Peeling The Developer Layer Off A Polaroid
| Field | Photography |
| Went Obsolete | 2001-2004 |
| Made Obsolete By | Digital cameras |
| Knowledge Assumed | basic motor skills |
| When useful | no longer useful, except with the rare Polaroid camera still in use |
Although not a very comprehensive skill, peeling the protective film from a Polaroid instant camera photo was a skill that many developed, with their own flair in taking off the film and shaking the picture to let the ink develop better.
There were a couple of tricks. If the picture was taken in cold weather, several 1960s-1970s models of Polaroid cameras came with a cold-weather clip which was attached to the back of the camera. One took this aluminum “sandwich” off the back of the camera and stuck it under your arm for a minute or two to warm it up. After pulling the (cold) picture out of the (cold) camera, you placed it inside this folding clip and stuck it back under your armpit. The heat from your body sped up the development process considerably.
For black and white cartridge film (type 87 or 107 were very common), the pack of film also came with a pink sponge-foam wand soaked in fixer, which you opened and wiped over the surface of the developed black-and-white print in order to stop the development and protect the surface of the print from fading due to sunlight. Without this fixer coating, a black and white picture would eventually go brown and then go unreadable. Color film (type 88 or 108) didn't need this fixer.
Once digital cameras dropped low enough in price, though, the era of Polaroid instant photography died out.
