Abstract: A composition for bleaching or bleach-fixing a silver halide photographic material has a pH of from 2 to 9. The composition comprises a bleaching agent which is either a persulfate or polyvalent metal complex of an aminopolycarboxylic acid, and from 0.01 to 2M of a sulfo-substituted carboxylate represented by Formula I(MO.sub.3 S).sub.n --R--(COOM).sub.m (I)wherein R is a benzene ring or a straight, branched or cyclic saturated aliphatic group having 2 to 8 carbon atoms;M is hydrogen or an organic or inorganic cation; andn is 1 to 7;with the proviso that if R is an aliphatic group, m is 2 to 4 and m and n combined cannot equal more than the number of carbon atoms in R plus two, and if R is a benzene ring, m is 2 to 5 and m and n combined cannot equal more than six.

Abstract: A simple and effective bleaching method includes the use of a bleaching solution including a peroxide bleaching agent and chloride ion in an amount of at least 0.35 mol/l. An organic phosphonic acid or tertiary aminocarboxylic acid can also be present for stability. The method is useful for bleaching color photographic films containing at least 20 mol % silver bromide and from 0 to about 0.5 mol % silver iodide in at least one silver halide emulsion.