Opinion ID: 1387085
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Photo Processing Operation

Text: Fuji's cross-motion for summary judgment included affidavits by George Otsuka, Fuji's General Manager and Treasurer, and Takeshi Masuyama, Fuji's Technical Advisor. According to both affiants, the color film processing currently performed by Fuji is drastically different from the older process used in making black and white prints. In the old process, no dyes were transferred and there was less transformation of the film. Otsuka suggests that from 1935 to 1957, color film processing of amateur film was limited to plants owned by Eastman Kodak Company because the film was sold with processing by Kodak included in the purchase price; furthermore, virtually all photographic processing done by firms other than Kodak was limited to black and white film or certain sizes of professional film. [2] Fuji's processing of both film and paper results in the transfer of chemicals onto the finished negative and print. Reactive color development chemicals in the film processing equipment first create a black and white, metallic-silver image in the film. Color development compounds are then added; these chemicals react with colorless dye couplers to create a color dye image. Bleach and fix solutions then remove the black and white image, leaving behind only the color dye image. A printer then projects light through this negative image, exposing the photographic paper and triggering the formation of invisible atoms of metallic silver (a blueprint) on the surface of the photographic paper's nonmetallic silver halide grains. Next, the color developer acts on the exposed silver halide grains to create a physical black and white silver image where only the blueprint existed before. Color development compounds then combine and react with colorless dye couplers to create a color dye image. Finally, bleach and fix solutions remove the black and white silver image (by making it soluble and then dissolving it away, to be recovered later as metal), leaving behind only the color dye image. Just under seventy percent of the chemicals used in Fuji's developing process are transferred to the film and paper. According to both affiants, there is a complete change in the makeup of the film when it is converted to a negative, and in the paper when it is processed. (Emphasis added.) The customer's previously valueless, undeveloped film, is returned as new property whose only common characteristic with the original film is the acetate base upon which the picture is carried. The film developing process adds dyes, stabilizers and hardeners to the film base, while silver halide, emulsion layers, antihilation backing, and other materials are removed. Masuyama added that [t]he film is converted from a chemically unstable substance [which `has a very limited life span'] to a stable, useful article.