recovering the dye image on film in electronic film development following a latent holding stage obviates the problem common in prior art electronic film development of film image destruction . recovery of the image is accomplished using a developing agent containing couplers to form a dye image . these dyes do not affect the infrared scans of the image . upon complete development of the dye image , further dye formation is halted by the application of a coupler blocking agent , while silver development and electronic scanning may continue or halt . after halting dye formation , the film is stable for an arbitrary time in a latent stage and may be dried and stored . following this latent stage , silver is removed from the film with a bleach - fix leaving a conventionally usable film image .