Question about C-41 developed as reversal (reexposed)

[Dradis]

I recently developed some color negative film in Rodinal as B&W. I was then told I could bleach, exposed, then redevelop as color to get a positive. At this point the film had already been completely developed, including fixing. I have found many pages discussing this technique, but have not seen anyone give a detailed step-by-step. Usually its just something like "develop as B&W, reexpose, develop as color" Thats a little vague, so i put this info together as best as I could and took a guess. They developed, but still as negative! please help. Here's what I did, in detail.

Film: Fuji C-41 color film, ISO 200 (not expired)
1) Developed in X-Tol 1+1 at 40c (104f), for 40 min.
2) stop bath for 1 min
3) fixed for 5 min (illford rapid fixer for B&W)
4) Removed from tank. (B&W negative was clearly visible)
5) Back in tank, bleach for 3.5 min (rollie/comprard c-41 bleach)
6) Removed to reexpose (Image was still clearly visible, positive i think, but looked like a pink monochrome color)
7) back in tank, developed as normal with rollie/comprard c-41 kit (dev, bleach, wash, fix, wash, stabilize)

The images are negative! I have not scanned them yet (I will post once I do) but they look like normally developed C-41 negatives. Someone who's done this, please point out where I went wrong. Should I have not fixed in step 3? Should i not expose between 3 and 5? Should I shuffle my steps at random and try that? Please help. Thanks.

 

[jm94]

You shouldn't have fixed in step 3, that removed the silver halides that were unexposed, so the exposure step did nothing.

It is first developer, stop, expose to light, Colour developer, bleach and fix/blix... I think that's it... I am tired as hell so might be missing something.....

 

[Dradis]

thank you, jm. That was my first thought, but I wanted some input before I went on to wasting rolls. In your steps it looks like you are also skipping the bleach in my step 5. Is this correct?

 

[Bob-D659]

Skip your steps 3,4 and 5, add a rinse as step 5A, then continue with 6, you will have a positive image and a nice orange mask.

 

[Dradis]

Thanks, Bob. Sounds like a plan. I was also thinking that the simplest way to deal with the orange mask would be to scan it as a negative, then invert the negative in photoshop. I think if you scan as positive, the software assumes there is no orange mask.

 

[Bob-D659]

Well if you are going to scan and invert it to get rid of the mask, why bother with the reversal processing?

 

[Dradis]

Just for fun, mostly.

 

[Athiril]

Xtol 1+1 for 40c for 40min is a reversal time I came up with, it is not suitable for rehal negative processing (normal times and temp are more suitable here) which is what is done above, if you want to reduce the processing time a small amount of fixer in the dev before processing will do that, but I don't have amounts/times on me, I stopped playing around with it at that point.

After Xtol 1+1, 40c, 40min, stop, rinse, pull out in the light, then do normal C-41 from there. You'll get a reversal.

 

[Dradis]

Xtol 1+1 for 40c for 40min is a reversal time I came up with, it is not suitable for rehal negative processing (normal times and temp are more suitable here) which is what is done above, if you want to reduce the processing time a small amount of fixer in the dev before processing will do that, but I don't have amounts/times on me, I stopped playing around with it at that point.

After Xtol 1+1, 40c, 40min, stop, rinse, pull out in the light, then do normal C-41 from there. You'll get a reversal.

Hello, Athiril. Your post on flickr is where I got the 40 min, 40c. I plan to do exactly what you said above next. Thanks!

This is where my confusion came in (from the flickr post http://www.flickr.com/groups/ishootfilm/discuss/72157629663529392/ ):
"

I like using a B&W developer on colour neg films. Then I like fixing the film, so only the neg is left. Then I like bleaching (not blixing!) the film, to 'reset' the neg. Then I like developing it in E-6 colour developer, then bleach and fixing as normal from there (could also use C-41 in place of that too)."

I noticed here you do not mention reexposing, and you fix after the b&w developer. Does this get a positive or negative? If its negative, what is the advantage of doing this instead of normal E-6 or C-41?​

 

[Athiril]

Negative, I did re-expose.

I was also playing around with re-developing negatives.

Not sure if there is a real advantage. I did some Pro 400H with the above method and Rodinal, 400H is already grainy, but this was grainier, but not in the usual sparse 400H way that I dislike.

In the 400H example, I used E-6 colour developer as mentioned above, it results in a neg with a green mask instead of orange doing that.

 

[Dradis]

just did another roll and it worked! thanks guys.

Xtol 1+1, 40c, 40min, stop, rinse, pull out in the light, then do normal C-41 from there

 

[Simonh82]

That was my thread on flickr. Athiril posted some interesting results using colour negative film. I have to say I've only been interested in using slide film. I've not got round to playng around with this process again but the mixture of hot strong Ilford Multigrade developer and HC-110 looked promising to me.