paper reversal using peroxide, but Joe's are the ones I can remember a name for...

Raghu Kuvempunagar · Dec 11, 2020

There's no harm in trying it out with a small strip of film like the guy in the video. If it works for you, great.

I used 2-3% peroxide in film reversal and didn't get good results. But I bleached at 25C whereas the video recommends much higher temperature. Maybe that does the trick.

HC-110 with some carbonate does work ok as first developer.

Donald Qualls · Dec 11, 2020

From what I've read, you need 9% minimum, and some sources have recommended 12% peroxide. In the USA, both of these strengths are available from Amazon, and either one can be diluted from the peroxide hair bleach used in salons (which is usually 30%). What if any stabilizers or other chemicals are in the hair peroxide, I couldn't tell you, but the SDS for the stuff should include anything considered hazardous.

flavio81 · Dec 11, 2020

Donald Qualls said:
From what I've read, you need 9% minimum, and some sources have recommended 12% peroxide. In the USA, both of these strengths are available from Amazon, and either one can be diluted from the peroxide hair bleach used in salons (which is usually 30%).

Note:

I'm almost sure the peroxide used in hair salons is "30 volume" which is not the same as 30%. "30 volume" is 9 *nine) percent.

30% hydrogen peroxide would be very strong, dangerous stuff.

flavio81 · Dec 11, 2020

There's a PDF on the 'net about using Hydrogen Peroxide with citric acid for revesal. Hydrogen Peroxide with acetic acid is another recipe.

I think user Alessandro Serrao has more info about this. (I've blocked him here, so somebody will have to ask him)

relistan · Dec 11, 2020

In the video he's using regular drug store (USA) hydrogen peroxide, which AFAIK is 3%. Over here it's not available in drug stores but, being American and this being a normal household chemical, I found that I can order it and always have some around for first aid etc. It comes in 1L bottles. I may give it a shot with that and see.
@Donald Qualls, checking on the stuff they use at hair salons is an interesting point. I suspect that's also readily available here from beauty suppliers.

flavio81 said:
30% hydrogen peroxide would be very strong, dangerous stuff.

It would be. The video from Joe Van Cleave that Donald was talking about (which I just watched) includes the safety precautions for dealing with that exact strength of peroxide. I don't think I want to mess with 30% peroxide.

removed account4 · Dec 11, 2020

relistan said:
I found out recently that people have developed a number of cleaner and safer ways to handle the bleach stage of B&W reversal processing. I saw @Donald Qualls mention this and then I ran into this video about doing it that way:

Has anyone tried this? I'm thinking it's worth a go. I have a bunch of Silvermax, which is on a clear base (same film as ADOX Scala 160), and a good candidate. Interested in success/failure stories and any other tips if you've tried it.

I'm interested in this for primarily two reasons:
1. Less toxic stuff to deal with
2. Don't have to order any more chems, I already have all this stuff

https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/reversal-print-processing-video-new-approach.153447/
there's a thread that goes on for like 7-8 pages with lots of information and samples from people ...
it isn't so much the %strength of the hydrogen peroxide but the right concentration of citric acid. NedL and I were using regular
drug store strength hydrogen peroxide and it worked fine. you can use rust out for your second development. it will develop fog and fix all at the same time.
if you do a test run with 10% citric acid in an eyedropper for your peroxide bath and add drops until it bleaches your PRINT it will probably do the same for your film,
I can't speak for using for film experience but im sure it will be fine, the biggest difference between using it for film vs using with prints is well, you can see it doing its thing with prints with film not so much unless you have IR goggles.
good luck !
john

relistan · Dec 11, 2020

jnantz said:
https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/reversal-print-processing-video-new-approach.153447/
there's a thread that goes on for like 7-8 pages with lots of information and samples from people ...

Thanks! I started with a search and went through more than a page of replies mostly on two different posts where the discussion of peroxide was incidental, and then started a new thread. I'll have a read. Thanks also for the other info.

Raghu Kuvempunagar · Dec 11, 2020

Donald Qualls said:
From what I've read, you need 9% minimum, and some sources have recommended 12% peroxide.

This higher concentration is for room temperature bleaching. At elevated temperatures, 100-105F in the video, 3% might work well. However, nobody can tell it for sure till they've used it several times and gotten consistently good results for films of their choice. Even the lower concentration peroxide bleach at room temperature resulted in pinholes in the film I tried, Orwo UN54. To some pinholes might be acceptable and even a cool thing to have on slides, but it wasn't to me. As I got consistently good results with copper sulphate bleach and subsequently with dichromate bleach, I didn't explore peroxide bleach further.

YoIaMoNwater · Dec 12, 2020

Never tried this but the Youtube guy and the person he linked to said that peroxide bleach leaves orange cast though. If anyone has example of using H2O2 without this cast then I'll be interested in trying it.

Raghu Kuvempunagar · Dec 12, 2020

YoIaMoNwater said:
Never tried this but the Youtube guy and the person he linked to said that peroxide bleach leaves orange cast though..

He probably forgot to use a clearing bath between bleaching and redevelopment steps. At least, in the video he doesn't talk about clearing.

Interestingly, the youtube guy likens B&W reversal processing to C41 development and says that the development time is the same for all films! This is amazing if true given that even the new reversal kit by
@ADOX Fotoimpex has different times for the two Scala films! Is HC-110 dilution B an equalizing reversal first developer? Any thoughts on this @Alessandro Serrao?

Donald Qualls · Dec 12, 2020

jnantz said:
you can use rust out for your second development. it will develop fog and fix all at the same time.

