Unsuccessful C41 attempt with Fuji Hunt chems help

Radost · Mar 7, 2022

You can just say:
“We don’t know what is causing the color shift sorry.” We don’t know if the chemicals were…..or the temperature was….
Instead of:
“You suck bro. You don’t know how to scan. “
When I explained the scanning is not the issue.
I understand the quality of detail and consistency will not be as good as dip and dunk. “I processed in a mini lab and apart from my color shift my development is on par”. But the colors have to be at least a little close.
Never mind I keep trouble shooting and experimenting with different chems.
thanks to the people who attempted to help. And to the people that do not even read through the forum and keep repeating the same thing I am not interested getting in to unproductive discussions.
thank you to both.

koraks · Mar 7, 2022

Ok, whatever. If you want to stick with your buckshot approach, it's up to you. I've put in a disproportionate amount of time giving you pointers for systematic troubleshooting, but if it remains one way traffic only then you're on your own.

foc said:
This post should be put as a sticky for all those wishing to do C41 home processing and what pitfalls to avoid.

Thanks
It's far from complete, but it at least covers the developer fairly well I think.

mshchem said:
incerely, where does one look for such information??

Good question; I'm not a color grading expert, and what I've learned I picked up from all kinds of different places over the years. But I think most of it comes down to having a basic grasp on color theory, which you've got covered with your background in RA4 printing. Part of it is just the generic tricks inherent to stuff like PS c.s.; working with layers, selections & masking etc. And in the end most of it is still a critical eye; you've got to look in order to see anything!

Radost · Mar 7, 2022

Koraks,
You actually gave me very good pointers about development that I took in to consideration and my second development was a lot better.
Thank You for that.

koraks said:
Ok, whatever. If you want to stick with your buckshot approach, it's up to you. I've put in a disproportionate amount of time giving you pointers for systematic troubleshooting, but if it remains one way traffic only then you're on your own.

Thanks
It's far from complete, but it at least covers the developer fairly well I think.

Good question; I'm not a color grading expert, and what I've learned I picked up from all kinds of different places over the years. But I think most of it comes down to having a basic grasp on color theory, which you've got covered with your background in RA4 printing. Part of it is just the generic tricks inherent to stuff like PS c.s.; working with layers, selections & masking etc. And in the end most of it is still a critical eye; you've got to look in order to see anything!

koraks · Mar 7, 2022

Alright, that's good to hear, and you're welcome. Hopefully you'll find a thing or two of use among the rest of my suggestions and those of others as well.

mshchem · Mar 8, 2022

koraks said:
Ok, whatever. If you want to stick with your buckshot approach, it's up to you. I've put in a disproportionate amount of time giving you pointers for systematic troubleshooting, but if it remains one way traffic only then you're on your own.

Thanks
It's far from complete, but it at least covers the developer fairly well I think.

Good question; I'm not a color grading expert, and what I've learned I picked up from all kinds of different places over the years. But I think most of it comes down to having a basic grasp on color theory, which you've got covered with your background in RA4 printing. Part of it is just the generic tricks inherent to stuff like PS c.s.; working with layers, selections & masking etc. And in the end most of it is still a critical eye; you've got to look in order to see anything!

So you use photo shop?

koraks · Mar 8, 2022

No, Gimp usually. The principle is the same though. PS is much more convenient.

mshchem · Mar 8, 2022

koraks said:
No, Gimp usually. The principle is the same though. PS is much more convenient.

I'm going to look at GIMP, I despise being constantly marketed to. Adobe is ruthless (it's a business) about pushing cloud storage etc. PS has so much professional depth that I don't need. I pay my monthly fee even though I rarely use PS or Light Room. I just am not going to spend the rest of my days at a computer.

grat · Mar 8, 2022

Gimp has excellent functionality, but the UI was designed by Torquemada. It's not that I can't use it, but I find myself slamming my head into the table every time I try to use it for anything serious.

Darktable is excellent for organization and workflow in general, and the Negadoctor plugin deserves special mention. The retouching module might be the greatest tool out there, but I admit, I keep expecting it to work in a way it obviously wasn't designed.

