Image transfer photographic elements, assemblages, processes and compositions are described which employ carbon black in an opaque layer and/or alkaline processing composition, the carbon black having a deactivating compound adsorbed thereto so that dye image-providing material can diffuse through the opaque layer and/or processing composition without any substantial adsorption thereof to the carbon black, the deactivating compound being incapable of releasing any dye moiety therefrom.In a preferred embodiment, the deactivating compound has the following formula: ##STR1## wherein: (a) Ballast is an organic ballasting radical;(b) Z is ##STR2## or is part of Y; (c) G is OR.sup.1 or NHR.sup.2 wherein R.sup.1 is hydrogen or a hydrolyzable moiety and R.sup.2 is hydrogen or a substituted or unsubstituted alkyl group of 1 to about 22 carbon atoms;(d) Y represents the atoms necessary to complete a benzene nucleus, a naphthalene nucleus or a 5- to 7-membered heterocyclic ring;(e) X is a moiety which is adsorbed to the carbon black and thus retards adsorption thereto of the dye image-providing material;(f) J is a bivalent linking group which is non-cleavable by oxidation; and(g) n is a positive integer of 1 to 2 and is 2 when G is OR.sup.1 or when R.sup.2 is hydrogen or an alkyl group of less than 8 carbon atoms.Post-processing image dye diffusion is thereby lessened.