Pulling Slide Film to Increase Its Dynamic Range

[marcookie]

Hi,

The high contrast of slide film is both its strength and weakness. It is very easy to lose detail on the highlights: everything that meters above Zone VII is rendered as pure white on most transparency material. I was curious to see if some this detail was recoverable--in other words, if the dynamic range of slide film could be increased somehow. This could be done by under-developing (pulling) the film.

Information on the topic is very scarce (I found one old youtube video and some vague treads on flickr). Ansel Adams itself in his book "The Negative" dedicated a short paragraph on reversal film, but he wrote the opposite of what I found. He states: <<If development modifications are possible, they will have their primary effect on the low values (higher densities).>>
Conversely, I found that, as with negative film, the highlight are restrained by under-developing the film. As an afterthought, this is not surprising because the first step of the E-6 process is the development of a negative silver image, that is then reversed. Therefore, the effect of changing development time is the same in both trasnparency and negative film (except for the different contrast of the two media, see below).

This is what I found in my first experiments. Please compare the two pictures below (both on 4x5 Velvia 50):
https://i.ibb.co/Zh7FXd5/comparison.jpg

The two images were exposed as indicated above via the zone system, but they were then given different development. The picture with normal development has blown out highlights, and some areas looks too bright. The one that was underdeveloped by half stop shows significantly more details in the highlights. It's not a scientific 1:1 comparison, but I am confident in my metering and I know that without the reduced development, the image on the right would have been too harsh.

A change in development of half a stop makes quite a large impact to slide film, because its inherent high contrast, as opposed to negative film that has much wider dynamic range (most transparency material records no texture outside Zone II-III and Zone VII, as opposed to Zone II and Zone VIII++ for negative film).

I made a Youtube video to share my experience on this topic, going a little more in depth. Please let me know if you find something different.
I am sure that many people use these procedures of development control on a consistent basis, but I could not understand how it worked until I tried it out.


https://youtu.be/qDr7H7FXOvM

Some final thoughts and additional information:
Fuji recommends pulling up to 1/2 stop. So what I have done is not revolutionary. See the manual http://www.fujifilm.com/products/professional_films/pdf/velvia_50_datasheet.pdf

The question is why it appears that there is more information in the highlights of Velvia 50 that what is retained after reversing the film, information that can be recovered when under-developing the film.
I think this is mostly due the color developer bath of the E-6 process: under-developing the film leaves more unreacted silver salts with which the colors can react to.
Unlike negative film chemistry, in which highly are optical density that linearly builds up with exposure leaving less and less Ag salts, the color developer in E-6 needs a certain amount of unreacted AgBr, a sort of threshold to have minimal density (i.e. texture in the highlights).

I am a chemist during the day and all this is just fun to think and thinker about for me. If then this reasoning leads to some (minor) artistic improvement of my images, and to some understainding by the readers--this is a nice added bonus.


I will post more test that compare the same image. Stay tuned if interested.

[Bernice Loui]

Except from Morley Baer's book Wilder shore:
https://www.jamesgrahambookseller.com/pages/books/5472/morley-baer-david-rains-wallace/the-wilder-shore-signed

190326



Bernice

[Pere Casals]

slide film

Marco,

Slide film has more than 4 stops dynamic range, it has at least 6.6 stops.

See graph 21 in page 8: https://www.fujifilm.com/products/professional_films/pdf/velvia_100_datasheet.pdf , you have around 2H log exposure dynamic range.

It is true that you may easily burn highlights, but shadows may have detail well beyond 3.0D. A good scanner may be required to recover those deep shadows.

If you see the tetenal datasheet you may pull even 3 stops by conserving first development time but decreasing first development temperature to 28.6ºC, https://www.freestylephoto.biz/pdf/product_pdfs/tetenal/TetenalE6_Instructions.pdf

Because of practical precision, Pull is usually done by modifying Temp instead Time.

