Kodak Chemicals coming back under Photo Systems inc.

[JMO]

The one item I like/prefer to use has been Kodak Rapid Selenium Toner (KRST), so I hope Photo Systems will make that one available.

[brucetaylor]

Such great news. PSI has been supplying Freestyle with their Legacy Pro, Unicolor and Silver Pixel (RA4) chemistry for many years- I’ve never had trouble with any of the products. When the bad Dektol was out there I and many others were happily using the PSI equivalents with no problems, and when the Xtol supply dried up the Legacy Pro product worked just like the Kodak product. They’ve been in business 45 years and I think it bodes well for US users that they are located in Michigan.

[jk0592]

Like many, I moved away from Kodak chemicals in my darkroom. But I stayed with Kodak films, TMY, and to a lesser extent TXP. I did regret xtol and hc110 and might be tempted to use these film developers again. But I will stick with Ilford products for paper chemistry.

[Willie]

Such great news. PSI has been supplying Freestyle with their Legacy Pro, Unicolor and Silver Pixel (RA4) chemistry for many years- I’ve never had trouble with any of the products. When the bad Dektol was out there I and many others were happily using the PSI equivalents with no problems, and when the Xtol supply dried up the Legacy Pro product worked just like the Kodak product. They’ve been in business 45 years and I think it bodes well for US users that they are located in Michigan.

Please tell is that Jim Harbaugh and the Michigan Wolverines are not involved! Kodak has been cheating us on chemistry and Michigan on football sign stealing - now we'll be getting Black Dektol?

[j.e.simmons]

Wouldn't that be Big Blue Dektol?

[neil poulsen]

What I take from the above statement is that Photo Systems Inc. was the entity responsible for manufacturing all of the bad chemistry sold under the Kodak brand a few years ago. Bad Dektol, bad D-76, bad Xtol - I bought 'em all. (and returned many packages of each to the retailer I got 'em from)

So, I have zero interest in finding out how well (or how poorly) Photo Systems Inc. produces this next iteration of chemistry under the Kodak name. I wouldn't trust them to get it right this time. I've been making my own developers for three years now, and I see no reason to go back to packaged chemistry. Not from "Kodak" anyway.

Also what I was thinking. However, it's possible that they were under restrictions with previous licensees that Photo Systems might themselves be able to discard. (Hopefully?) Pure speculation, though.

Clearly, John Sexton is upbeat about this news. So, that's encouraging.

[Roger Cole]

Indeed that's kind of the elephant in the room - the announcement lifts the veil somewhat on who was making the Kodak-branded chemicals following Champion and Tetenal, which unfortunately seems to indicate Photo Systems Inc. was doing the work during which time we had the various service bulletins about XTOL, brown Dektol, HC-110 precipitates etc. So I'm kind of in the same boat as you, at least for now - ie I moved on.

The other thing is they'll need to re-establish some retailer relationships if they want more sales. The one physical darkroom retailer left where I live outright stopped carrying any Kodak-branded chemistry around 2020-2021, so there are certain Kodak-branded chemicals (a difficult to screw up chemical such as stop bath, for example) I simply can't purchase anymore - can't buy online due to shipping restrictions so brick-and-mortar would be the only option.

I really hope they have their sh*t together. There's a lot of ground to make up.

Huh. I can buy stop bath online. Different shipping restrictions in Canada? Not that I DO. Working with acetic acid stop bath will give me a sore throat in short order. I switched to citric acid based "odorless" stops years ago.

[Michael R]

Huh. I can buy stop bath online. Different shipping restrictions in Canada? Not that I DO. Working with acetic acid stop bath will give me a sore throat in short order. I switched to citric acid based "odorless" stops years ago.

Yeah B+H won't ship Kodak Indicator Stop bath to Canada. Freestyle has other restrictions like ground only, continental US etc.

Anyhow I've moved on. White vinegar diluted approx. 1+1 is working strength Kodak stop bath. "State of the art" would be Sprint's stop bath but I don't bother.

[Steven Ruttenberg]

Good news. As long as they also keep putting out 4x5/8x10 film in color/transparency and bw, I will be happy.

Wish Acros would make its way back. I have 120 sheets of 4x5 in the freezer, I am afraid to use because it is the last of it.

[bob carnie]

Yeah B+H won't ship Kodak Indicator Stop bath to Canada. Freestyle has other restrictions like ground only, continental US etc.

Anyhow I've moved on. White vinegar diluted approx. 1+1 is working strength Kodak stop bath. "State of the art" would be Sprint's stop bath but I don't bother.

Hi Michael - you probably know Jacques at Argentix , he is fantastic and I buy a lot of my chemicals from him to mix scratch