"Film-out" onto C-41 negatives - orange mask cancellation

[alanrockwood]

If color negative film could have been corrected without the orange mask, then the film would have been made without the orange mask. Kodak and the other companies did not add the orange mask based on the face that appeared on their morning toast, the orange mask is there because it is needed. If one wants to experiment removing it and printing as a learning experience that is all well and good, but do not think that you will ever be smarter than the photo engineers at Kodak, Fuji, Ansco, Agfa, ... et al and all the scientific research that they conducted.

No intent here to suggest that negative film should be made without orange mask, just an attempt to understand how it is used and how to deal with it, especially when scanning and inverting images from C-41 film.

 

[Ted Baker]

No intent here to suggest that negative film should be made without orange mask, just an attempt to understand how it is used and how to deal with it, especially when scanning and inverting images from C-41 film.

While the reasons for the mask are complex the net adverse effect (the resultant orange) is actually trivial to remove, it can easily be subtracted using filtration, exposure, film sensitivity or a coefficient (digital). If you are having trouble removing it in digital processing then it an indication that your doing something wrong... So it can be handy in that way!

 

[tomfrh]

just an attempt to understand how it is used and how to deal with it, especially when scanning and inverting images from C-41 film.

The orange mask (or more specifically the unwanted absorptions PLUS the yellow and magenta masks) is an overall orange cast. It can be remove in removed in one fell swoop with a filter (eg when optical printing), or by digital colour correction.

 

[AgX]

If color negative film could have been corrected without the orange mask, then the film would have been made without the orange mask.

Both Kodak and Agfa offer(-ed) modern maskless C-41 special purpose films. At least Agfa argued that they employed other means to conquer dye deficiencies.

 

[jtk]

No intent here to suggest that negative film should be made without orange mask, just an attempt to understand how it is used and how to deal with it, especially when scanning and inverting images from C-41 film.

Common scanning software, as packaged with Epson/Canon/Nikon scanners, automatically removes the orange. If you're looking for a negative rendition without orange mask, scan conventionally and choose INVERT in Photoshop. That will give you a negative without orange mask...you can play with that, print from it etc.

 

[thuggins]

If so then it should be possible to compensate for the orange mask by simply illuminating the negative with a compensating filter, i.e. a light source whose spectrum compensates for the orange mask..

This does work. I had some (very) old Gold 200 and some E-6 chemistry that was on batch ten out of six, so I figured I'd experiment with cross processing. The results weren't impressive; the colors were off and the contrast was poor. And of course, any bright area was a pinkish orange. As long as we have real E-6 I figured it was best to stick with it.

But I just dragged them out and put them over a blue filter, and they weren't half bad. I have a number of the color correcting filters designed for tungsten light, but the darker blue seemed to work best. It would be easy enough to make a light table with a blue filter. As for the contrast and other factors, these can be played with in film types, exposure and development. I have learned that negative film should be over exposed and overdeveloped when cross processing in E-6 chemistry.