Cross Processing C41 in Rodinal mystery

Hi!

Yesterday I tried to cross process a Kodak Gold Ultra film (expiration date: 01/2004) in B&W chemistry. To add to the fun, I used stand development technique.

There is a particular image I scanned as a color negative with a Minolta Dimage 5400 in 48 bits RGB tiff file. The file looked like it was a black and white picture, but I realized that if I pushed saturation to +85 in photoshop, I could restore some colors. I think red was the most visible color, and there is no blue at all.

Here is the picture (click here to go to the flickr page):



I am very curious to learn why it has some colors. Even weak, those colors are present. Also, I'd be happy to know how to get rid of the yellow layer, as my negs are still very strong.

For more details, here is how I developed the film:

- shot the film at 200 ISO (it was actually a 400 ISO film)
- presoak in distilled water for 2 or 3 minutes
- development : 5 ml of Rodinal in 700 ml of water (1+140 dilution)
- gentle agitation for the 30 first seconds
- stand for 30 minutes, 2 gentle inversions
- again, stand for 30 minutes, 2 gentle inversions
- stand for 30 minutes
- fix for 10 minutes (it was difficult to remove the milky layer)
- wash, rince and dry

I have still some rolls of expired film, so I think I'll give a try once more …


Best,
Camille

All of the dye couplers are still in the film, you've only developed the silver layer which would eventually be bleached out in c-41 process after the dye layers had been developed too.

Welcome to Apug, Camille!

Well, there are some couplers in a common C-41 film: the three basic, colourless ones, plus coloured ones employed in the masking process.

Can't it be that the oxidation product of the developing agent (p-aminophenol) formed some coloured products with one of the couplers?

Akki,

the basic couplers are colourless and the couplers out of the masking process are couloured to form an even orange hue.
Without any coupling you would expect a silver negative plus an overall orange cast.

Thanks AgX!

Yes, that's what I thought, Rodinal has perhaps formed some color products, and I think the extended fix time helped to remove some of the silver that was over those color dyes. Stand development has certainly helped in the formation of these colors products … what do you think?

Still thinking about that `no agitation´issue...

What about rising the process temperature and the same time using Rodinal more diluted?

Anyway, what do think of the results? You should try some test chart exposures (best would be a graded colour spectrum) to see what is going on.

yes, that's a good idea I'll try that!
about the color chart, don't even think about it : the scanned neg looked plain black & white, and colors showed only after a big saturation boost in photoshop.