How to process colour film

KarmaGarda

Hi!

I've started processing B&W film at home. Developed my first film today which turned out not bad! 1 of them is in the random thread if you want to see it (it came out a tad "dull" which I think was caused by me draining the chemicals a bit too early by mistake).

Anyway, I want to give colour processing a shot at home. The film I'll be shooting on is Fujicolor Pro 160s. I have no idea yet how to process colour film, and the only one I've seen guides on is processing C41. So I suppose my questions are as follows:

Does it vary wildly depending on the type of colour film you are using?
Can I process fujicolor pro 160s the same as the C41 (one guide I saw is here)?
Is cross processing harder or easier?
What's the capital of Albania?
Any crazy chemicals I can throw in the loop for some funky results?
Am I 2 cans short of a 6 pack?

Eagerly awaiting you're replies with flame resistant suit equipped :pac:

DaireQuinlan

KarmaGarda wrote: »

Does it vary wildly depending on the type of colour film you are using?
Can I process fujicolor pro 160s the same as the C41 (one guide I saw is here)?
Is cross processing harder or easier?
What's the capital of Albania?
Any crazy chemicals I can throw in the loop for some funky results?
Am I 2 cans short of a 6 pack?

Eagerly awaiting you're replies with flame resistant suit equipped :pac:

Developing colour is about as easy as doing B&W. You have to be a little more careful with times and temperatures, but it's not as crazy as people make out, any screwups generally result in colour casts but they're relatively easy to remove when you're doing the colour balancing you have to do on the neg anyway.

It's a standard process so all C-41 films get the same 3 minutes and 15 seconds in the developer.

Cross processing your slide film in your C-41 chemicals is exactly as easy as doing a roll of print film.

Tirana.

no. Unless by 'crazy' you mean 'fail' .

almost certainly not.

I use fuji hunt C-41 chemicals that I get from gunnes. One 5 litre pack lasts me about 30->40 films and 1 year. I make it up 500ml at a time (tip: buy a measuring syringe) and store the rest topped up with protectant (some tetenal stuff, but its just a propane/butane mix which, surprisingly enough, is inert. Just don't smoke near it).

KarmaGarda

DaireQuinlan wrote: »

Developing colour is about as easy as doing B&W. You have to be a little more careful with times and temperatures, but it's not as crazy as people make out, any screwups generally result in colour casts but they're relatively easy to remove when you're doing the colour balancing you have to do on the neg anyway.

It's a standard process so all C-41 films get the same 3 minutes and 15 seconds in the developer.

Cross processing your slide film in your C-41 chemicals is exactly as easy as doing a roll of print film.

Tirana.

no. Unless by 'crazy' you mean 'fail' .

almost certainly not.

I use fuji hunt C-41 chemicals that I get from gunnes. One 5 litre pack lasts me about 30->40 films and 1 year. I make it up 500ml at a time (tip: buy a measuring syringe) and store the rest topped up with protectant (some tetenal stuff, but its just a propane/butane mix which, surprisingly enough, is inert. Just don't smoke near it).

Wicked. Thanks for that. Looks like I'll be giving this colour dev a crack too so. I do have a few follow up questions to ask though if you don't mind:

DaireQuinlan wrote: »

any screwups generally result in colour casts but they're relatively easy to remove when you're doing the colour balancing you have to do on the neg anyway.

This a PP balance you do via photoshop or similar?

DaireQuinlan wrote: »

Cross processing your slide film in your C-41 chemicals is exactly as easy as doing a roll of print film.

How do you cross process? Is it s straight replace of chemicals for another? I remember reading a quick run down by valentia someplace but I can't find it. If I recall correctly he mentioned household chemicals to use, but he never specified quantities of the chemicals to use.

Thanks again.

DaireQuinlan

KarmaGarda wrote: »

This a PP balance you do via photoshop or similar?

Yep. Mostly just a white balance adjustment or auto levels, or a match colour in PS if I want to be really sophistimicated.

How do you cross process? Is it s straight replace of chemicals for another? I remember reading a quick run down by valentia someplace but I can't find it. If I recall correctly he mentioned household chemicals to use, but he never specified quantities of the chemicals to use.

