Tinted and toned combinations.

Starting from the black and white duplicate negative a colour image is printed in one pass through the printer onto colour print film, followed by a second pass of the print film alone to produce the tint colour background. The effects of this combination effect are not entirely predictable but certainly do give subtle results very similar to the early combination prints.

The benefits of this procedure are in both costs, as it avoids Eastman Internegative Film and since, black and white material is used, the control of contrast is easily achieved by varying the development time. Printing onto Eastman Colour Print Film gives a very wide range of colours although not as wide a saturation range as was available originally as subtractive dyes are intrinsically unable to achieve highly saturated additive primary colours, red green and blue. The visual effect can be vivid and garish but then that was what the original prints probably often looked like.

From the conservation point of view there is no risk of colour degradation of these black and white negatives and the colour prints can be reproduced easily whenever needed provided adequate records are kept.

The Case method is also capable of high quality results and there are some advantages resulting from the stability and repeatability of the grading resulting from using a negative with an integral mask. The cost is higher and conservation of the colour negative is more problematic but the main problem is the control of contrast. It is easy to remake a black and white duplicate negative at a different contrast but difficult to do this with a colour tripack material.

Both the Desmet and the Case methods are capable of refinement for production purposes to produce multiple prints or to introduce conventional intertitles by operating the two passes as an A and B roll printing system. Nor is it difficult to produce in just the two passes needed, different language versions, or different intertitle versions. The duplicate negative constitutes the A roll and is exposed to generate the neutral or coloured [toned] image. Black spacing is cut in where any titles are to be printed from the B roll. Another roll of clear film [with intertitles cut in if necessary] would constitute the B roll and be used to create the background tints, with the intertitles inserted at the A roll black spacing positions.

If different intertitle versions were needed a new B roll would be prepared. With a modern printer using FCC or punch tape, the A roll could be exposed in one direction and the B roll in the reverse direction, avoiding any rewinding of stock in the dark, with it's associated risks