TRI-PROCESS E6 FILM/BW DEV/C41 BLIX

[mikez]

looking to get a bit more accurate there Athiril. I ran some Velvia through my Hasselblad X-Pan last night and it seems that I over developed the film a little... To my naked eye there only appears to be color in what were very vivid areas such as the gregor macbeth chart. I did some shots inside at the end when I got cold, but I was surprised to not find more blatant color out at night. I haven't examined negs with a loupe (hung them up and went to sleep) but the base looks like C-41 processed film and there are still traces of color so I will not give up! Usually all of the mixed lighting and long exposure leads to wild colors/saturation/shifts especially on velvia.

However I am going to try next time with a dilution of 0.25oz bleach to 9.75oz flexicolor fixer instead of .5bleach to 9.5oz fixer and today I will try with 4x5 velvia sheets so I can shoot, dev, examine, repeat!

 

[Photo Engineer]

If the base of any reversal color film is yellowish like C-41 films, this means that the yellow filter layer has been left behind, which indicates incomplete bleaching and fixing.

Of course, it could be fog.

PE

 

[John R.]

Regarding Kodak -

PE ..... Just thought you might like to know some of us do love Kodak. I account for one. I began my pursuits in photography in high school in upstate NY (Saratoga) back when Tri-x and all the classics were in their early years and photography was fabulous and honest. My first film that I was to develop was 35mm Plus X, I loaded it into my brand spanking new Miranda Sensomat RE. I processed it in open plastic tank in D76 in my home built sink I made out of corrugated cardboard and fiberglass resin (true, and yes it worked). I made some small prints, some were decent and others were very bad using Dektol in glass baking pans. At that time Dektol came in cans (I still have some believe it or not). Everything I used was Kodak. All my photographic life I have had high regard for Kodak, they never ever let me down with product quality nor incredible amounts of thorough and crystal clear information. They have also always provided superb technical support. The fact that Kodak has always provided the best technical information in the industry, means every photographer on this planet should be unbelievably grateful to them for that benefit over the decades. I, like many others, have had some great disappointments in the recent past when Kodak has dropped some excellent products, for me, it was when they discontinued Elite and Tech Pan, then the recent loss of Kodachrome. Kodak was there for me in every regard when a neophyte, all through college, years as a professional, years as a commercial lab owner and even now. Kodak is a great American company, they have served the entire worldwide photo industry extremely well. Everyone, and I mean everyone, should be appreciative of that simple fact. Photographers that complain should put some of their disappointments aside and look more at the big picture of what they have made available to the industry. My hat is off to Kodak and all the dedicated hard working men and women who have made it such a great American success. I used to visit George Eastman House in Rochester, my favorite place of all time. If folks want to get a better feeling for Kodak and their incredible contributions to photography, I strongly suggest you visit the George Eastman House in Rochester, NY. It would be nice if people would once and for all stop the attacks directed at Kodak. Thanks for your knowledge sharing "PE", I am one guy that truly appreciates all you and your past associates have done and what the presnt group will continue to provide to us. Kodak has made serious commitments to analog imaging well into the future. If you want to learn more contact them and ask to be put on their professional contact list so you can receive company news. Tell them what you want and support them, they will listen.

 

[Athiril]

I just figured if I add potassium permanganate (a really small amount) to the developing solution it should retard silver development to compensate for the weak dye formation, thus lower the effective silver development strength to match the colour developing strength... hopefully.. maybe... well no harm in trying!


This appears to be a major step forward, I used my parodinal formulation which I -think- is equivalent to 1+20 the way i mixed it up should be equivalent.. except with no sodium sulphite, touch of ascorbic acid, like a small pinch between the fingers to the concentrate, which was 60mls, i used 15mls of concentrate, and 50mls of potassium permanganate solution...1/4 of a teaspoon of pemanganate to 140ml of water.

Developed at 23c, for 50min-1hr, with agitation here and there.. not much and would normally result in heavy adjacency affects.. I cant see any on the negative I bleached and fixed...but when stretching the levels way out (as its thin) it is apparent.. but not by much... (just one frame, havent done the rest of the roll), still looks too thin, but this one is at box speed and is a lot better than previous tests.

The ratio of silver development to dye formation is still too wide... but the gap is smaller now, Im looking forward to the overexposed denser shots to see how they turn out after bleach and fixing.

I need to try another roll with the same formulation @ 2 hours, with more permanganate (or maybe just try adding some regular bleach?) (edit: also I might try the same formulation @ 35-40, 10-15min)

edit: also scanned while still wet as i couldnt wait, also while i levelled the channels to balance the image, i didnt touch the saturation, havent done any colour correction or channel swiching on this

edit: a +2 shot.. which is very strange because that yellow is right, but that green bin behind it has a strong red lid.. not green.. lol, wonder if im not getting red in the +2's

And how it appears to the scanner (similar range to others, better to my eyes, and more colour)

And a -2 of the same shot (4 stops diff to the one above), with a partial bleach bypass like the op, 1 part bleach, 5 parts fix, 5 parts water for a short period since I could see the red (cyan) on the negative in this one.

+180 on hue, then some level balancing and +30 saturation.

