[Frameworks] Kodachrome

[Scott Dorsey]

Oh, you could probably get a K-14 line running.  Dwayne's Photo had one 
running a few years ago and still has the analytic chemist on staff
although they don't have some of the other people on the line.

The problem with K-14, which is also the wonderful thing about it, is
that the dyes are not in the individual film layers.  So you have to 
develop it to B&W images, then bleach out the silver, then expose it to
red light to get a positive latent image on the top red layer, develop
it into B&W images, attach a red dye to the developed silver, bleach 
out the silver, expose it to green light to get a positive latent image 
on the green layer, develop it into B&W images, attach a green dye to 
the developed silver, bleach out the silver, expose it to blue light
to get a positive latent image on the blue layer, develop it into B&W
images, attach a blue due to developed silver, bleach out the silver,
then remove all residual halides and harden the emulsion.

This is leaving out all the stop baths and clearing baths.

So you have three B&W developers involved, all of which are designed to
have -slightly- different curves and which have to be kept under control
by a chemist to make sure they hit the curves perfectly.  If you think
crossover on E-6 is a nightmare, this is way worse because you have 
independent control over everything.

Then you have three color re-exposures which have to be done precisely
and cleanly.  The process control is very elaborate.  Very small changes
can effect color a lot, so you are pretty much stuck with a big roller
transport system and nitrogen burst agitation.  The one that Kodak had
in Hawaii was over two miles long from end to end.

With E-6 pretty much all the chemicals can be made up from common reagents
except for the color developer.  With K-14 you have all kinds of dyes and
dye couplers that have to be synthesized specifically for the K-14 lab.
It's something that can be done, but it's nontrivial.

Oh yeah... and to do all of that process control, you need not only to be
able to do constant titration but also to run pc strips... and Kodak is not
going to sell you brand new Kodachrome pc strips anymore.  I suspect that
running out of strips is what finally got Duane's to shut their K-14 line
down.

The cool thing: because the dyes are added in after the fact and aren't part
of the emulsion, you can use a much wider variety of possible dyes when you
design the process.. dyes with a wider color gamut and much better stability
than conventional Kodak-process color films.  This is why in the 21st century
the one Kodak process that should have survived into the digital world is
Kodachrome because it is so valuable as a long-term archiving material.  
--scott