Photo Booth Process

[Stephen Frizza]

Today was an Awesome day for me. It was the first time I ever had my portrait photographs created by an Analog photo booth. please see image attached. I placed my fingers up in a test sequence. I a curious what exactly the chemical process is that makes these? the paper is fiber based and is sepia in tone (not black and white) as the booth says. I am aware there is no negative the paper is the exposed material. I am curious who is making the paper? I'm guessing it has to be a very fast paper? secondly would i be correct in guessing it is normal black and white which is some how reversed? it doesn't look anything like black and white reversal paper. Also is it a common occurrence to get slight chemical streaking? or is this a lousy processing machine? so many questions but i am wanting to start a project using this medium.

[Ian Grant]

It's B&W paper reversed in a crude dunk dip system, they always smelt of chemicals, but often used a fogging reversal bath which gives an image less prone to atatck by any chemicals left after the brief rinse steps. See this site.. There's plenty of details about the booths.

Ian

[Stephen Frizza]

I know of this site and it does not answer my questions. I have applied for membership....waiting response. I would like to know A, who is the manafacturer of the paper not who is a reseller, ide also like to know what the chemical process is called. (Ra-4,C-22,C41) I know it isnt those! but i was wondering if it does have a (code) name. and if i could ide love a disection of each chemical bath what is the chemical make up of the dev, reversal...etc

[Marco B]

Have a look at these two APUG videos if you hadn't already done so:

NYTimes.com - History of the Photo Boot

Photobooth Innards

And this thread:
http://www.apug.org/forums/forum172/...ufacturer.html

[Ian Grant]

There's no specific code name for the process as it's unique to the Photobooths, probably with slight variations between manufacturer but it's closely related to many older commercial B&W reversal processes.

This thread asked about paper, and it's more the slitting etc than the speed, as 6-10 ISO with a flash is quite manageable at the distances involved inside a photo-booth. PM the OP and ask what he's using.

Once you know the time scale & temperature for each dunk dip bath it's easy to come up with chemistry that will work.

Ian

[jnanian]

stephen

if i remember correctly
there is someone who sells
photo booth parts on ebay
maybe you can contact him
and find out the answers to your questions ...
and then post back ( or bring HIM back with you )
to let us all know what happens inside the box

you can find him just by searching "photo booth"

good luck !
john

[holmburgers]

I don't think this question was every adequately answered. How does one reversal process b&w paper? There's an analog photo booth in my town, and I think I'm going to try to get a hold of the owner/maintenance guy.

But seriously, what's the answer? Is it a classic dev/bleach/clear/fog/dev kind of reversal, or something different?