Processing in Digibase C-41 and mysterious effect

dindon · May 15, 2013

Hi everybody and welcome as I am the first time on this forum.

I experienced recently mysterious effect on film (fuji pro400H) processed a couple of days ago in Digibase chemistry.
Negative has different colour than the one from lab. My recent once is green and darker. Also there are images with slightly brighter parts. This brighter part has different size and shape on different images. It is all visible after scanning. Negative apart its green colour physically looks absolutely fine.
It is all visible on attached images

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/10064162/negative/2013-05-15-20.22.jpg

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/10064162/negative/Screen-Shot-2013-05-15-at-13.28.jpg

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/10064162/negative/2013-05-15 20.23.47.jpg

I have to admit that chemistry was fresh and everything was processed according to requirements (temp and time). I also processed my own negs before and they were fine. Any suggestions what has happened here? something wrong with film, camera ?
Many thanks in advance!!!

bvy · May 15, 2013

Your Dropbox link is bad.

dindon · May 15, 2013

@bvy will try to place it again but i works fine on my side...
@Lukas_87 - you mean camera or film?

pentaxuser · May 15, 2013

I hope others can see what you are referring to. I cannot make any meaningful statements on these negs. Try a good quality scan of the neg or negs alone. The rest is distracting

All negs have brighter parts. Can you explain what you mean more precisely?

So to summarise: Give us just the negs as scans and say what brighter parts mean

Have you had these negs printed? A print will tell you a lot about issues with the neg

pentaxuser

dindon · May 15, 2013

Hi pentaxuser,

There are missing images in my post. Now it is fixed (see original post). Sorry about that!!!!
Here is also scan (very basic)

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/10064162/negative/2.jpg

As you can see middle part has a different colour.
No it was not printed. Just scanned in the way it is visible on the image. Don't have an access to this neg for now so can't make a better scan
Thanks a lot!

anikin · May 15, 2013

You did not use a safelight when loading this film onto the reel by any chance, did you?

Welcome to the APUG by the way...

dindon · May 15, 2013

@ankin - no, I didn't

pentaxuser · May 15, 2013

It is still confusing. It is only the forest scene that might tell us anything but taken by itself each section would look OK. The two outside sections have greener foliage than the middle bit but each section by itself would look OK.

If we exclude that the forest actually looked like this with different foliage colours then I am at a loss to explain it. I cannot think how the chemicals can create this effect, especially the way it divides so neatly into three sections of green/brown-green/green.

I know nothing of scanning except that it seems that scanners are often the problem rather than the neg and the print that is made from the neg.

Are there negs on this film that scan OK as positives?

pentaxuser

dindon · May 15, 2013

it is always scanned as positive unless it is set in other way.
looking at the negative itself it also looks fine and quite clear except mentioned green color of negative. somebody suggested uneven developing...but there was twice as much chemistry as minimum requirements. Also other images has a similar sections but in different shape..
dont have this negative with me now

anikin · May 15, 2013

dindon said:
@ankin - no, I didn't

Sorry, I just had to ask. I don't know your level of experience with film processing. The film base looks very abnormal as if it was fogged or insufficiently bleached/fixed. How is it in person, did it look milky when you pulled it out? Does the kit use separate bleach and fix or a blix?
I wonder if running this film again through fresh good bleach and fix might correct the problem...

dindon · May 15, 2013

no worries as for your first question
i am processing films for many years now but mostly B&W. colour just from time to time so I dont have a big experience in judging such cases.
yes, it was milky and yes, bleach and fix are separated.
i may try to run it through bleach and fix once again...but not earlier then next week

cheers!

anikin · May 16, 2013

dindon said:
yes, it was milky

Aha! Perfect answer. Sounds like either bleach or fix were shot or did not run to a completion. If that's the case,
you should be able to salvage this film by running it through bleach and fix. All the luck to you!

Cheers, Eugene.

dindon · May 16, 2013

will try it then,
thanks!

AgX · May 16, 2013

To explain as well the greeniish hue of the "unexposed" film as well as the partial magenta hue in that positive image only complete/partial red-light fogging comes to my mind.

dindon · May 16, 2013

Thank you AgX!
Place where I am loading films is dark. I am using it for many years. There is however a socket on the wall with very small red light indicator. it is almost invisible and never ever affected any film. the place is pitch dark...hmm
I also got a suggestion today to check my thermometer as it may be slightly off and all process went through wrong temperature... lots of possibilities

AgX · May 16, 2013

The green hue can only be due to coupling of cyan-coupler (something that only could be explained by red-light exposure) or by retention of a greenish dye.
In the latter case though that dye must have enough density to compete with the orange dye of the uncoupled couplers.

Unexposed film (eg. edges) must either be nearly colourless (unmasked films) or have a strong orange hue (masked films). This is due to the the inherent colour of the ingredients of the base or emulsion. A fault in temperature would have no effect on this.

dindon · May 16, 2013

ah, that's all makes more sense now. Thank you!

Processing in Digibase C-41 and mysterious effect

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