Pushed/Pulled Film for RA4 Printing?

[Frascofoto]

I'm of the understanding that pushing/pulling film can increase/decrease contrast and saturation in the negative - does anyone have any examples of RA4 handprints from negatives which have been pushed or pulled when developing? I'd be interested to see the effect it has.

I read in an interview with an expert printer that he recommends overexposing and pushing 'a bit' in development to get a nice punchy negative to print from. Should I be doing this?

 

[halfaman]

I suppose your expert meant undexposing and pushing in the development. I have done this a couple of times with Portra 400 pushed to 800 (exposed at ISO 800 and developed for 3:45 at 38º C), I got indeed punchier negatives with more saturation but at the expense of some color unbalanced. Skin tones were reddish side for example and sometimes difficult to balance well.

 

[Frascofoto]

I suppose your expert meant undexposing and pushing in the development. I have done this a couple of times with Portra 400 pushed to 800 (exposed at ISO 800 and developed for 3:45 at 38º C), I got indeed punchier negatives with more saturation but at the expense of some color unbalanced. Skin tones were reddish side for example and sometimes difficult to balance well.

Thanks for responding. Do you have some examples of your prints and the reddish skin tones so I could see?

I'm not entirely sure whether it's a mistake or he's just talking about a slightly different technique. Maybe something I should experiment with myself. I know the classic practice is to underexpose and then push development so perhaps it is a mistake by the writer. Here's a link to the article anyhow:

Volume 139 - Page 127 - The Royal Photographic Society

archive.rps.org

 

[koraks]

Sorry, I have no examples at hand; I never bothered scanning them. But at some point I did a good amount of testing specifically with Superia 200, both pushing and pulling it. Pushing worked quite nicely and would give more contrast and saturation; it can liven up things on a dull day for sure. The color shifts were quite manageable with a push of one or at most two stops. Skin tones are one of the most critical ones, so any color problems will show up on human skin, especially caucasian skin. Don't expect much more shadow detail, but that's not what you're doing it for, I understand.

If you want the additional punch but without the added color saturation, and you don't mind some more grain, try bleach bypass.

Pulling was a different story; it reduced color saturation but also strongly affected acutance - and not in a good way. Well, it's a look that might work for some things, I suppose, but it didn't do much for me, at least in 35mm format.

If I come across the test prints I made I'll be sure to scan them, but don't hold your breath. They're tucked away in a storage container somewhere in the attic.

 

[pentaxuser]

I probably could not find my print again and if I did I fear that I may not have the equipment or the knowledge of scanning to replicate the print correctly but what I can say is that on one occasion I accidentally over developed Fuji Superia Extra 400 shot at box speed My over-development was almost exactly 30 secs so a push and the colours were OK but the contrast increased quite a lot. Too much for my taste. Would this have been the same if I had also underexposed? I don't know but in comparison with normal box speed exposure and normal 3 mins 15 secs development time I do not think that the look of the print would have been better

pentaxuser

 

[DREW WILEY]

Today's color films rarely push or pull like they used to. And labs charge more for that anyway. Doing so is going to be more like a hail-Mary pass attempting to salvage a significant exposure error, rather than anything predictable beneficial. And I certainly wouldn't deliberately go out of bounds with either standard exposure or standardized film processing.

A far better method for controlling contrast and saturation would simply be to choose a more appropriate film to begin with.

 

[MattKing]

Thread title tweaked, because originally it seemed to be referencing push/pull development of the prints themselves.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Yeah, thanks. I went down that rabbit hole and was just about to post as if it did involve printing. But then I double-checked and altered my own twenty cents worth back to two cents worth.

 

[Mick Fagan]

With colour negative film, in general.

Ever so slightly over exposing, will reduce grain size, or in other words make the negative harder to focus on an enlarger, but only a miniscule bit. I'm talking of rating a true 125 ASA film at 100 ASA as a maximum change.

In an industrial photographic studio with it's own industrial photo lab at one end, we had very tight control over C41 processing and were effectively processing C41 film right on the parameters set by Kodak. With a very slight over exposure of C41 film and dead correct processing, vibrant colours, great shadow and highlight detail were standard.

Keeping your subject brightness range (SBR) at around 5 stops from shadow to highlight extremes, is the other step we used to end up with eyepopping prints. The film was saturated with colour and glowed wonderfully when printed, it was often a pleasure to print these negatives.

SBR is important at the taking stage and many times it is the deciding factor in how punchy your end RA4 print will be.

By all means experiment, but think of the experiment starting with your SBR at the film exposure stage, then modify (if you desire) your later steps in the separate film exposure, film developing and colour printing stages.

Drew is correct, choose the appropriate film for your intended final outcome, or intended subject.

I have pushed C41 film, usually by around 2 stops, yes you will end up with higher contrast (punchier look) shadow detail goes out the window as does highlight detail. Nothing wrong with that, it's different, often gets attention and is handy to have in your arsenal. You will though, sometimes end up with incorrect colour somewhere between shadow and highlight detail; it's the price you pay.

One thing I used to get with one film, was blue blacks in prints with push processing C41 film. Normally with colour RA4 printing, when your developer is going off (exhausted) the blacks don't print as black, they have a blue tinge to them. With one film, and I forget which one, push processing gave a colour crossover somewhere in the film curve and I always ended up with blue blacks. It was very liveable for extreme colour photography, but not too flash for wedding stuff.

