Its not as easy as just producing the Blue Dye. Kodachrome is basically a Black and White film (and can be processed as such!). It has the dyes added at the time of processing as opposed to the dyes being incorporated in the film at manufacturing. This one of the reasons that Kodachrome is so stable and therefore the most archival film around. It got to the stage where Kodak was only doing one manufacturing run a year and that was all they were selling. When sales drop below this level then it no longer becomes cost effective to keep manufacturing process going. Also they have to manufacture the chemicals and dyes involved in the developing process. Because the developing process is so complicated it is not used for any other film. E6 film (the other slide process) has almost all (now all) the slide market share and that is spread over Kodak and Fuji as well as possibly a few other very small manufacturers. Kodachrome didn't have that help to fall back on. In its hey day it was the film to use and even 60 yrs on Kodachrome slides usually retain their vibrancy and colour. For most of its life Kodak was the only one who processed the film and in m opst of the world apart from the US Kodachrome was bought Process paid as Kodak processed it. Their was a lawsuit in the States in the late '70's I think and Kodak had to allow independent labs to set up processing lines. But as digital took over the use declined and Kodak shut its labs and so did independent labs as it was too expensive to keep running. Hence we get to now when its all stopped as it isnt economical to keep even one lab going. I suspect that next to go will be E6 processing. This is the other Slide process. I can see that in the next 5 years (if not sooner) Some of the labs that process the stuff here in NZ will start shutting their E6 lines and I suspect that soon we will be left with only one E6 line and all the other labs will send any slide film they get to one lab. Of course then the prices will go up dramatically. Digital had certainly taken over the Photography world whether you like it or not
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