Ah yes, I was scratching my head there until I remembered that post by valentia. I don't think he was being entirely serious
Cross processing is mostly doing slide films in C-41 or vice versa. Screws up the colours and the contrast. If you have C-41 chems then doing slide film in them is exactly the same as doing a roll of negative. It can be a bit hit and miss, some films do well, some not so good.

Yeah doing your own colour processing is a must nowadays. It's cheaper, and if you screw up you have no-one to blame but yourself. Plus you miss the scratches and fingerprints and badly cut negs.
In addition you can start experimenting. I'm messing around at the moment with alternative B&W developers for slide and negative. Right now I have sitting in its development tank a roll of Reala which has been developed in Diafine, then fixed, then bleached, and is now going through the full C-41 dev cycle. With any luck there might be something on the roll at the end

KarmaGarda

DaireQuinlan wrote: »

Ah yes, I was scratching my head there until I remembered that post by valentia. I don't think he was being entirely serious

I was wondering this at the time! I think he mentioned jif and mr muscle if I recall correctly and was thinking "how the f*** do they process film". But me being a bit green behind the ears decided to say nothing

DaireQuinlan wrote: »

In addition you can start experimenting. I'm messing around at the moment with alternative B&W developers for slide and negative. Right now I have sitting in its development tank a roll of Reala which has been developed in Diafine, then fixed, then bleached, and is now going through the full C-41 dev cycle. With any luck there might be something on the roll at the end

Sounds like fun! I'll be trying all sorts of stuff once I get my head around it. Might even throw a bit of Valentias Mr Muscle into the loop sometime and see if my images come out "stronger" :rolleyes:

DaireQuinlan

DaireQuinlan wrote: »

Right now I have sitting in its development tank a roll of Reala which has been developed in Diafine, then fixed, then bleached, and is now going through the full C-41 dev cycle. With any luck there might be something on the roll at the end

As an aside ... Experiment FAIL. Or possibly wild success depending on your point of view :rolleyes:

KarmaGarda

DaireQuinlan wrote: »

As an aside ... Experiment FAIL. Or possibly wild success depending on your point of view :rolleyes:

well you'd never have known if you didn't try! It is kinda funky though... but I'm kinda siding with experiment fail too!

sineadw

ah feck - gonna give it a go in DCC darkroom next week. Should be amusing to say the least...

DaireQuinlan

sineadw wrote: »

ah feck - gonna give it a go in DCC darkroom next week. Should be amusing to say the least...

well, don't be disappointed when everything works fine, you actually have to put some effort in to screw things up . Everything colour on my stream for the last two years or so I've done at home.
This was a roll of Ektar that I left in the soup for 30 seconds too long (because I was browsing boards on my phone funnily enough) ...



I ended up actually really liking the colour. It went really cold, but the reds still perked up with a bit of balancing.

This was a roll of fuji 64T crossprocessed in the same C-41 chems...

sineadw

Off to Gunns to get what I need Daire is there a good resource somewhere online on the process involved?

DaireQuinlan

sineadw wrote: »

Off to Gunns to get what I need Daire is there a good resource somewhere online on the process involved?

probably somewhere yeah Just get that Fuji Hunt 5l kit (I think it might be the only C-41 chems that gunns have) and make up 500ml of the dev, bleach, fix and stabiliser. There are pretty comprehensive instructions included in the box, you just have to divide all the amounts by 10 (hence the need for the measuring syringe). Budget wise this only really works out if you start using the chemistry more than once , so buy a 4 pack of some cheap 500ml bottled water from dunnes and dump it. Then store the chems (clearly labeled ! Lets not make THAT mistake again !) in the bottles. Just fill them to the brim and squeeze them ever so slightly before putting on the top so there's no air in them

Doing them up the first time you can do them up to the correct temp with appropriately temperatured water. Re-using them you have to dump them into a water batch for however long it takes them to get up to the right temp.

KarmaGarda

Note to self... buy storage bottles...