I think more permanganate is required, and also a hot solution, hopefully that will help with the small density range, and thus scanner noise from stretching the image out so far, as on average im getting 1/8th usage of the scanner range, otherwise the only other solution would be to dSLR + macro it, and possibly HDR it at 1/3rd stops to interpolate more separation to compensate for the bit loss.. though thats for another site I guess


side note on the colour correction: +90 on hue seems to bring back the red in both, to which i can correct the overall image with levels after, havent posted these examples though.

 

[Athiril]

Had a lot more success this time round.. this time I decided to mix in regular bleach (Agfa AP70), I used 25ml Rodinal as I ran out of my own formula, and 25ml of Agfa AP 70 bleach concentrate (working solution is generally 1 part bleach, 1 part water).

I did a stand development for an hour - no agitation at all - no adjacency effects.

Started development at 32c, 10min in was 30.5c, 26min was 28.5c, 1 hour was 27.5c

Could have developed much longer, probably another hour, but much much better already - I saw plenty of colour after washing developer off and examining before bleaching and fixing, this is after a partial bleach and fix.

I couldnt see much colour in the scan, looked monochromatic to me, so I thought too much bleach bypass effect, and did a full combined bleach and fix... it erased the entire image. nothing left on the film base at all!

Odd, and the image isnt monochrome. its just very very low saturation, but with the better density I was able to pull it up with heavy processing.

PE: Do you have a clue to why a blix would remove colour too?

Not all colours are right, Reala 100, +1 exposure compensation (1 sec, f/5.6, Kodak Ektar 127mm) cut piece of 120 in a 4x5" back.

 

[Photo Engineer]

Well, firstoff, Permanganate reacts directly with the developing agent(s) in any developer to form oxidized developer which would then go on to give overall uniform dye formation. This reduces image discrimination and increases fog. So, that is not a good thing.

Blix can reduce some dyes under certain conditions and form the leuco (colorless) form of the dye. Use of Ferricyanide will often regenerate the dye from the leuco form unless it has decomposed into oxidized developer and coupler.

PE

 

[Athiril]

I did get better results with the permanganate than without..

That last result was the Agfa bleach mixed with the developer.

When I say clear.. I mean totally see-through with zero image after blixing it.

Well I also have ferricyanide, so I might try a mix with that..

The other idea I was contemplating is just developing it regularly, then bleaching, then developing again, rinse and repeat etc a couple of times to build up the dye.

 

[Photo Engineer]

As long as the bleach is a ferricyanide-bromide bleach (a rehal bleach) then this might work.

The rehal process has long been known as a way to increase contrast in color products.

PE

 

[Athiril]

I'll try a ferricyanide mix today and see how I go

 

[Athiril]

Ferricyanide keeps turning the processing into a disaster, fogged and too thin.

Agfa Bleach and Permanganate are giving me the best combinations.

This was a agfa bleach (20ml) with 25ml of parodinal in 500ml solution, stand for 1 hour, about 40c, thin again.. completely bleached and fixed, saturation is visible straight away.

permanganate gives me balanceable colour... i cant seem to balance the colour using agfa bleach.

going to try one more tonight... 50ml parodinal and permanganate solution.

 

[Athiril]

permanganate gives me issues with too much of it as well.. might try agfa bleach again but easing off the bleach amount.

as well as ferricyanide, might try a fraction of what i did last time.

also develop->bleach->develop->bleach->develop didnt work, the image was unable to de-develop, so i might try merely developing the silver image without any bleach mixed in, 1+20 would develop it quite fast @ 20c, then fix, wash, then bleach, re-expose and develop again, etc, then with bleach+rexposure I can re-develop it over and over theoreticaly and layer up the dye, or perhaps a process-to-completion may work..

 

[Photo Engineer]

You cannot just develop->bleach->develop. You must have washes and clearing baths in there to prevent other problems. I do not know what you mean by de-develop. I can guess. If you mean the silver image returns to silver halide, then if it does not, something is wrong with your overall process.

PE

 

[Athiril]

I meant re-develop, the image didnt re-develop using that method. Typo sorry.

Well yes, but I thought washing would be implied (should be common sense for most).

Anyway the general idea I had was to develop to reasonable silver density with plain aminophenol -> fix to remove undeveloped silver, thorough wash then use the agfa bleach, the re-expose what should only be the negative image left, then re-develop with the aminophenol, bleach, re-expose, and re-develop with the aminophenol again etc, and repeat as many times as I need to layer up the dye, all with good washing between.

Its nearly 3am I just got home from a farewall/graduation party, so will do this after I wake up, or maybe tomorrow instead.

 

[Photo Engineer]

The correct sequence for what you want is this:

Develop
wash
fix
wash
bleach in rehal bleach (ferricyanide + bromide)
clear
wash
develop
clear
wash
go back to bleach step and repeat loop as often as desired then:
bleach
fix
wash
or just
fix
wash if you wish bleach bypass.

PE

 

[mikez]

Sadly I don't think I will be working on this anymore anytime soon. All of this derailed the pace I had been setting all semester with about 30+ 4x5 sheets a week. I just did about 10 last night. Maybe if I have time I'll throw in a Velvia and have a friend develop it for me, but I am more concerned about producing enough work than figuring out this bizarre yet very intriguing experiment.

 

[Athiril]

I'll be continuing once I get some bromide and a couple of other things, which may be a few weeks, until then Im concentrating on amino acids.

 

[Athiril]

Going to try an amino acid tomorrow, think my stuff shows up today.

Also I'll try adding some benzotriazole to the rodinal dilution, and if that works out well, will try regular salt after.