If you are interested in that you may find useful learning to calibrate film, this is plotting density vs exposure for different developments, Beyond the Zone System book teaches practical sensitometry knowledge. With reversal process the curve is inverted, but same theory may be applied.

Regards

[Drew Wiley]

Current slide films "pull" quite poorly. It's pretty much a waste of time. There were some older ones which could handle about half a stop of pull before risk of highlight crossover. The change in pull performance seemed to coincide with newer extremely fine-grained versions of Ektachrome, Provia, etc. I think you will be disappointed, but you can always try. I wouldn't risk anything important. Not much chrome transparency film is left anyway. It remains to see if E100 will be revived in sheets. Those of us who shot chrome films routinely tended to instinctively look for scenes amenable to their inherent contrast range. I was a darkroom color printer, and soon learned that you can get a lot more mileage out of a chrome by learning unsharp masking than by quickie options like pulling or flashing, which tend to have unwanted side effects. In recent years I've switched over to Ektar and RA4 printing, since all my favorite chrome films are now gone, and Cibachrome too. And Pere - Velvia does have quite a bit more sensitized range in the shadows than most people realize, but not much of it is realistically usable. It gets pretty blue and grainy down there. This is a topic where following Zone theory will just get you in trouble. Why? Because color film is exactly that - it involves color, not just a gray scale. Warp that scale, as engineered, and you're likely to distort color reproduction too. I'm not trying to discourage experimentation. It's just that I've been there and done that; quite a bit, in fact.

[Pere Casals]

Current slide films "pull" quite poorly.

Hmmm.... Please read the velvia 50 datasheet, for example, it says "superb push/pull processing" in the first page.

[faberryman]

I guess you have a choice: go with what the datasheet says or your own experience.

[Pere Casals]

I guess fujifilm is very serious in the datasheets.

I pulled velvia 100 that was accidentally shot at 50 with perfect results.

So no choice, both personal experience and datasheets tells the same.

[Drew Wiley]

I don't believe it. Most of the Velvia shots you've previously posted look awfully fake color to me. That's fine if it's the creative effect you're after. But if you did methodical testing with calibrated color standards, you'd discover the difference. Old original Velvia 50 would handle about half a stop. That's it; then crossover. The newer 100 stuff, naah. Like I said, been there, done that. Morley Baer's Wilder Shore work was done on Ektachrome 64. I've seen the actual prints, not just the book. He overexposed it and then had it pulled for a slightly washed out look. The Museum director didn't consider it worthy of arts exhibit space, so hung the prints in the natural sciences section. Whatever. Morley got canonized posthumously. At that time he was noted as an architectural photographer, primarily for his deadpan colorful facades of hippified SF Victorians published in Painted Ladies. With the Wilder Shore project he took the opposite tack. And good ole overtly blue Ektachrome 64 was a lot more flexible pulling than the snappier Fujichrome 50 that soon showed up. The first two generation of Provia sheet film pulled the best of them all. Once it went to the current fine grain, that ended. Most push better than they pull. I managed to get a lot of Fuji 8x10 film remarkably cheaply and did lots of experiments with all of them. Velvia is about the worst choice possible if excessive contrast is your worry. I don't understand its popularity unless you're doing a slide show. There is a select suite of hues it does better than other films; and I selected it for that kind of use, as well as when I actually wanted a boost in contrast.
But when it comes to printmaking, versatile it ain't.

[faberryman]

I guess fujifilm is very serious in the datasheets.

I pulled velvia 100 that was accidentally shot at 50 with perfect results.

So no choice, both personal experience and datasheets tells the same.

Which E6 kit did you use?

[Drew Wiley]

Incidentally, I got good enough at predicting would go wrong to deliberately induce certain kinds of crossover using excessive pull. But that was for sake of creative rather than objective results. It's fine to break rules if it serves a purpose.

[Pere Casals]

I don't believe it. Most of the Velvia shots you've previously posted look awfully fake color to me.

Did I post velvia shots ?




