Velvia, developed with HC, inverted with second exposure and C41

Meinrad · Aug 16, 2025

Hello all,
since its hard to get (and to pay) positive film i am having the problem that i my E6 chemistry goes bad after one or two films. So i tried to develop a Velvia100 (two years over expiration date) with my Phoenix positive approach: Developing in Ilfotec HC 1:19 for 13 minutes, scond exposure and continuing with standard C41.
And i was really surprised by the result. Ok, there is a strong red cast, but can easily corrected if scanned. But for projection it would be nice to have a more neutral result. Anybody has an idea how to get it?
The pictures are scanned with no color correction.

selyfriday · Aug 16, 2025

Hi Meinrad, Afraid I don't have any info for you but leads me to a question.

"Developing in Ilfotec HC 1:19 for 13 minutes, scond exposure and continuing with standard C41."

This is new to me and seems like magic. What do you mean by second exposure in your process.

Thanks

Meinrad · Aug 16, 2025

hi selyfriday,
its easily explained: You can invert any film with exposing to light instead of chemical inversion. So steps are: first (bw) developer, inversion (with light), color developer, bleach, fix.

pentaxuser · Aug 16, 2025

In none of your examples is the reddish cast very obtrusive and in fact in the second example I have often seen stones of that colour anyway used as gravel. I suspect the roof tiles may not be quite the colour we see in the print but do not look annoyingly wrong

It's certainly worth a try if you have Velvia but don't want to waste E6 chemicals

pentaxuser

Daniël - Tech&Music · Aug 16, 2025

I think with C-41 color developer, you'll never get a truly accurate result, color-wise.
If you have it, or can get it cheaper than an E-6 kit, ECN-2 color developer will probably get you much closer, given ECN-2 uses CD-3 like E-6.

I know user @BHuij has developed Ektachrome 100D in HC-110 + ECN-2 with good results before.
Heck, even RA-4 color developer would likely work better than C-41, for much the same reason.

BHuij · Aug 17, 2025

I have had really good results with Ektachrome 100D in strong/hot HC-110 and DIY ECN-2 chemistry (which is really cheap, at least in the USA). Probably not technically "perfect" results. I wrote up a really detailed post of my process on Reddit:

Fuji slide films are different enough fro Ektachrome that you'd have to do some experimentation to get results you're totally happy with. I don't shoot really anything made by Fuji, but I've heard that Provia/Velvia require more time in the 1st developer than Ektachrome. Not sure whether that's factual. It's my understanding that color casts can be the result of very small deviations in time, temperature, and pH of either developer step. People who are really serious about getting dead-on color balance in their film will very carefully monitor pH, which I've never bothered with. It's also my understanding that you'll get a slightly different color cast by developing at 104°F for 9m30s than you would developing at 105°F for 9m (for example), even if you ended up with the same overall density and contrast. So finding the sweet spot for your own process might be a bit of guess and check until you find something that works really consistently and produces results to your standard.

Overall the finer points of how the chemistry really works are above my pay grade. I just tried it out, seem to have gotten fairly lucky, and am happy with my results. I do think using ECN-2 color developer instead of C-41 will make an immediate and noticeable difference in color fidelity though, due to the CD-3 vs CD-4 thing already called out above.

Meinrad · Aug 17, 2025

thank you all for your input! Maybe i have to more dig into the recipes for making developers from raw powder incridients to mix them for low volume usage…

BHuij · Aug 17, 2025

That's the route I've gone for almost everything at this point. E-72 paper developer, Instant Mytol and Pyrocat HD for B&W film (I still use HC-110 and Rodinal as well), and DIY ECN-2 for all of my color stuff. There are good ECN-2 recipes floating around out there. Here's the one I've been using for upwards of a year. So far I'm very satisfied with my results.

loccdor · Aug 18, 2025

That's a great result. Your amount of reddish cast is similar to what I see from Fuji Sensia 100 expired around 20 years and developed normally, really not very bad at all if it's going to be corrected before viewing. It's less than the cast I get from 30 year old Sensia 100, which I find still usable.

Did you shoot it at box speed?

brbo · Aug 18, 2025

loccdor said:
really not very bad at all if it's going to be corrected before viewing.

You view/project a slide through a filter?

loccdor · Aug 18, 2025

brbo said:
You view/project a slide through a filter?

I mainly digitize it. A filter or different colored light source should be able to adjust some of the cast when projecting but I haven't experimented.

brbo · Aug 18, 2025

I used to shoot 90% slide film (mainly because relabled Provia 100F was available at half (or less) the price of negative film) and scan the film.

A lot of fun, developing, viewing and scanning. Now, I regret every single frame I exposed on slide film, because I can’t print them.

BHuij · Aug 18, 2025

brbo said:
I used to shoot 90% slide film (mainly because relabled Provia 100F was available at half (or less) the price of negative film) and scan the film.

A lot of fun, developing, viewing and scanning. Now, I regret every single frame I exposed on slide film, because I can’t print them.

I hear Portra 160 is the best available option for making internegs.

But I still like to tell myself if I shoot a lot of Ektachrome and get other people to buy Ektachrome, and maybe buy a few extra rolls of Phoenix, then surely Ilford will bring back Cibachrome within the next few months, right?

Meinrad · Aug 18, 2025

Hello BHuij,
there is no link behind the reddit graphic, maybe its my browser, could you please share a link or copy&paste your recipe?

BHuij · Aug 18, 2025

Interesting; pasting the URL in directly caused the forum to auto-format it as that fancy graphical link. The link does work for me.

In any case, HERE is a link forced into text to the same page, which contains all my recipes.

koraks · Aug 19, 2025

Meinrad said:
there is no link behind the reddit graphic

Yes, there is; it must be a local problem on your end.

Velvia, developed with HC, inverted with second exposure and C41

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