Reversal colour film has these components: (1) A top layer of plain gelatin, which protects the underlying layers against abrasion and damage. (2) The first emulsion layer, which contains blue-sensitive silver halide plus a yellow-forming colour coupler. This is a colourless substance that reacts with the decomposition products of the developing agent to generate dye in all areas where a silver image is produced and in proportion to the density of that silver image. (3) A yellow filter layer, which holds back blue light from the subsequent emulsion layers. It disappears during the bleaching stage of processing. (4) The second emulsion layer, which contains blue- and green-sensitive silver halide plus a magenta-forming colour coupler. The blue sensitivity is suppressed by the yellow filter layer. (5) The next emulsion, which is blue-and-red sensitive (blue again being suppressed) and contains a cyan-forming colour coupler. (6) A substrate, which ensures optimum adhesion of the emulsion layers to the film base and may also contain light-absorbing silver to prevent the scattering of light by reflection from the support surface (halation). (7) The film base, or support, of clear cellulose acetate derivative (or sometimes polyester), typically about 0.005 inch thick. (8) The back of the support, which carries a light-absorbing layer (an alternative to the antihalation layer in the substrate); on roll film this also acts as an anticurl layer.

This scheme can vary. Often one or more of the selectively sensitized layers is duplicated. Some reversal colour films do not incorporate colour couplers in the emulsions but introduce them in the processing solutions. Processing such nonsubstantive colour films is more complex than processing substantive-coupler films containing couplers in the emulsions. Negative colour films are similar, but the couplers are often already coloured yellow or red or both. The unreacted couplers remain as positive images, which compensate for some deviations of the image dyes from the colour characteristics of ideal dyes. Such negatives have an apparently overall reddish or orange tint.

Some colour films come with different combinations of colour sensitivity and dye colour formed in the individual layers for deliberately falsified colour rendering (false-colour films) in special applications.

Colour-positive (print) materials have a paper or white, opaque film base instead of transparent film and have no antihalation layer. The emulsion sequence may be different from the above scheme; their spectral sensitivities may be keyed to the transmission characteristics of the negative dyes for better colour reproduction.

The dye images are reasonably lightfast but fade on prolonged exposure to ultraviolet-rich radiation. Colour transparencies and prints intended for continuous display may be protected by ultraviolet-absorbing coatings or filter layers.

Additive colour films

These are simpler in structure and consist, in addition to protective and other interlayers, of a film base, carrying a filter raster, and a black-and-white emulsion layer. The raster consists of sequences of very narrow red, green, and blue transparent filter lines (up to 1,800 lines per inch) through which the light from the lens passes before it reaches the emulsion layer. The emulsion layer is processed to a positive image. Red subject portions cause silver to be deposited behind non-red (i.e., green and blue) filter elements, leaving the red filter lines transparent. Similarly, green subject details leave green filter lines transparent but block red and blue. Other colours affect areas behind two or even three filter lines—for example, yellow leaves red and green filter lines clear. In such areas the eye cannot resolve the separate filter elements but gets an additive impression of yellow. Other colours form corresponding additive effects, including white, where all three filter elements are transparent. Because of the presence of the filter elements everywhere in the image, additive colour transparencies are much denser than subtractive ones; at high magnification the filter raster pattern may also become visible. Additive colour transparencies are used only in rapid-access diffusion-transfer systems (see below Instant-picture photography).

Colour balance

Colour film reacts to all hue and tone differences, including the prevailing light colour. A film recording approximately natural colours in daylight reproduces scenes photographed by tungsten light with a reddish overall tint—because this lighting is richer in red rays than is daylight. This spectral balance of different “white” light sources may be rated numerically by the colour temperature—a concept of theoretical physics that, with tungsten lighting, corresponds roughly to the absolute lamp-filament temperature. Such absolute temperatures are expressed in kelvins (K). The higher the colour temperature the richer the light is in bluish and the poorer it is in reddish rays and vice versa. Average daylight is rated at about 5,500 K, the light from an overcast sky from 6,500 K up; the colour temperature of tungsten lamps ranges between 2,600 and 3,400 K.

To ensure correct “white-light” colour reproduction with different types of lighting, the sensitivities of the three film layers must be matched to the colour temperature of the light. Colour slide (reversal) films are therefore made in different versions balanced for faithful rendering either with 5,500 to 6,000 K light sources (such as daylight or electronic flash) or with specified tungsten lighting (3,200 to 3,400 K).

Such accurate film balance matching is less vital with negative colour films since the colour rendering of the print can be modified during colour printing. “Universal” amateur negative colour films are usable with any light, from tungsten to daylight. For high quality, professional negative colour films are still preferentially balanced to either daylight or tungsten sources.

Strongly coloured filters are suitable only for special effects; they overlay the colour image with the filter colour. Pale correction filters can match a film to a light source other than that for which it is balanced—e.g., pale blue, with a daylight-type film used in tungsten lighting, to raise in effect the colour temperature. Pale pink or amber filters similarly reduce the colour temperature for using artificial-light-balanced films in daylight. Colour-film manufacturers publish detailed recommendations of actual filters required for such conversion.

In outdoor photography, especially involving distant views, an ultraviolet-absorbing filter is often required, as ultraviolet radiation records in the blue-sensitive layer of the film, producing an overall blue cast in the transparency. A pale pink skylight filter for outdoor subjects lit only by skylight counteracts the cold, bluish colour rendering resulting from such illumination.