I don't believe it.

Just pull velvia/provia once in a lifetime and you'll belive.

Also Provia is excellent for push-pull : https://www.fujifilm.com/products/professional_films/pdf/provia_100f_datasheet.pdf


190339

If you were Fuji, would you misslead your customers to destroy their slides ?

Just test it and you'll belive. If you tested it and got bad results then you had to do something wrong in the processing, test it again...

[Drew Wiley]

I've already tested it forwards, backwards, rightside-up, upside-down. At one point in time, all the big labs and serious printmakers recognized the issue. Amateurs wanted Velvia just for the noise impact, kinda like today's digi hyper-saturation types. As long as it was loud they didn't care about issues like highlight crossover or poorly differentiated shadow values. So, yes, you can pull it. But don't expect the scale to stay neutral if the contrast is high to begin with. When it comes to Fuji literature, you have to read between the lines. I learned that a long time ago.

[Duolab123]

I've already tested it forwards, backwards, rightside-up, upside-down. At one point in time, all the big labs and serious printmakers recognized the issue. Amateurs wanted Velvia just for the noise impact, kinda like today's digi hyper-saturation types. As long as it was loud they didn't care about issues like highlight crossover or poorly differentiated shadow values. So, yes, you can pull it. But don't expect the scale to stay neutral if the contrast is high to begin with. When it comes to Fuji literature, you have to read between the lines. I learned that a long time ago.

You speak with authority! I'm not anywhere as experienced as many on this forum, but pulling slide film never worked for me. When Cibachrome died, I stopped shooting LF chromes. I still shoot Provia for 35mm and 6x6 slides for projecting (mostly to hear my wife ooh and ahh). I'm not a professional so I don't need a lot of huge color prints, but the Kodak color negative films are so easy for me to get nice prints.
I'm not sure modern black and white films have much pull to them. Things are different than when Ansel was scooting around by mule or his famous Suburban with a platform on top.:)
Best Regards Mike

[Drew Wiley]

Cibachrome was itself quite idiosyncratic, so I had lots of fun trying all kinds of novel tweaks. With respect to the present discussion, one thing I experimented with is inducing specific crossovers in the film itself to offset opposite color errors at the phase, or perhaps, the other direction, to exaggerate them is they seemed visually rewarding. Color neg films and RA4 printing is very different ballgame, but fun in its own way.

[Bernice Loui]

Fuji Velvia has whacky color rendition, narrow exposure latitude and does not pull worth a darn (Do not care what the Fuji data sheet says), makes cartoonish fake color cibrachromes. Tried a few rolls of Velvia and sheets of Velvia (4x5) back when Fuji introduced it and promoting it big time. Velvia never presented visually appealing to me, then again, that is an opinion.
Velvia became very popular for it's tuned color rendition and high contrast.

The mostly opposite Fuji color transparency film was Fuji Astia which became one of my fave color transparency films... short lived, mostly market rejected for trying to be a moderate contrast, accurate color rendition color transparency film.... while Velvia remains in high demand to this day.. consider why is this?

The other good color transparency film that went away was Agfa RS100, another moderate contrast slightly warm rendition color transparency film. Kodak Ektachrome back in the day was known for it's bluish cast, but that can be adjusted mostly out and that version of Ektachrome can be overexposed, underdeveloped to gain a bit more contrast range.

One more thing that should be pointed out, back in the days of serious pro E6 processing labs, they all had their distinct color signature. To get color rendition correct, a batch of film needs to be gray card tested at the specific E6 lab, then cc filters as need applied to moderate the color towards being closer to neutral. This process helps to negate the effects of lighting, lens color, film color, processing color. Is this degree of control and consistency possible today with E6 color processing kits and such?


As for Cibachrome-Ilfordchrome prints, it requires a moderate contrast color transparency and contrast masking to fit the tonal range into what is possible for Cibachrome-Ilfordchrome. When Fuji Astia and Cibachrome-Ilfordchrome became a print of the past, stopped making LF color prints. Those great days are now over.



