Everyone knows the famous white border around Polaroid photos, but they didn't always look like that. Peel-apart film came before the all-in-one or integral film that is so iconic. Aptly named because you have to peel away the print from the negative. Straight out of the camera you have the print and negative sandwiched around the chemicals. After a specified amount of development time, you peel away the print from the negative. The whole process is much more messy than with integral film because you have exposed chemicals and you have to dispose of the negative.
Using peel-apart film is by no means foolproof. You have to manually pull the film out of the camera and the quality of the print depends on how fast or slow you pull. Then you have to time the development time accurately based on the ambient temperature and the contrast and color tones depend on how long you let it develop before you peel. Plus, on some of the older versions of the black and white film, you had to apply a coating to the prints so that they wouldn't fade. This is why Polaroid invented integral film, because all you truly have to do is point and shoot. The camera and film do the rest for you!
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