Alternative process and CD4?

Color Photographer · Sep 1, 2011

Hi everybody

After reading many post in this great forum it tried C41 at home with very good results. Now I am thinking about a more "artistic" approach:

Why using for home developing only the C41 and not something else?

As I understood, the only "Color Developer" in that chemistry is CD4.

There 2-Bath solutions around: Bath A CD4 and Bath B the silver developer.

How CD4 is working? Wy not do in bath A the developing and the dye forming in bath B? What does the Starter do?

Any combination with other chemicals to boost up the dye forming with CD4? How can I get negatives that are (in combination with bleach bypass) like painted?

Any suggestions for experiments?

regards

Color Photographer

Athiril · Sep 1, 2011

It's very difficult to tell what you are on about.

It seems you're referring to a split-bath developer. In which case, Bath A is acidic or at least low (compared to C-41 developer) pH so no to little development takes place, but the film soaks up the developing agent, Bath B contains the alkali to raise the pH so the developer (CD-4) can work and develop the image.

Boost dye forming with CD-4? Well after you develop in C-41 or your CD-4 based developer, if you do a stop bath, and put it back in C-41 or your CD-4 developer with some Hydrogen Peroxide (the references on APUG I have read are 10-40mL/litre of 3% Hydrogen Peroxide) is supposed to build up more dye relative to the negative picture formed. You can then rinse/wash afterwards well, and carry out your bleach and fix.

You could also try adding citrazinic acid to your developer I suppose, that is supposed to increase saturation, but I have yet to get my hands on some to even try it.

Bleach bypass increases overall density and lows apparent saturation. So I don't know why you want to increase dye and bleach bypass, not sure what you mean by painted either.

Color Photographer · Sep 1, 2011

Athiril said:
Boost dye forming with CD-4? Well after you develop in C-41 or your CD-4 based developer, if you do a stop bath, and put it back in C-41 or your CD-4 developer with some Hydrogen Peroxide
.

Thanks. Did you mean a complete development with bleach and fix before the second development in C41 with added Hydrogen Peroxide?

So citrazinic acid and/or hydrogen peroxide for increased saturation.
How about alcohol?

holmburgers · Sep 1, 2011

Athiril said:
It's very difficult to tell what you are on about..... not sure what you mean by painted either.

Cleary the OP is excited about any potential modification to the color developing process to alter the outcome in some way.

By painting, I'm sure he's not referring to the photo-realist movement... he wants unique colors, unrealistic tonalities; deviations from the typical rendering of photography.

Athiril · Sep 1, 2011

Color Photographer said:
Thanks. Did you mean a complete development with bleach and fix before the second development in C41 with added Hydrogen Peroxide?

So citrazinic acid and/or hydrogen peroxide for increased saturation.
How about alcohol?

Alcohol will only make your images fuzzier.

I mean. Developer. Stop. Fix. ie; a bleach bypass. H2O2 (hydrogen peroxide) needs to have silver present to work in this manner.. at least from my understanding with discussions with Photo Engineer. After the last fix, you wash well, put developer in. Which does nothing by itself, but with added H2O2 will do something (add dye).

Then you get rid of the silver neg left, by washing after that, bleaching, fixing, and then washing and doing your final rinse etc as normal.

You could also just add H2O2 to your dev in the first place and carry on as normal with less steps. H2O2 makes your dev one shot.

I've read several places citrazinic acid increases saturation, it's used in E-6 colour developers, or at least home brew ones. I dont know what effect it would have.

But I am reminded to find out now, I've been meaning to get my hands on some to try.

Color Photographer · Sep 1, 2011

holmburgers said:
Cleary the OP is excited about any potential modification to the color developing process to alter the outcome in some way.

By painting, I'm sure he's not referring to the photo-realist movement... he wants unique colors, unrealistic tonalities; deviations from the typical rendering of photography.

exactly

Athiril · Sep 1, 2011

Color Photographer said:
exactly

Well dramatic differences can be made by filters.