Bernice

[Pere Casals]

Fuji Velvia has whacky color rendition, narrow exposure latitude and does not pull worth a darn (Do not care what the Fuji data sheet says), makes cartoonish fake color cibrachromes. Tried a few rolls of Velvia and sheets of Velvia (4x5) back when Fuji introduced it and promoting it big time. Velvia never presented visually appealing to me, then again, that is an opinion.


You could start saying that it was only an opinion...

...because Velvia has been the main tool for pro landscape photographers in the last 3 decades, and still it's technically-aesthetically unsurpassed these digital days by a big margin.

In landscape (this 2019) Velvia blows miles away any other thing on earth, just see books made with velvia.

[marcookie]

Marco,

Slide film has more than 4 stops dynamic range, it has at least 6.6 stops.



Thank you for the note. I think you are correct: 6-7 stops of dynamic range, in which about 5 stops of textural range, the range of zones which convey definite qualities of texture and recognition of substance. I was (incorrectly) referring to this.

[Bernice Loui]

"Pro" is much about revenue production, not about creative-artistic expression.
Not that difficult to crank out stuff that sells, that is much of what "pro" means.

As for those color landscape books, no thanks, been there done all that.

Do dis-regard all this as it is mere opinion of one individual, nothing more to discuss, nothing more to debate or battle over, now carry on.


Bernice




You could start saying that it was only an opinion...

...because Velvia has been the main tool for pro landscape photographers in the last 3 decades, and still it's technically-aesthetically unsurpassed these digital days by a big margin.

In landscape (this 2019) Velvia blows miles away any other thing on earth, just see books made with velvia.

[bob carnie]

I managed one of Canada's top E6 labs in the days when E6 was rocking.. late 80's.


E6 has a great push capability and less than great pull or drop...
We used state of art Refrema processors and ran 7 days a week over 18 hours a day.

We advised all photographers to base their exposures on push 1/2 development and then if required we would then have 1 1/2 drop capability.. drop 1 was extremely popular with a starting clip test at push 1/2.

But as Drew points out dropping E6 can be problematic.

[Pere Casals]

dropping E6 can be problematic.

Yes, it requires some experimentation... we all know that with slide film we need extreme care with highlights, if we want to pull then we need to learn how to meter in that situation, if not we may blow highlights. But I don't think that pulling velvia is more or less more difficult that with other films of the past, it's just about learning how the film behaves with the modified processing.

Personally I feel no need to push/pull velvia, but it's a resource that it can be used...

[Pere Casals]

Not that difficult to crank out stuff that sells, that is much of what "pro" means.

ok, let's show an example of what a velvia pro job can be:

Treasured Lands. This book is mostly made (IIRC) with 5x7" velvia. Images are beyond 500MPix effective and require no intrusive Ps edition so in year 2119 those captures will still be of top notch quality with unsurpassed aesthetic value and sporting pure athenticity.

Supose you are to trek 59 national parks to capture its beauty. What imaging system would you take ? Would you prefer a D850 instead?

[Drew Wiley]

Gosh, Pere, there is just soooooooo much more E6 work out there that you don't seem to be aware of. Decades of it. Lots of different films. Hang around with some old school printmakers and look at the heritage. Velvia was just an option at the extreme end, but a relatively minor one in the overall scenario. It just doesn't reproduce well. It's popular because it's loud. Looks great on a light box. After that, it's a headache to work with. The name of the game is the endpoint. How does each link to the chain fit in?

[faberryman]

Since we only have a choice pf Velvia, Provia, and now Ektachrome again, much of this discussion is moot. Use whatever floats your boat. This "my film is best" argument is tiresome and puerile. All require digital to get to a print. So all this talk about authenticity is a joke.

