● Instant films

Integral film

The first integral film (also called dry-image film) was developed by Polaroid and is a subspecies of instant film. It differs from the separating film in the way it works. There is no need to pull off a negative, which makes it easier to use.

When the film is ejected from the camera, two rollers spread an alkaline paste with an opaque darkener and a white pigment over the negative layer. After this step, the development of the image begins. The paste passes through all the layers of the film and activates the color developer. This blocks the silver halide grains. Then the color developer rises back up into the top layer and creates the image with the pigments. The darkening paste then becomes transparent and the image emerges.

A well-known integral film is the Polaroid 600.

Person with curly hair lying on a white blanket surrounded by scattered instant photos, a white Instax camera and vintage Polaroid camera
ian dooley
Woman in orange sweater sitting on road holding a Polaroid Supercolor integral film camera to her face, winking, warm casual portrait
Photo: christian ferrer / Unsplash