[RA4] Printing Cross-Processed Negs

perkeleellinen

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A better title may be trying to print cross-processed negs!

I've avoided cross-processing for years, mostly because of examples on flickr where 'Xpro' means rendering any neg as an acidic, neon, LSD trip by aggressive use of photoshop.

As I no longer shoot slides I thought I'd try crossing one of my remaining rolls of 320T. I'm trying to print one of those negs.

My issue is that I'm almost out of yellow to remove. Currently my filter pack is 15Y, 35M and I've still got a purple cast. I'm aiming for more-or-less 'normal' skin tones. And my test prints seem to show that the whole image can be quite 'normal' looking.

How to remove purple when you're almost out of yellow? Should I introduce cyan? Perhaps adding equal parts magenta / Cyan?
 

Bob Carnie

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Its been awhile

0 yellow
increase magenta number
increase cyan number

effect adding red and green in equal amounts will make yellow which you seem to want.
you will have to play with the cyan and magenta numbers when you get close.

Every 10 units of magenta will lighten your print by 1/3 so you need to compensate in density

hope this helps
 

nickandre

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purple means red and blue right? Thus you must subtract cyan and yellow or add magenta, because if something is yellow you must add yellow to remove the cast and if something is blue you must remove yellow to correct it.

You may find the contrast is too high in which case you can add sodium sulphite to the developer however your color balance will change so it's a laborious process.
 
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perkeleellinen

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tiberiustibz said:
purple means red and blue right?
Click to expand...

More blue than red, I think. I'd been playing with adding magenta as well as subtracting yellow to remove the cast. The yellow seemed to be working better as magenta was introducing some green I think. A tricky neg.
 

nickandre

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You can try taking out one color at a time. Make a series of confirming strips. Also it helps to overcorrect because it's much easier to interpolate than extrapolate.
 

2F/2F

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A question: Did you shoot this film in daylight or flash? If so, there is a huge part of your problem. It is a tungsten-balanced film.

FYI, "blue" in color printing actually looks more like what most would call lavender/purple. This explains why using yellow to alter the cast was working better.

My first suggestion would be to go ahead and zero out the yellow. You are already at only 15, so why not go all the way? What stopped you?

Then, when you are out of yellow, start using your cyan filtration. Upping that filter will add red to the print (which is equal amounts of magenta and yellow). You can use magenta filtration to counteract the magenta that is introduced when upping the cyan filtration, while leaving the yellow there. To start I would do it like so: Whatever you add in cyan filtration, also add half as much in magenta filtration.
 
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perkeleellinen

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I shot in daylight, bracketing from 0 to +1.5 stops.

The only reason I stopped at 15Y was to let the print dry so I could proper inspect it. I had started at 35Y/35M, I'd read a post here from PE where he said that adding 50 red is a good start for crossed negs. My normal starting values for regular negs are around 80M/80Y.
 

2F/2F

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Shooting a tungsten film in daylight makes for a heavily blue picture...and then add cross processing on top of it...and you have what you have!
 
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perkeleellinen

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Fair enough!

I'd read online that tungsten film can cross well and produce relatively 'normal' pictures, especially skin tones. As I've got a bit of 320T here, I thought I'd try this out and see what the look was like. So far, so blue, but hopefully a nice photo can be filtered into existence.
 

2F/2F

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I want the film if you don't! It was my most-used color film until it was discontinued and my stockpile ran out. I would not "pay dearly" for it, but I would pay E-Bay prices if it has been frozen.
 
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perkeleellinen

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Alas, it has only been refrigerated, expiry is '08.

PE: thanks for the offer, I doubt my scanner skills (and my flat-bed document scanner's abilities) but if I can get an accurate image, I'll post it later today.
 
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perkeleellinen

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That was 8am!

I've now inspected the print in good light and the cast is not as bad as I thought. In fact, I think I can filter it out without resorting to cyan. I might be able to have another go at printing it tonight.
 

brucemuir

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This thread is timely for me as I plan on printing some RA4 with some Kodak EPP that I ran through my C41 process.
What would be a good starting filtration?
Do you start with the "normal" filter settings for what ever paper or...
seems crossing is so subjective considering the differences you get depending on emulsions.

How do you even go about starting so you can make judgements from there?
I only have limited RA4 experience but am getting a grip on correcting for a somewhat normal scene.
 
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perkeleellinen

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I took my usual 'base' filtration and added 50 units red (subtract 50M and 50Y). This got me fairly close.

I also had these 'existential' questions - what is correct? I decided I'd try and get skin looking good.
 

Mike Wilde

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Yes, real RA-4 printing of E6 film processed in C-41 cross usually only lets you nail one tone, and the rest end up wherever.

To get a faster first pack, I usually toss in a blank c-41 film in c-41 developer blank rebate of film sandwiched with the crossed e-6 in c-41 neg in the enlarger neg carrier.

It will give you most of the red filtration you need to get started pretty fast with your 'normal' ra4 filtration.

I picked up on this when printing conventional B&W negs onto some (about 250' of 12" roll) RA-4 PortraB&W paper that came my way for a ($10) song. It has a slight magenta shift, but is handy to bang out quicky proofs if I have the RA-4 chems hot in the processor.
 

Photo Engineer

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These were printed at the same balance. Left is Portra VC and right is EPP cross processed. The reddish fog in my process balanced the two films rather nicely.

PE
 

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Michel Hardy-Vallée

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I've always managed a very neutral colour balance with E200 cross-processed and printed on RA4 Endura paper. It takes a while to find the right pack, but eventually I ended up with normal-looking, hypersaturated and grainy shots.
 

Stephen Frizza

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A trick a few professional Printers i have worked with do is get a piece of processed unexposed film base and have that sandwiched with the cross processed film to help control the image contrast and tone slightly.
Does anyone else here do this?
 

Photo Engineer

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Stephen Frizza said:
A trick a few professional Printers i have worked with do is get a piece of processed unexposed film base and have that sandwiched with the cross processed film to help control the image contrast and tone slightly.
Does anyone else here do this?
Click to expand...

Steve, I do this to control balance without excessive filtration. It does not help with contrast and tone though.

PE
 
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