 

[halfaman]

Thanks for responding. Do you have some examples of your prints and the reddish skin tones so I could see?

Here is an example of Portra 400 pushed 1 stop (exposed to ISO 800 and developed in C41 for 3:45 seconds at 38º C) shot with a Pentax 67II, printed in Fuji CA DPII glossy finish. It is not 100% faithfull to actual print but close enough. Faces blurred to preserve privacy.
Image uploaded in Adobe RGB color space, looking good to me on Firefox with calibrated monitor.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Not all CN films are the same !!! What one could get away with in terms of exposure latitude and slight manipulation of old school Verichrome, or even present Portra 160, for example, is likely to be highly counterproductive which respect to Ektar, with its narrower tolerance of brightness range, more akin to the realistic boundaries of chrome film, but certainly not quite that tight. Stereotypes about color neg film as if they all were the same simply don't work. You need to be specific. And most of them in fact, are now engineered to perform best true box speed as a given, along with tightly standardized processing. But do have fun, regardless. Sometimes unintentional errors turn out to be happy discoveries.

 

[Frascofoto]

With colour negative film, in general.

Ever so slightly over exposing, will reduce grain size, or in other words make the negative harder to focus on an enlarger, but only a miniscule bit. I'm talking of rating a true 125 ASA film at 100 ASA as a maximum change.

In an industrial photographic studio with it's own industrial photo lab at one end, we had very tight control over C41 processing and were effectively processing C41 film right on the parameters set by Kodak. With a very slight over exposure of C41 film and dead correct processing, vibrant colours, great shadow and highlight detail were standard.

Keeping your subject brightness range (SBR) at around 5 stops from shadow to highlight extremes, is the other step we used to end up with eyepopping prints. The film was saturated with colour and glowed wonderfully when printed, it was often a pleasure to print these negatives.

SBR is important at the taking stage and many times it is the deciding factor in how punchy your end RA4 print will be.

By all means experiment, but think of the experiment starting with your SBR at the film exposure stage, then modify (if you desire) your later steps in the separate film exposure, film developing and colour printing stages.

Drew is correct, choose the appropriate film for your intended final outcome, or intended subject.

I have pushed C41 film, usually by around 2 stops, yes you will end up with higher contrast (punchier look) shadow detail goes out the window as does highlight detail. Nothing wrong with that, it's different, often gets attention and is handy to have in your arsenal. You will though, sometimes end up with incorrect colour somewhere between shadow and highlight detail; it's the price you pay.

One thing I used to get with one film, was blue blacks in prints with push processing C41 film. Normally with colour RA4 printing, when your developer is going off (exhausted) the blacks don't print as black, they have a blue tinge to them. With one film, and I forget which one, push processing gave a colour crossover somewhere in the film curve and I always ended up with blue blacks. It was very liveable for extreme colour photography, but not too flash for wedding stuff.

Thank you for such a detailed answer! Really helpful to know what to expect and very interesting about the SBR too!

 

[Frascofoto]

Here is an example of Portra 400 pushed 1 stop (exposed to ISO 800 and developed in C41 for 3:45 seconds at 38º C) shot with a Pentax 67II, printed in Fuji CA DPII glossy finish. It is not 100% faithfull to actual print but close enough. Faces blurred to preserve privacy.
Image uploaded in Adobe RGB color space, looking good to me on Firefox with calibrated monitor.


View attachment 327822

Ahh thank you! I'm really impressed with the colours and very little shadow and highlight detail lost! I think I will give it a go for one roll of portra 400 and push it just 1 stop.

 

[Frascofoto]

Not all CN films are the same !!! What one could get away with in terms of exposure latitude and slight manipulation of old school Verichrome, or even present Portra 160, for example, is likely to be highly counterproductive which respect to Ektar, with its narrower tolerance of brightness range, more akin to the realistic boundaries of chrome film, but certainly not quite that tight. Stereotypes about color neg film as if they all were the same simply don't work. You need to be specific. And most of them in fact, are now engineered to perform best true box speed as a given, along with tightly standardized processing. But do have fun, regardless. Sometimes unintentional errors turn out to be happy discoveries.

Happy little accidents!

 

[brbo]

Ahh thank you! I'm really impressed with the colours and very little shadow and highlight detail lost! I think I will give it a go for one roll of portra 400 and push it just 1 stop.

I'd definitely start with box exposure. Even with that, with papers available today it's (much) more probable that you'll be fighting too much contrast and not the other way around. Defaulting to push is really asking for trouble.

This is Fuji C200 at box speed, I don't think paper (Fuji Maxima) would handle any more "punchiness" in negative:

 

[halfaman]

Ahh thank you! I'm really impressed with the colours and very little shadow and highlight detail lost! I think I will give it a go for one roll of portra 400 and push it just 1 stop.

To folow @brbo comment, I have to mention that when I took my photo the sun had just dissapeared behind the mountains around us in an overcast day. So the ammount of light decreased, the contrast was low, and I was using a medium contrast/saturation film like Portra 400. These conditions make a good case to push the film.

With direct sunlight and harsh contrast it is not a good idea to push any film as a general rule.