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If you are a 35mm photographer, sooner or later, you are going to want to change film in the middle of a roll. There are many different reasons for wanting to do this. You may wish to change from black and white to color film for instance, or change to a faster (higher ISO number) film due to failing light conditions. Perhaps you wish to switch from shooting color negatives to shooting color slides. The reason doesn't matter, but the technique does. We are talking about the traditional 35mm cartridge here, by the way, not the newfangled self-loading types.
Depending on how your camera is set up, the procedure goes like this. First of all, make note of which frame the film is currently on. This is important! If you forget and take a wild guess later, you may wind up photographing over top of frames you've already taken, thus ruining both pictures. I recommend writing the frame number on a piece of masking tape and then sticking it to the cartridge once you've removed it. If your camera has automatic rewind, then it probably has a manual override of the rewind system. Check your manual if you can't figure it out. Most automatic cameras don't allow you control over how far you have rewound your film, so you pretty much have to let it wind it all the way back into the canister. If your camera has a manual rewind lever, press the release button on the bottom of the camera and start winding the film back into the canister. When you think you're near the end of the roll, wind very slowly and listen carefully to the camera. You should hear a "click" when the film leader lets go of the take-up reel. If you definitely heard the click, open your camera back and you should see the end of the roll sticking out of the canister. Put on your piece of tape for future reference, and load your next roll. As sometimes happens though, you may not hear the click, and you will end up with the film rewound all the way back into the canister. If that happens, you have two options. One of them is to go out and buy a film extractor from your local camera store. I used to work in a camera store, and we sold many of those film extractors. We just didn't use them ourselves, as they are not as consistent as our method of removing film.
The magic ingredient for getting film out of a 35mm canister is Dymo Tape. It doesn't matter which width or color, just plain Dymo Tape will do. For those of you who haven't used it, Dymo Tape is that plastic adhesive strip that you put through a Dymo machine to emboss letters and numbers on it. Any office supply house will sell it to you, and it's cheap. The idea is to pull the protective plastic off of a strip of Dymo Tape about four or five inches long. Then push the tape into the canister, with the adhesive side facing the center of the canister (towards the inside core). To clarify, if there were letters on your Dymo tape, they would be facing the outside of the canister. Push it in until it seems to jam, and then turn the spindle on the film canister to wind it in further. Once 4 inches or so has disappeared inside the canister, give it a sharp pull (not too far or you'll pull too much film out), and the leader of the film should pop out attached to the tape! If it doesn't, try it again. If you've used the same piece of Dymo several times, it loses its stickiness, and you'll need to use a fresh piece. I have never known this method to fail.
Once you're ready to reload the partially used film, remember a few tips. With a 35mm SLR type camera, you normally have at least one manual shutter speed. Use it if that's all you have. If you have complete manual control, then set the camera for the fastest speed (usually 1/1000 per second or faster), set the smallest lens aperture (f22 is typical) and put a lens cover on the lens before loading your film. This way stray light won't reach the film as you are advancing to the next usable frame. Then load the film the usual way, trying not to do it in direct sunlight. Advance the film to the frame after the one you removed it at, and then take your lens cap off and resume shooting! (Don't forget to check your ISO setting.) If your camera is totally automatic, then the most important thing is to make sure the lens is blocked somehow before advancing the film. Well, there you have it! No need to waste another half roll of film as long as you live.
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