Fuji's E6 control strip marking

[nbagno]

I'm looking at a new Fuji E6 control strip and wondering about the patch labels. They list the D-min and D-Max patches, but the others are numbered. I'm assuming since the tolerance sheet requires measuring LD and HD, that two of those numbered patches are for LD and HD. I didn't want to assume, but, is 2 supposed to be LD and 5 HD?

 

[John Salim]

The only four patches to measure ( RGB ) for plotting onto a standard Y55 form are ....
D-min
LD ( 3 ) low density 'speed'
HD ( 5 ) high density 'colour'
D-max

Y-55 form is downloadable here .... https://imaging.kodakalaris.com/sites/default/files/wysiwyg/retailers/chemistry/techpub/y55.pdf

The other patches are designed for full sensitometric plotting which are not generally required.

John S

 

[Rudeofus]

I believe, that there is a fully processed reference test strip in every box of these test strips, so it should be easy to determine, which patch should be which one, or whether these 5 patches are supposed to align with any of these standard densities.

 

[nbagno]

The only four patches to measure ( RGB ) for plotting onto a standard Y55 form are ....
D-min
LD ( 3 ) low density 'speed'
HD ( 5 ) high density 'colour'
D-max

Y-55 form is downloadable here .... https://imaging.kodakalaris.com/sites/default/files/wysiwyg/retailers/chemistry/techpub/y55.pdf

The other patches are designed for full sensitometric plotting which are not generally required.

John S

Thanks. I haven't seen anything, other than what you just posted that states patch 3 is LD and 5 is HD.

 

[John Salim]

That's right, a processed reference strip ( as pictured above ) is supplied for you to measure using a calibrated densitometer.
After applying the correction factors included, these become your aim points.

John S

 

[nbagno]

That's right, a processed reference strip ( as pictured above ) is supplied for you to measure using a calibrated densitometer.
After applying the correction factors included, these become your aim points.

John S

Thanks. Yes I have a new box of control strips and have processed one and I was trying to plot it but I couldn't find anything that said which patches on the strip were LD and HD.

 

[John Salim]

Don't forget you must use the 'status A' filters on your densitometer, and if you're just starting to do this, you should also include 'control limits' and 'action limits' on your control form.

John S

 

[nbagno]

Don't forget you must use the 'status A' filters on your densitometer, and if you're just starting to do this, you should also include 'control limits' and 'action limits' on your control form.

John S

Regarding control and action limits. That's also been difficult to find which values to use. I have controls/action data from old publications, but I have no idea if that data can be used for my specific chart. I can't find anything on the Fuji website. Here is one that I found for e6 , I don't remember which document it was in.

I'm using an x-rite 881 strip reader that has been calibrated and tested for me by Acurad Technical Services. Although it's not specifically an e6 densitometer, I can read e6 in generic mode. The generic function reading e6 was tested against a dedicated e6 densitometer and it's spot on. But yes, I am new to this. C-41 was easy, I just feed the strip in and note the values but with e6 I wanted to find something that actually said which patch was LD & HD.

 

[John Salim]

The original Kodak tolerance limits are ...

action
D-min +3
LD +/- 8
HD +/- 12
Dmax - 20

control
D-min +5
LD +/- 10
HD +/- 15
Dmax - 25

( going by memory, I believe Kodak's Q Lab limits were half those above ).

John S

 

[nbagno]

This was located in an X-rite manual. This is what I was looking for.

 

[adamlugi]

Hi,

Where can you currently buy strips for the E6 and C41?

 

[nbagno]

Hi,

Where can you currently buy strips for the E6 and C41?

This is where I bought mine, but looks like they are out of stock
E6
C41

 

[Scott J.]

This was located in an X-rite manual. This is what I was looking for.

View attachment 294639

Out of curiosity: How are you calculating the color spread in your E-6 control strips? The procedure/calculation for doing this in C-41 process monitoring is very clearly spelled out by Kodak and others, but I can't find a clear explanation for how this is done in E-6. Kodak Pub. Z-119 doesn't give an explanation (i.e., no example calculation, only an ambiguously worded definition) and the process monitoring document put together by Alvandi Camera Systems seems to imply that you should always assume the R and B density measurements will be the most widely separated in the HD and LD patches (this follows from the author's insistence that you simply calculate [R - G] - [B -G] for both the HD and LD patches). But that assumption seems unlikely to always hold true. And curiously, whereas color spread in C-41 is a single value arrived at by comparing the HD and LD patches against each other, color spread in E-6 seems to be comprised of two different values -- one value specific to the HD patch and a second value specific to the LD patch.

I'm sure the calculation(s) involved must be simple, yet I've struggled to find a clear, concise explanation of what they are! Any help is appreciated.