The actual product, at least in the USA, is called "Iron Out" -- it's basically sodium dithionite powder. Make an alkaline solution, and it's a fogging developer. It's not technically a fixing agent, but because it very thoroughly fogs and develops all the silver halide, it renders fixer unnecessary. The solution doesn't keep, however ; plan to use it for one session and discard it (and since it's a laundry product, and doesn't pick up silver from the film, it's safe to put it down your regular drain). I haven't seen this reported, but I'd expect the resulting image to be toned like the results from sulfide or thiourea toners.

YoIaMoNwater said:
Never tried this but the Youtube guy and the person he linked to said that peroxide bleach leaves orange cast though. If anyone has example of using H2O2 without this cast then I'll be interested in trying it.

One of the YouTube videos I've seen suggests that peroxide bleached silver can redeposit on the gelatin, similar to dichroic fog, resulting in yellow to brown stain. Seems to me the solution to this was to bleach with the prints face down (or presumably with film held vertically in a reel) so the freshly bleached silver isn't directly above the gelatin.

If this works with 3% peroxide by adjusting the acidity, I'll have to give it a try soon. Worth noting that after first developer and stop bath, bleaching (and all subsequent steps) can be carried out in the light -- I've done this with dichromate bleach. You normally want/need the undeveloped halide to be fully fogged anyway, so there's no advantage to keeping the film in the dark once the first developer has been stopped.

Raghu Kuvempunagar · Dec 12, 2020

Donald Qualls said:
I haven't seen this reported, but I'd expect the resulting image to be toned like the results from sulfide or thiourea toners.

No, dithionite is not a toner like thiourea. It reduces the halides to silver like a regular film developer and not silver sulfide like thiourea toner. You can bleach a dithionite reduced silver image back to halide and redevelop which you can't do with a thiourea reduced image. Also I've not observed dithionite producing distinctly warm tone on the films I've tried. In contrast thiourea toner gives a range of warm tone based on pH and concentration on these very same films.

relistan · Dec 12, 2020

Raghu Kuvempunagar said:
He probably forgot to use a clearing bath between bleaching and redevelopment steps. At least, in the video he doesn't talk about clearing.

Raghu, is the clearing bath step you mention with hydrogen peroxide a simple wash step, or should you use something else like sodium or potassium metabisulfite? I found reference to a clearing bath Kodak Cb-6 which is just 15g sodium bisulfite anhydrous in 1 liter of water. I'm guessing that's a misquote and it should read metabisulfite? I've got sodium metabisulfite on hand so that is also easy if that's the right approach.

Raghu Kuvempunagar · Dec 12, 2020

relistan said:
Raghu, is the clearing bath step you mention with hydrogen peroxide a simple wash step, or should you use something else like sodium or potassium metabisulfite? I found reference to a clearing bath Kodak Cb-6 which is just 15g sodium bisulfite anhydrous in 1 liter of water. I've got sodium bisulfite on hand so that is also easy if that's the right approach.

By clearing bath I mean ~2% sodium sulphite solution (for dichromate and copper sulphate bleaches) or metabisulphite solution (for permanganate bleach). A clearing bath is necessary after the bleaching step to scavenge any remaining bleach in the film and to energize the halides for the light exposure step. Without the clearing bath, it is likely that the bleach remnants will react with the developer and produce stain.

relistan · Dec 12, 2020

Raghu Kuvempunagar said:
By clearing bath I mean ~2% sodium sulphite solution (for dichromate and copper sulphate bleaches) or metabisulphite solution (for permanganate bleach). A clearing bath is necessary after the bleaching step to scavenge any remaining bleach in the film and to energize the halides for the light exposure step. Without the clearing bath, it is likely that the bleach remnants will react with the developer and produce stain.

Ok, so it's a matter of identifying what clearing bath works best with H2O2. I have done some Googling, but need to go through the other thread. I think I'll do that now

relistan · Dec 12, 2020

Here's the "original" PDF and it has details for the clearing bath. Note that even with this clearing bath he is getting stains. And, he mentions blisters on the film http://www.filmlabs.org/docs/citric-hydrogen-peroxide-bleach.pdf

Raghu Kuvempunagar · Dec 12, 2020

relistan said:
Here's the "original" PDF and it has details for the clearing bath. Note that even with this clearing bath he is getting stains. And, he mentions blisters on the film http://www.filmlabs.org/docs/citric-hydrogen-peroxide-bleach.pdf

Blistering (aka film vesiculation) is what I also got, even with 2-3% peroxide and the main reason I didn't continue with it.

IIRC even Joe Van Cleave encountered blisters in the paper reversal experiments he did using peroxide bleach. It's there in one of his videos on the subject.

BTW that pdf you shared used 9% peroxide and not the safer 2-3% peroxide.

removed account4 · Dec 12, 2020

Donald Qualls said:
Iron Out

yea that's it

Raghu Kuvempunagar · Dec 12, 2020

The key ingredient of Iron Out is sodium dithionite which is also known as sodium hydrosulphite and is widely used in dye based fabric art. So, if Iron Out isn't easily available to you, look out for sodium hydrosulphite in shops that deal with supplies for dye based fabric art.

JWMster · Dec 12, 2020

Anybody able to try Bellini's chemical re-agent for reversal B&W? Link: https://www.bellinifoto.it/en/prodotto/kit-amateur-revbw/

Raghu Kuvempunagar · Dec 13, 2020

JWMster said:
Anybody able to try Bellini's chemical re-agent for reversal B&W? Link: https://www.bellinifoto.it/en/prodotto/kit-amateur-revbw/

Bellini apparently uses tin chloride as the chemical redeveloper. BTW tin chloride is toxic and if you are trying to do low-toxicity reversal at home like OP, you should avoid using it.

B&W Reversal with Hydrogen Peroxide

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