"Blix?" for C-41 Development

[anothertealtiger]

Hey all, I'm looking to get into developing film, and I'm doing some research and comparisons and I found a reference to "Blix" or Bleach + Fixer but... what am I supposed to be searching to buy it? Or is this a homemade mixture of the two rather than an off the shelf chemical?

[Blue4130]

59 minutes ago, anothertealtiger said:

Hey all, I'm looking to get into developing film, and I'm doing some research and comparisons and I found a reference to "Blix" or Bleach + Fixer but... what am I supposed to be searching to buy it? Or is this a homemade mixture of the two rather than an off the shelf chemical?

It comes in the kit of chemicals. Which kit are you using?

[anothertealtiger]

12 hours ago, Blue4130 said:

It comes in the kit of chemicals. Which kit are you using?

Haven't bought anything yet, just pricing it out. You got any recommendations?

[Blue4130]

5 hours ago, anothertealtiger said:

Haven't bought anything yet, just pricing it out. You got any recommendations?

Eh, not really. They are largely all the same. I've always been a kodak fan. Tetenal was my goto, but they stopped making the it if I recall.

[anothertealtiger]

Gotcha. I'm going to my local photography store later so I'll see what they have and go from there

[Messonaise]

On 5/10/2026 at 8:15 PM, anothertealtiger said:

Hey all, I'm looking to get into developing film, and I'm doing some research and comparisons and I found a reference to "Blix" or Bleach + Fixer but... what am I supposed to be searching to buy it? Or is this a homemade mixture of the two rather than an off the shelf chemical?

If this is your first time developing film I recommend sticking to B&W film for a first few times developing film. The B&W chemicals have a longer shelf life and are less sensitive to temperature and development time. 

 

Blix is a two part solution for bleaching and fixing the silver at the same time and is sensitive to temperature and has a short shelf life. Its used to remove all the silver out of the film, so only the dyes are left behind. 

 

If you want to try color go with a kit that includes all the chemicals. I would go with Rollei COLORCHEM C-41 KIT or kodak Color Negative c-41 film processing kit. Both kits are for 12 to 20+ rolls of film. Out side the chemicals and the opaque bottles, get a dumb sous vide thermal immersion circulator machine. They work well at keeping the chemicals at the right temperature for development process. Stick the bottles in a large tub and immersion heater in it with water. 

 

Tutorial on developing C-41 

https://www.lomography.com/magazine/229462-the-ultimate-diy-c-41-developingtutorial-part-1

https://www.lomography.com/magazine/233836-the-ultimate-diy-c-41-developingtutorial-part-2

 

One more thing. If you are not on a septic system the developer, stop, and rinse chemicals can be poured down the drain. Blix and fixer can not, both chemicals contain silver in solution and will kill off the bacteria used in waste treatment systems.

[anothertealtiger]

13 hours ago, Messonaise said:

One more thing. If you are not on a septic system the developer, stop, and rinse chemicals can be poured down the drain. Blix and fixer can not, both chemicals contain silver in solution and will kill off the bacteria used in waste treatment systems.

Extra good to know, thank you!

 

So, the main reason I was trying to figure out what Blix was is because I decided to jump not only off the deep end, but into experimental unrecommended shit- namely stand development for C-41. Everywhere I've read everyone's like "plz don't" but I'm absolutely gonna. I mainly just didn't (and still fully don't) know what this blog post is referring to as Blix: https://www.jeremymuddphoto.com/blog/2025/2/3/frugal-film-project-january-2025-c41-stand-development. 

 

Or maybe I'll just stick with tried-and-true in the end

[Blue4130]

1 hour ago, anothertealtiger said:

Extra good to know, thank you!

 

So, the main reason I was trying to figure out what Blix was is because I decided to jump not only off the deep end, but into experimental unrecommended shit- namely stand development for C-41. Everywhere I've read everyone's like "plz don't" but I'm absolutely gonna. I mainly just didn't (and still fully don't) know what this blog post is referring to as Blix: https://www.jeremymuddphoto.com/blog/2025/2/3/frugal-film-project-january-2025-c41-stand-development. 

 

Or maybe I'll just stick with tried-and-true in the end

I've been doing this for a long time. I started self developing in 1995. I very much think that you should know why/how/and what  will happen before starting to go wild with experimenting too much.  If you don't have much experience with c-41 (or even conventional b&w) I'd focus on getting decent negatives by following the instructions first. After you have a few dozen rolls under your belt, then start to experiment. 

 

But with that said, don't be scared to try stuff out, Just know why you are doing it. Do you know how stard development affects the process? Do you understand it's relationship to contrast and film speed? 

 

And for some experimentation inspiration, here is a fun project. Three seperate b&w shots, each taken through a colored filter, then stacked after development. Old school color photo as the result. Can't really call it "poor mans color" as it's 3 shots instead of 1. 

[anothertealtiger]

12 minutes ago, Blue4130 said:

 

And for some experimentation inspiration, here is a fun project. Three seperate b&w shots, each taken through a colored filter, then stacked after development. Old school color photo as the result. Can't really call it "poor mans color" as it's 3 shots instead of 1. 

Oh this is the stuff that got me into photography- I've watched every Technology Connections videos on photography a ton now. He showed off this image in the video about the autochrome plates and it just... trips me out severely. Like what an insanely colorful image from... not colors. I mean I guess in a way that's not too dissimilar to how we get color at the end of the day but still.

 

 

But yeah I'm probably gonna at least start with the simple method and figure out what I wanna do from there. Like you pointed out, I can't answer enough why I'd wanna do that, so probably shouldn't. Aside from one reason which isn't really exclusive to stand development: I want to do color development for as cheap as I can.

 

TLDR I'm not in a great spot rn and I want a hobby that gets me out and about more so I'm going back to film photography. But I can't justify the price for my local camera spot to develop + scan. So I found a surprisingly capable (non-epson, flatbed) scanner with 35mm stuff for 25 bucks on marketplace and I wanna see how cheap I can get development. Not the most amazing printer but it's not like it consumes the film after all so it'll at least get me started I suppose. Seller said they used it for scanning film specifically actually.

 

 

[anothertealtiger]

Update- went to that local film spot to get some film and I asked about developing on a budget and they told me about a program a nearby business has that has a yearly thing where you pay $100 and get access to their darkrooms and chemicals plus two lessons on developing for the year. Probably the most affordable way I'm gonna get started really. 

 

Also if anyone happens to be at all invested, that scanner is working great