Scanning Cross Process Film?

[Harrigan]

I am curious how people who do a lot of cross processing are scanning their images? I shot a roll of Eiltechrome 200 recently and crossed it. However I find that when I scan the negs there is only a little crossing effect left after doing a basic color correction. I should mention I have never been big into cross but used to process alot of it for a friend. He printed conventional but I can not do that. I believe my friend used Provia 100.

If you have experience doing cross and scan your film how are you doing it? I am interesting in hearing from people who do this hands on and have real experience with this or general comments are great. The following images were on this roll of elitechrome 200 processed in c-41 and scanned as negatives on my scanner. I tried shooting some in dead overcast as I do all the dumpster images and some in perty sun via the portable potties.

The first dumpster image shows the orig straight scan right off the scanner and the color corrected version. You can see I got some weird reds in the sky but the rest of the image looks pretty normal to me.

The second 2 images are color corrected, again as I would do to a normal neg. I could pass these off as normal images I think for the most part. I was hoping I could rely on the film to give me more effects, but I guess I have to photoshop these to get them to be more "off". ??

 

[jd callow]

cross processing at a minimum produces a level of contrast (higher) and curve (steeper) that is mis-matched for ra4 paper. This is what produces a good portion of the xprocessing 'look.' In addition there are two other factors that come into to play. The base is generally clear where in normal film the base is red and xproccessed film often has a colour cast and or curve crossover.

The cast and the curve crossover will be detectable on scanning, but there will not be the mismatching of film to paper.

E200 is great film to use for xprocessing, but is doesn't suffer from very much of a cast (it goes slightly green) with little or no crossover. When scanned it comes across as a bit punchy and that is it.

 

[Harrigan]

Thank you for the response. Is there a film you would recommend that produces more (maximum possible) cross over effects that would show up upon scanning?

Unfortunately I have no access to real ra-4 printing anymore and I always print my own work, except some digital prints which I still set up for output.

I am aware of the increased contrast already but this can be done in psd in a matter of seconds to a regular negative scan. It that is all I can get from most films, x-processing is really pointless if you can't do true ra-4 prints direct from the film. Do you think that statement valid?

I assume that everyone else that scans direct from the film is faking or photoshoping the x processing look in photoshop? I mean that would be simple enough but is in itself fake.

 

[Harrigan]

Ah.....Perhaps I should be doing neg film crossed in e6 instead of the other way around. This way I wouldn't have to rely on reversing the film on the scanner but I wonder about the orange cast....

Any suggestions for a film that "reverse" crosses decently? Does anyone know anything about this route?

 

[Ben Altman]

I too would be interested in any info on this as I have some E6 (Fuji RTP 64 Tungsten) that a famous lab in New York that shall be nameless cross-processed by accident. I'm not set up to scan it at the moment, but will want to when I get my stuff reassembled. Can one get back to a reasonable imitation of the straight processed film? Or are the contrast changes and curve crossovers too hard to unscramble?

Ben

 

[jd callow]

C41 in e6 in my limited experience produces flat and muddy slides. The one exception in tmax CN (chromogenic bw) when rated @ 12 or 25 and processed normal it produces a beautiful cyan cast slide. Don't let my recommendation or lack thereof keep you from experimenting on your own.

EPP, EPN EPR -- all older daylight chromes from Kodak have blue/yellow cross over when shot in daylight (blue shadows, yellow mids and highlights). the newer Kodak and most Fuji films have a green cast which if under exposed for the subject will get magenta/green crossover as you'll run out of density as you try and kill the green, but mostly these films suffer from green and green yellow casts.

All of these films tend to react strongly when shot under manmade lights. Which is to say that the light temp tends get exaggerated in the neg.

One problem with scanning xprocessed chromes is the dmax of the film a xprocessed neg will generally exceed the capabilities of most scanners in the highlights.

I hope that helps.

 

[Harrigan]

Thanks for the comments. I should give these older style EKC films a try.

The first c41 film I will try is some old Vericolor Slide film, which is c41 film for making slides direct from negs and on a clear base. The problem is the film is 8x10 and I want to shoot my cross images 35mm hand help and not so great a quality.

I have a very good pro scanner (albeit 10 years old now) that may be able to scan the films but I guess I'll just have to screw around with it. I do remember from my lab days that doing c41 in e6 did not work (in my limited experiments) nearly as good as the other way around.

 

[keithwms]

So what I am taking away from this, JD, is that the optimal thing to do is to print the x-processed negs on RA4 paper and scan the prints. Right? Or develop curves for the scanner that imitate what RA4 paper does in terms of its mismatched response to the tone curve.

I didn't realize that much of the look comes from the print phase.

 

[jd callow]

Keith don't make your self crazy with profiling the way the film looks so that you can imitate it. Or I guess you could, I'd be more inclined to just make prints when crossprocessing. The film can go all over the board. It has such little latitude that slightly under or over exposed will have a far different look/effects/problems than when you nail the exposure. Also the film can fly out of kilter rather quickly under manmade lights -- far more than any colour film shot straight. All this makes profiling problematic.