Eg; even just a polariser.

Recently (last sunday) I went out to take photos with Ektar. Here is a shot non-polarised vs polarised.

non-polarised:

Stream #4 by athiril, on Flickr

polarised:

Stream #3 by athiril, on Flickr

If you're wanting to get into surreal photography with colour film... other then modifying developer by trial and error, then filters, and post-production (dodging, burning, masking etc - which you can do digitally or with optical printing on an enlarger). There are some filters which can be very surreal, such as a blue-yellow polariser.

Also too bad Kodak EIR is not around still.. though with a landscape you could do trichomy/three colour separation with IR, red and green and combine them for an EIR palette. (though any IR film with a red filter might be too similar to IR filtering itself, so you may want to switch backs to a pan film for the red shot at least).

Here is a blue-yellow polariser comparison (someone else's and digital, but it serves the purpose to demonstrate).

beek_blue by Michael Stoop, on Flickr

beek_yellow by Michael Stoop, on Flickr

Color Photographer · Sep 1, 2011

Sure filters or the opposite: old uncoated lenses can provide much.

A second idea is maybe after the dev and fix, a bath in an h2o2 solution without CD4. Then followed by a bath in one shot CD4.

The h2o2 will react with the silver but also exhausting the CD4 by oxidation.
Does anybody know what the C41 Starter does?

Maybe Photo Engineer can provide more information.

Photo Engineer · Sep 1, 2011

The best reaction with CD4 and peroxide is achieved by using the peroxide in the color developer. The best process for overall dye density increase is as follows:

1. Color develop
2. Stop
3. Fix
4. Good wash
5. Rehal bleach (Ferricyanide and Bromide)
6. Clearing bath of sulfite in water
7. Wash.

Turn on the lights and go to step #1 and repeat until desired density is achieved (usually 3 passes)

Then:

8. Bleach in C41 bleach
9. Wash
10. Fix
11. Wash
12. Stabilizer or final rinse

PE

Color Photographer · Sep 1, 2011

Thanks Photo Engineer

What about the C41 Starter and the amount of it?

For a home brew Color Developer based on CD4 and BW Developer
(for sharp edges like BW in Rodinal) what would you suggest?

Any other components than hydrogen peroxide that I can try?

Only as suggestion to start some experiments.

Photo Engineer · Sep 1, 2011

Use C41 Starter at the level recommended in the mixing instructions. It differs with each type of kit.

Edge effects are built into color films and should not be tampered with. Any use of supplementary developers usually messes up the color.

You can use Cobalt Hexammine Chloride in place of peroxide. It is very hard to get now.

PE

Athiril · Sep 1, 2011

Photo Engineer: I thought H2O2 was able to increase colour separation by increasing the most dense areas of the layers faster than adjacent thin areas? IE; something mildy green would have thinner yellow and cyan dye, so the magenta dye would increase in density more than the same areas on the other layers? Where as rehal re-developing would be more uniform increase?

Photo Engineer · Sep 1, 2011

I've seen the H2O2 treatment and rehal processing give similar results, but the H2O2 treatment can differ based on different couplers. I have also seen the H2O2 work well at low levels of Silver.

But, basically, these two processes are intended to increase dye density proportionally to the Silver present, and all things being equal, they can give equal results.

PE

Athiril · Sep 1, 2011

Ah that is interesting, so H2O2 can help initially accelerate an underexposed image more so than rehal processing?

Photo Engineer · Sep 1, 2011

Yes. I have seen catalytic amplification (using the technical term) form complete images from just the latent image. See the patent by V. Bissonette.

PE

Color Photographer · Sep 1, 2011

how much 3% H2O2 can be added?

I usually develop at 25 C temperature.

btw does anybody knows how photographers like Pierre Gonord
get such colors? http://storage.canalblog.com/24/21/577050/53594178.jpg

Athiril · Sep 1, 2011

Photo Engineer said:
Use C41 Starter at the level recommended in the mixing instructions. It differs with each type of kit.