But I'd rather use Affinity Photo for editing / retouching.

koraks · Mar 9, 2022

grat said:
Gimp has excellent functionality, but the UI was designed by Torquemada

LOL. Pretty accurate description though. Under the hood Gimp has nearly as much to offer as PS, but it's a neverending struggle to wrap your head around where they've hidden the feature you're looking for.

foc · Mar 9, 2022

grat said:
But I'd rather use Affinity Photo for editing / retouching.

+1
I used Photoshop, professionally, for nearly 20 years but now that I am retired I must admit Affinity Photo suits all my editing need and it's a lot cheaper.

mshchem · Mar 9, 2022

I made some color prints today in my darkroom. Analog photography is a lot of work. Still lots of fun.

mts · Mar 11, 2022

shoot the Macbeth color chart in sunlight with known good film and bracket the exposures at least 1 stop each way. if the resulting negatives don't produce near perfect results, then your chemistry is bad or contaminated, or you have a processing error.

koraks · Mar 11, 2022

Err, yeah. That effectively boils down to "if the result isn't good, something has gone wrong". The question is, what exactly. If you read back you'll see that this thread is mostly about trying to establish this.

Radost · Mar 11, 2022

mts said:
shoot the Macbeth color chart in sunlight with known good film and bracket the exposures at least 1 stop each way. if the resulting negatives don't produce near perfect results, then your chemistry is bad or contaminated, or you have a processing error.

Thank you for the advice. I will try that.
At this point I am waiting to buy another developer.
Any idea about the slight urine smell out of the developer?

koraks · Mar 11, 2022

Depends on what you mean by a urine smell. Smells are difficult to categorize sometimes. Often, urine smell turns out to be ammonia, but this would only be explicable in case of cross-contamination of the developer with fixer. Only you know how well your cleaning & housekeeping procedures are. However, there may be a host of other chemical sources of what someone may qualify as a 'slight urine smell' which don't necessarily imply cross-contamination. I've had C41 developer smell of urine after developing very old Kodak film in it (>35 years old); something in that particular film stock made the developer smell badly. Of course this is not a problem if you use the developer one shot as I recommended earlier (not sure you've read or taken it seriously).

Radost · Mar 14, 2022

I did develop 1 portra 400 from 2012.
the prewash looked green and very thick.
maybe that caused the smell.

koraks said:
Depends on what you mean by a urine smell. Smells are difficult to categorize sometimes. Often, urine smell turns out to be ammonia, but this would only be explicable in case of cross-contamination of the developer with fixer. Only you know how well your cleaning & housekeeping procedures are. However, there may be a host of other chemical sources of what someone may qualify as a 'slight urine smell' which don't necessarily imply cross-contamination. I've had C41 developer smell of urine after developing very old Kodak film in it (>35 years old); something in that particular film stock made the developer smell badly. Of course this is not a problem if you use the developer one shot as I recommended earlier (not sure you've read or taken it seriously).

koraks · Mar 14, 2022

So you're re-using your developer? Be warned...
Btw, I develop Fuji film from 2004~2010 literally all the time; no funky smells or colors.

Radost · Mar 14, 2022

koraks said:
So you're re-using your developer? Be warned...
Btw, I develop Fuji film from 2004~2010 literally all the time; no funky smells or colors.

Do you use it one shot with Jobo?
For me It will be way to expansive to not reuse it with Paterson.
5 liters will give me 10 120 films or 20 135 if I dump the developer.
Fuji advertises 80 135s with it if you increase the developing time acordingly.

koraks · Mar 14, 2022

Yes, I use one shot. If this is too expensive for you, you could consider a replenished system, but keep in mind that replenishment rates are given for lab turnaround volumes which are much higher than a home situation.
Reusing the same developer without replenishment over and over again is a recipe for failure. If you work with the same volume of 5 liters and expect to be able to develop 80 rolls with it over the course of many months, you will see severe drift in color balance and crossover.

C41 we never made for home-use inversion tanks; it kind of works in that situation IF AND ONLY IF you manage to bring the processing conditions as close to a lab situation as possible.

Unsuccessful C41 attempt with Fuji Hunt chems help

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