This invention provides a color silver halide photographic element comprising a support having situated thereon a red light-sensitive, cyan dye-forming unit comprising a photosensitive silver halide emulsion layer and an image dye-forming coupler; a green light-sensitive, magenta dye-forming unit comprising a photosensitive silver halide emulsion layer and an image dye-forming coupler; and a blue light-sensitive, yellow dye-forming unit comprising a photosensitive silver halide emulsion layer and an image dye-forming coupler; wherein at least one of the dye-forming units comprises two or more emulsion layers spectrally sensitized to the same region of the visible spectrum, but exhibiting different photographic sensitivities, each such emulsion layer containing an image dye-forming coupler wherein at least one, but not all, of the emulsion layers of the dye-forming unit contains the hydrolyzed or unhydrolyzed form of a benzazolium compound represented by formula (I): ##STR1##