Printing a black and white duplicate negative onto colour print stock.

Any black and white duplicate negative can be printed onto a conventional modern colour print film to achieve an image of almost any colour [achieved by varying the grading with filters or light valve settings] from a neutral black or grey, to any saturated primary. This does make it possible to achieve quite good matches with many of the tone colours that were available.

However, by this method it is not possible to copy satisfactorily tinted films or double toned or tinted and toned films. If the image is printed somewhat dark, an effect not unlike tinting can be achieved but the image loses much of its aesthetic value. The overexposure has the effect of producing hazy monochromes and the results obtained from this method are simply not of high enough contrast and the high densities are not black but simply a denser colour. Occasionally good results are obtained but the effect is best with blues and day-for-night shots, and other colours are very difficult to achieve.

There is no doubt that in certain circumstances where a film is entirely toned in a variety of strong colours especially if the colours were produced by colour development or by mordanting, this simple and inexpensive method is very effective.