DaireQuinlan

Also, get one of those foot long glass thermometers in gunns aswell. They seem a bit unwieldy but they're ideal, you'll be thankful for their awkward lengthiness the first time you have to dunk it into a steamed up 1000ml graduated cylinder and read the temperature at the same time. They're also surprisingly precise (and I presume accurate).

sineadw

Thanks Daire! They have the thermometers in the DCC darkroom so all good there. Do the stored chems not have to be in black or somewhat light-sealed bottles? Oh, and Mammy Gunn (is that Fiona? I can never remember her name) said about using marbles in the 5L bottle to bring the level back to the top and make it airtight again - you ever hear of that? She was a tad reluctant to sell me the kit in the first place - I think she thought I was completely clueless. So 100% correct there

Will a plastic 5ml measuring syringe do? You know the ones you use for calpol Obviously I won't be using it for calpol again though!

DaireQuinlan

sineadw wrote: »

Thanks Daire! They have the thermometers in the DCC darkroom so all good there. Do the stored chems not have to be in black or somewhat light-sealed bottles? Oh, and Mammy Gunn (is that Fiona? I can never remember her name) said about using marbles in the 5L bottle to bring the level back to the top and make it airtight again - you ever hear of that? She was a tad reluctant to sell me the kit in the first place - I think she thought I was completely clueless. So 100% correct there

Yeah I've heard of people doing that. It's to basically ensure that there's zero air in the bottles for the chemicals to react with. I presume you're doing it up 500ml at a time so you'll only have the raw chems sitting around in their half full bottles. They ought to be fine for a while, they're a lot more robust than the made up solutions. When you get a chance get some tetenal protectan. I spray it into the bottles after I'm done with them. It displaces the air. All it is is a butane/propane mix though so just get some of that in a hardware store instead if you can't get protectan.

The bottles I put it in are transparent but I store them in a cool dark place (top of a wardrobe), they only come out when I want to use them so I never bothered with the coloured glass ones.

Will a plastic 5ml measuring syringe do? You know the ones you use for calpol Obviously I won't be using it for calpol again though!

They're the ones. And no, I wouldn't recommend using it for calpol afterwards :rolleyes:

DaireQuinlan

sineadw wrote: »

Thanks Daire! They have the thermometers in the DCC darkroom so all good there. Do the stored chems not have to be in black or somewhat light-sealed bottles?

-poke-

so did it work ?

Fajitas!

Daire... I've got some bad news about Sinead...













:pac:

sineadw

Not going in till the 31st Daire. Got me some nice provia 120 yesterday and some pan f - both TLRs loaded. And that Reala you gave me aeons ago in the Fed. Off to town today with KJT to see if I can get something Not that I don't have a ton of exposed stuff already...

Wanted to ask actually - not sure I can get to the neg scanner in DCC or the ones in college. If I use my normal scanner at it's highest res and then invert in PS would that give me at least an idea of what I've got?

Edit - I assume there's no problem doing slide and neg film at the same time?

DaireQuinlan

sineadw wrote: »

Not going in till the 31st Daire. Got me some nice provia 120 yesterday and some pan f - both TLRs loaded. And that Reala you gave me aeons ago in the Fed. Off to town today with KJT to see if I can get something Not that I don't have a ton of exposed stuff already...

Bah ! I was expecting a thread today so we could pick through the pieces ^w^w^w^w admire the results.

Wanted to ask actually - not sure I can get to the neg scanner in DCC or the ones in college. If I use my normal scanner at it's highest res and then invert in PS would that give me at least an idea of what I've got?

What, just a normal reflective scanner without a transparency attachment ? Almost certainly not. I tried it aeons ago before I got either of my scanners and got nowhere. I'm guessing if you don't cut the negs though you could get into some 1 hour place and have at least the 35mm scanned and put onto CD for some negligible cost ?

Edit - I assume there's no problem doing slide and neg film at the same time?

Nah, shouldn't be a problem. I've done both in the same chemicals, different tanks but I don't see that being a problem. I'm assuming you realise that the slides will be cross processed, right ?

sineadw

DaireQuinlan wrote: »

I'm assuming you realise that the slides will be cross processed, right ?

Yep Sure what the hell Getting some velvia which I think I'll do one of myself (C41) and leave another into Gunns. Then I can write about it in college and pretend I know lots...