Black and white film may not be widely used today, but it is still popular in artistic photography. These days just about all black and white photography is taken on negative film to produce final prints. These films can be specially processed to make slides, but most of them contain dyes in the base that reduce its transparency and may leave a trace of color.
Black and white films can be developed in conventional black and white developers, but some black and white films use the dye-forming technology that was developed for color film. These films are developed using the C41 color negative process and finish with no silver in them, but a dye image. Black and white prints can be made from color negatives, but it's better to use black and white film.
The image on black-and-white films is generally negative or recorded in tones of gray that are the reverse of the reflective brightness values of an image. When the negative image is projected onto black-and-white paper, it makes a positive image or recorded in tones of gray relative to the reflective brightness values of the original image. Black and white film comes in various sizes, speeds and exposures. It generally costs a few dollars a roll, but can be costly to develop.
