How to (consistently) make positive E-6 transparencies with C-41 chemicals

So I have been chasing this idea of being able to process E-6 film in B/W developer and C-41 chemicals in order to create positive transparencies. I've been working on this process since sometime last year, and I think I finally have it perfected for almost all types of currently produced E-6 film. I of course have done my research and found this is not an unheard of idea. What I had trouble finding was a reasonable and consistent recipe using commonly available chemicals and without any Ph balancing, chemical additions, etc. When I tried it the first time, things were all over the place. Some guidance resulted in an effective 3 stop pull, other guidance only resulted in a 1 stop pull. I wanted to get to exactly box speed, with little to no color casts. With a lot of wasted film experimenting, and a lot of patience, I've finally figured it out. I wanted to figure this out for two primary reasons: First, I hate having two sets of color chemicals, especially with how volatile and fragile the E-6 ones are. Second, I wanted to use it for artistic effect, to change the character of a film and maybe make something unique.

My personal favorite film in this chemistry is Provia 100. It resembles Kodachrome in some ways and as long as you tighten up on the blue shadows in photoshop (or use a tungsten colored scanning light) you get just absolutely marvelous color with plenty of saturation and contrast, but not too much. A more tame and warmer version of Velvia.

Anyway I wrote my final recipe, some lessons from my experiments, and tons of full resolution pictures from a variety of stocks in a blog post: https://filmandtubes.tumblr.com/post/175065123616/x-pro-reversal-perfected I've also attached a few of my favorite examples

The recipe:

• Mix HC-110 A working solution (1+15)
• Heat both HC-110 and C-41 chemicals to 102F (you might also want a bottle of water for rinsing)
• Rinse/preheat the tank for 2 minutes
• Develop for 6:30 in HC-110. Agitate 10s initially, and then 4x every 30s after. Experimenting with less aggressive agitation could lead to less blown highlights, but additional time might be required for full shadow development.
• Rinse several times in order to stop development
• Remove film from tank, fog over daylight colored light pad. Do not fog over tungsten lights or outside using the sun. Fog for 2 or 3 minutes, ensuring to cover both the front and back of the film
• Put film back in tank
• Rinse/preheat tank again for 2 minutes
• C-41 develop for slightly longer. For my kit it says 3:30, so I did it for 4:00 for VERY fresh developer (ie, this was the second roll I used with it). If you’ve processed more than 4 rolls, extend to 4:15. If you’ve processed more than kit capacity go for 4:30 or even up to 5:00.
• Blix for almost twice as long as instructed. For my kit it says 6:00, so I blix for 10:00. If using a two bath kit, extend both bleach and fix times.
  
• Rinse as normal. I recommend inspecting the film before stabilizing in case more blix is required.

I have tons of pictures across different types of film. The only one I've had consistent problems to the extent of "wow this turned out looking absolutely awful and unusable" is Rollei CN200, Rollei CR200, and Lomography X-Pro 200.

Processing C-41 film like this WILL result in color shifts and can be quite unpredictable. C-41 film will also of course have the orange base. This is easy to correct out in photoshop but makes it impossible to project with. Each C-41 film has it's own character when processed with X-Pro Reversal. Most E-6 film is on the range of passable or great:

• E-6 Velvia 100 - Good, but I prefer the look of E-6 processing. There is a slight loss in color saturation with this
  
• E-6 Provia 100 - Absolutely perfect. I actually prefer the look this film gives with this process to traditional E-6
• E-6 Ektachrome 320 (frozen/expired) - Decent, a lack of color saturation however, and some mild color shifts
• E-6 Lomography X-Pro 200 - Absolutely awful, don't do it
• C-41 Superia 400 - Extreme color shifts, skin tones can look blotchy and purple in the wrong light
• C-41 Lomo color 400 / Kodak Gold - Reasonable colors, though some mild shifts. Very punchy and vibrant with lots of saturation. High levels of contrast. Resembles a more tame version of Velvia with a lot more grain
  
• E-6 FPP Color IR 400 - Preliminary (lacking scans) - Looks really great and color accurate with no color casts whatsoever

Examples:

Provia 100



Velvia 100

Ektachrome 320



Kodak Gold 400

 

I have a roll of XP2+ that I've been meaning to try this with. When I'm doing B/W it's usually so I can make darkroom prints, so I typically don't want positives. With most B/W films put through this process though you'll end up with just a clear strip of plastic because the blix part of C-41 strips off all the silver. With XP2+ it should work since it's not silver that you see on the film, but rather dye.

Also, I scanned the color IR film and I don't think it looks any better than in E-6, but it doesn't look much worse either.

 

While doing some research on this, I did hear that you can end up with strange color casts with XP2+, so I wouldn't do it with anything really critical

 

Of course, I had to adjust curves etc so that the orange mask wasn't there. I scanned it using a DLSR by taking a picture of the clear (ie, only orange base) leader to set whitepoint, and then scanning as normal. Here is what the raw scan off the camera looked like:



And here is what it looked like if I set the whitepoint to daylight (which my lightpad I use for scanning is set to) and thus is much closer in reality to what you see with your eye




Regarding image stability, I have no idea if the dyes produced are the same regardless of it it's activated by CD-3 or CD-4. To me it would make sense if they were, but I don't have a chemistry background. Unfortunately no real way of knowing how stable the image is either without waiting a number of years at least. I do know that E-6 processing still requires formalin. It should be simple to make a C-41 and E-6 stabilizer with some formalin and photoflo, but I haven't bothered.

 

Why is D-76 more tuned as a first developer than HC-110? Why is HQMS an absolute requirement? I get consistent box speed results by using HC-110 solution A heated to 102F, cooked for 6:30 and agitated every 30 seconds. The only difference I see between E-6 first dev and HC-110 is slightly less contrast, but that actually makes slide film a bit easier to work with.

 

If you didn't fog the film enough, your unexposed portions of film should be fairly clear, rather than completely blocked as normal. Sounds like you massively under developed during the first developer, or your first developer was bad in some way (make sure it's heated to 102F).

 

Also if you're using expired Provia 400, it might have lost some of it's sensitivity and you might need to expose it at 200 or 100 ISO. I've not tried this process yet with expired film unless it's been frozen, so I'm not sure what adjustments can be made for that.