Rescuing unbleached E6 film

Mozg31337 · Oct 9, 2018

Hello,

I have two 120 films which came very dark from the development process (including the film brand/make part of the film). If I look at the film under a bright source, I can see the traces of frames with details. My thoughts are that the bleach that I had gone bad.

I was wondering if it is possible to bleach the film even after it has gone through the fixer? Or is this film pretty much unreachable?

Thanks
Andrei

Photo Engineer · Oct 9, 2018

Do the following:

Wet for 1 minute at 100F.
Follow your kit's instructions from prebleach or bleach if there is no prebleach onward.
Dry.

If there is no improvement, then it is probably underexposure.

PE

Mozg31337 · Oct 10, 2018

Thanks PE, I will try that and send an update )

Rudeofus · Oct 11, 2018

Allow me to add, that each bleach step has to be followed by a wash and a fixing step.

Three errors can lead to dark slides: underexposure, underdevelopment and incomplete bleaching. These three can be distinguished easily:

underexposure yields dark slides, but normal frame numbers and a transparent or at most light brown film leader.
underdevelopment yields dark slides, dark frame numbers, but a noticeably brighter film leader
incomplete bleaching leaves everything very dark, since a slide after FD and CD has silver all over the place, regardless of exposure

Mozg31337 · Oct 11, 2018

Hi Rudeofus,

From the looks of it I've got number 3 in my case.

Photo Engineer · Oct 11, 2018

So, rebleaching revealed a better image?

PE

grainyvision · Oct 12, 2018

If it's underbleached, the rebate code on the edge of the film should also be very dark and only visible under bright light

Mozg31337 · Oct 12, 2018

I've not done the rebleaching yet. Will try to find time over the weekend and will keep you updated.

Rescuing unbleached E6 film

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