Edge effects are built into color films and should not be tampered with. Any use of supplementary developers usually messes up the color.

You can use Cobalt Hexammine Chloride in place of peroxide. It is very hard to get now.

PE

Peroxide is easy to get here? In any case I see the patents mention using both a cobalt hexamine complex and hydrogen peroxide as successive treatments. With the cobalt hexamine complex in a b&w dev, and the H2O2 in a follow up colour developer.

Seems a bit over my head atm to understand it, or why.

There seems to be something similar (at least to me) in this patent http://www.patentgenius.com/patent/4057427.html

Photo Engineer · Sep 1, 2011

At the time of that patent, color paper consumed about 200 mg of Silver per square foot, and the Hunt brothers were driving the price upwards. We came up with a color paper with only about 40 mg of silver per square foot when the Silver price plunged.

We were also working on a film version but it gave bad grain and sharpness as you can imagine. We worked on several methods to improve this and have corresponding patents.

PE

Color Photographer · Sep 3, 2011

So it is the best to add some H2O2 in the developer at the beginning of the development?

Somme negatives have a magenta (the scanned images) cast.
Somewhere I had read the magenta has to do with the ph of the developer.

I tried to add some alcohol too, but the result was very dark dense negatives.
Maybe this destroyed the developer and the film was underdeveloped.

Athiril · Sep 3, 2011

I havent fiddled with it much since I do not like wasting both film and C-41 developer.

You won't be able to keep the developer if you add H2O2.. or other things really.

Dial your colour balance towards green if your colour is too magenta.

Did you alter the pH of the developer?

Color Photographer · Sep 3, 2011

Sure with extras I use only on shot developer based on C41.

Maybe I should alter the ph with washing soda.

I have over 500 Rolls of Kodak 400 (Version 3) in the freezer, enough material to try.

There are only a few people around who still know in detail about color development. And most of them dont like to share their secrets...

Good and realistic results I can get with any digital camera. But that is not what I want from film. The standard C41 process was made for machines. I believe there are much more possibilities hidden in color film.

Athiril · Sep 3, 2011

You can alter the pH but your colour will end up shifted and mismatched iirc, you can do somewhat more digitally to correct that as you can access each red, green and blue portion of the image individually and have the utmost control over it. But it simply isn't ideal, at least for balanced normal colour.

IF you want whacky results and weird colour, surrealism etc, and don't mind wrecking rolls and developer repeatedly playing around to try and get it, then go for it.. as I said earlier EIR may have been an ideal film for you specifically for it's amazing surreal quality. - http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=Ektachrome+EIR&ss=2&s=int

Whenever I fiddled with stuff I had 100ft of some cheap film to test with (I had Supra 400) so that I could examine differences, and not waste my main shooting film, save a lot of $, etc.

Color Photographer · Sep 3, 2011

I dont know this EIR. Thanks. Very nice results!

But I have only these 400 ASA color negative films.
I bought them for only 20 Cents. In regular C41 the came out great.

Maybe the is a way to go with normal negative film, to get colors in this EIR direction?

I only scan the negatives, so there is the possibility to adjust the colors slightly by software,
if necessary. But I dont like digital manipulation much.

Any more "Add ons" that have an strong effect on the developing?

So far I know

H202
Alcohol
Washing Soda
Rodinal

Anybody who knows some Photographers that use some alternative color process?

Athiril · Sep 3, 2011

You cant get EIR colours on normal film because it's completely different EIR is false colour infrared film, regular colour films are normal visible spectrum films.

Photo Engineer · Sep 3, 2011

There are no real secrets to color development. There are just a few knobs to turn. Here they are:

pH, Agitation, temperature, time - and thats about it. So, low temperature with high agitation will give you high yellow dye contrast and low cyan dye contrast. A slight change in the cyan can be had by then using a water bath after development. There is one "secret" that can be used to abuse color films.

Be advised that each film will respond differently. This is due to differences in thickness, silver content and the coupler compositions.

PE

Alternative process and CD4?

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