C-41 bleach E-6 bleach

Andy Durazo

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I've got a little problem here. I work at a school and we have no more money in our budget. I've just run out of C-41 bleach but, I've got a lot of E-6 bleach. In a pinch can I use E-6 bleach for my C-41 films?

Thanx for your help,

Andy :confused:
 

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The E6 bleach is more powerful than the C41 bleach because it must deal with more silver. That is a very simplified answer. However, with care, you can use the E6 bleach for C41. You must run tests first to make sure that the bleach does its job though or you can get higher grain, less sharpness and degraded colors. What you need to do is figure out the best bleach time!

Then, you use the process, Develop, stop, rinse, bleach, wash, fix, wash, final rinse. Use C41 times for all but the E6 bleach.

PE
 
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Andy Durazo

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Since I'm using a film processing machine with the times preprogrammed in; can I just dilute the E-6 bleach so I wouldn't have to change the time. If so, what dilution from standard E-6 do you recommend?
Thanx

Andy
 

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Andy Durazo said:
Since I'm using a film processing machine with the times preprogrammed in; can I just dilute the E-6 bleach so I wouldn't have to change the time. If so, what dilution from standard E-6 do you recommend?
Thanx

Andy
Click to expand...

I have no clue. It can be done by trial and error to get the time, but I have never worked out a dilution table. Sorry.

PE
 

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brucemuir said:
Interesting Ron, I thought they were fundamentally different.

I need to learn to not offer any advice when it comes to chemistry.
Click to expand...

Bruce;

They are quite a bit different. Both were based on EDTA and Iron III, but they diverged and C41 is made from raw ingredients (Ferric Oxide, EDTA and Ammonia) whereas the other is made from Ferric Nitrate and EDTA. Recently, the C41 bleach converted to an NTA Iron III bleach to reduce pollution. This is the Bleach III green bleach solution.

E6 beach has to fight a silver load while C41 bleach has to fight a DIR load. These differ subtly and the bleaches have to be fine tuned to match the products. Basically, the E6 bleaches have never been updated due to market demand, but C41 has been refined several times giving us the 3rd generation.

PE
 
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Andy Durazo

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I do remember that the old C-41 Bleach II was the same rosé wine colour as the E-6 bleach so that's what got me thinking. Good to know about the chemical makeups as you told us.
Thanx again the help is much appreciated.
Andy
 

anikin

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Andy,

Could you please keep the thread updated with the results of your experiment. With discontinuation of E-6 kit, those of us doing both C41 and E6 are forced to buy rather expensive bleaches for both. Being able to use just one bleach would make things not quite as expensive.

Eugene.
 

mtjade2007

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That has me confused. I thought bleach is a process that is to be done until it completes. So bleach time is not critical as long as it is long enough and it is completed. Can you use E-6 bleach in C-41 process longer until it bleaches completely?

I have a bunch of C-41RA bleach replenisher. Its color looks almost black unlike brownish on standard C-41 bleach. I do not use starter. I just use it as a standard C-41 bleach. According to Kodak tech pub it takes only something like 2 minutes to bleach provided that the agitation is more aggressive. What will happen if I do it the standard time of 6 min 30 sec with regular agitation? Will it give me any problems? Suould I shorten the time to 2 - 3 minutes instead?
 

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Yes, bleach goes to completion, but it forms Iron II salts. The pH and the amount of excess EDTA or NTA is critical to prevent dye hue problems and to prevent Iron II stain from forming in the coating. So, the E6 bleach is designed to follow (more or less) a pH 11 developer, while the C41 bleach is designed to follow a pH 10 developer. After these, a pretty routine near neutral fix is used, adjusted for the pH differences of the two processes.

The E6 bleach is also designed to work with a pre-bleach.

Along with this is the need to bleach high iodide emulsions with total silver developed in E6 and only about 50% of the silver developed in C41 but with DIR couplers creating interfering chemistry.

It can be done, but in the case of E6 films, you may see a higher dmin, generally tending to be yellowish, and in C41 films and E6 films you will tend to see desaturated colors, higher grain and lower sharpness. That is, if you don't take the bleach to completion. So, you have to test to find out what is completion, and when you reach it, you have to determine if you have harmed the final negative or slide. Once you find the correct conditions, you can probably then process safely. That is, aside from any dye stability issues that might arise.

Since the change to Bleach III, IDK what that would mean for E6 films, nor do I know what to recommend for C41 films in E6 bleach. I suspect there will be few problems, but I don't just want to say OK go ahead! That would be irresponsible of me. I have to show you both sides of the issue.

PE
 
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AlbertZeroK

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This is exactly my thread. I was able to pick up new cubes of E-6 chemistry for a song when my local lab went out of business. Now I have more than a cube of E-6 and some C-41 developer but no C-41 bleach. I'll be interested in seeing what this thread has to offer, but I have a new set of Rollei chemistry from FreeStyle, so until that is used, I'm not sure I'm worrying about the rest. Hey, now that I think about it, I can recycle the bleach from the Rollei kit... duh! Still interested in this thread though.
 

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Agfa AP-70 Bleach works a treat on all colour films I've found, just don't use E-6 pre-bleach with C-41 bleaches, or you'll need to re-bleach with fresh bleach as it won't do it's job properly (at least when using Flexicolor Bleach). And also you'll want to stop after colour developer, rinse then bleach when using C-41 bleach too (with an E-6 process). You'll need to use Stabiliser III at the end for E-6 films, or use the pre-bleach in there somewhere for the dye stabiliser.
 

DarkMagic

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Just the thread im looking for. I am trying to use E6 films in xtol 1+1 at 38 degree. >Rinse and fog under light and then do the rest in c41. But it seems that the new Kodak Bleach for Flexicolor isnt strong enough. I Have the 5 liter you dont have to dilute. I was wondering, could i use bleach ror RA4 or maybe a strong farmers reduser solution?
 

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RA4 bleach fix is even weaker than the other two! Don't use it for films of any sort.

You can use Farmer's reducer, but you must use a clearing bath between the color developer and bleach. I have explained that elsewhere here.

PE
 

pukalo

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Check out the Fuji Hunt Europe website. They have documentation for E-6 and C-41, and I remember seeing something there about customers who were using a common bleach bath for c41 and E6, and what you need to do to make this work.
 

zsas

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Is this what you want to do?
http://jpgmag.com/stories/1228

If so see 22.07:
http://people.rit.edu/andpph/pf-faq/faq-22.html

I did it and got this:

(there was a url link here which no longer exists)
 

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Ok, in the case of E6 and C41 bleaches, they are also mild fixers as well due to the use of Ammonium salts in them. To get this process to work, (and its real name is "REHAL" because of the need to return the Silver image to a Halide salt) you need a Ferricyanide bleach with only Sodium or Potassium Bromide in it. This returns the Silver image to a Silver Halide image. It has been explained here quite a few times and requires a sequence that really removes all trace of the Ferri bleach.

The process can be cycled several times if you omit the C41 bleach step and use a Ferri bleach step instead. This builds up more and more color density until you get very dense images with higher speed.

Remember though, if you use any Ammonium bleach, you lose information big time. It is being fixed out by the Ammonia in the bleach.

PE
 

mts

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I believe you can accomplish the same result, i.e. re-halogenation by using quinone bleach and thereby avoid the problems of cleaning out ferricyanide bleach components. I have used quinone bleach for E-6 with good success subject of course to possible archival effects introduced by departing from the official processing formulae.
 
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