Will my pictures still develop ok?

[GraemeC]

Hi,
I have abot 10 disposable cameras in a black plastic bag under my bed that i haven't bothered to get developed, some of them date back to the mid 90's!!
The question is will i still be able to get the images from them if i get the developed or will they have deteriorated too much?
I'm guessing that they'd probably be ok but just thought i'd check before i forked out

thanks in advance

[Buenchico]

The images will almost certainly have a very strong colour caste. If the pictures are important, you'll probably be able to get acceptable images by scanning the prints (or, better, the negatives) and manipulating the images in Photoshop (if you've got it) or with GIMP (which is a free alternative to Photoshop). But it will involve a lot of 'fiddling about' and the results will still be far from perfect.

Chris

[heathfield]

The dyes in colour film degrade with age and temperature. (Professionals keep colour film in a fridge). As said, the result will pehaps be a blue or green cast over the image - how much will depend on the temperature under your bed. But I'd go ahead and have them developed all the same. You never know!

[mjwman]

As ex Kodak technical correspondent I can say that by the 90s dyes had become far more stable. Pros keep their film cold but they no longer need to. 1990s films were room temperature stable.

With age films lose contrast and in the old days the magenta dyes were the least stable so the answers above are not miles off the mark.

If the cameras have been kept cool and bedrooms a re usually cool when processed films will be probably ok.

My only proviso is that people that use single use cameras do not usually take good photos. You know, camera shake, too far from the subject for the flash to cover etc.

You could always ask for process and scan to cd then you can take the files to a photo booth as in Boots for instance and play with them to improve or print to B/W.

[Playbill]

I see all the previous answers refer to colour film. Three years ago I took several rolls of exposed black and white film to a developer. These had been stored in various refrigerators since I gave up processing my own films many years ago. They all produced excellent prints of cars on RAC Rallies in the early 1970's. 35 years in storage and no apparant loss of image or quality.