[Drew Wiley]

Let me give you just one example, Pere. Bob and at least one other person in recent memory have griped about maintenance issues with the ZBE color enlarger. Why do you think ZBE found a market niche for a sophisticated expensive enlarger that ran so hot and bright that it kept frying its own brains? It was the Cibachrome era; and Ciba printed very slow. But it was also when Velvia had been introduced, which is so darn contrasty that it often took up to a .90 density contrast mask to tame it - that's three extra stops of printing density to an already very slow combination! To make things even worse, Velvia frequently involved small film amateur shots requiring a lot of magnification, since large format shooters generally knew the ropes and preferred more cooperative E6 films. Drum scanning gets you around some of that complication, but still not the abrupt step off the cliff when it comes to sheer contrast and density. The irony of it was that in certain instances, Astia might look even richer in actual print, because the shoe fits the foot better. But Astia looked weaker on a light box, so gained far less market traction. Kodak's E100G was perhaps the most versatile mid-range E6 film ever. I hope it comes back in sheets. But looking back, and having started with good ole Ektachrome 64, which needed only about a .30 mask in most instances, one can understand why so many printmakers stuck with it as long as it was around. It had its own foibles; but pros were accustomed to it. When I briefly did some glossy magazine work, the editors refused to accept Velvia shots because they were difficult to reproduce.

[Pere Casals]

Gosh, Pere, there is just soooooooo much more E6 work out there that you don't seem to be aware of.

Drew, I think I've shot almost all slide films available since the 1980s. The one I loved the more it was Astia. For many landscapes Velvia 50 is specially wonderful because it makes yellows warmer, amazingly this comes from a defective technical design! But for long exposures the 100 is the good choice. Velvia 100"F" variant it's overlooked in the western countries... it's the one that sadly I've not tried, I suspect that it has something great inside that can be exploited.

Now Ektachrome is to return in sheets...

Single problem with slides it's the too expensive cost.



Let me give you just one example, Pere. Bob and at least one other person in recent memory have griped about maintenance issues with the ZBE color enlarger. Why do you think ZBE found a market niche for a sophisticated expensive enlarger that ran so hot and bright that it kept frying its own brains? It was the Cibachrome era; and Ciba printed very slow. But it was also when Velvia had been introduced, which is so darn contrasty that it often took up to a .90 density contrast mask to tame it - that's three extra stops of printing density to an already very slow combination! To make things even worse, Velvia frequently involved small film amateur shots requiring a lot of magnification, since large format shooters generally knew the ropes and preferred more cooperative E6 films. Drum scanning gets you around some of that complication, but still not the abrupt step off the cliff when it comes to sheer contrast and density. The irony of it was that in certain instances, Astia might look even richer in actual print, because the shoe fits the foot better. But Astia looked weaker on a light box, so gained far less market traction. Kodak's E100G was perhaps the most versatile mid-range E6 film ever. I hope it comes back in sheets. But looking back, and having started with good ole Ektachrome 64, which needed only about a .30 mask in most instances, one can understand why so many printmakers stuck with it as long as it was around. It had its own foibles; but pros were accustomed to it. When I briefly did some glossy magazine work, the editors refused to accept Velvia shots because they were difficult to reproduce.

Velvia was designed to be projected, not to be printed.

I often project velvia/provia slides. A low flare projector lens combined with a bright screen and with dark walls in the room it's something that steals the show.

In the velvia era TVs/monitors were really bad... but today that imaging system (projecting slides) still blows away any other thing.

Cibachrome was designed to print german slides, not velvia, so a missmatch had to be there, and therefore it had to be difficult.

[Drew Wiley]

Thanks for your superficial wisdom, faberryman. I still print color in a darkroom. It's still what floats my boat, and a number of other people too. No need to start over and default to digital. So 100% of what I've discussed about film selection is still relevant. Do you think a lifetime of chromes and negatives gets thrown away simply because the film choices today are somewhat different? The old shots need to be thoughtfully strategized too. I've got hundreds of large format chromes around that still have never been printed. I've also got quite a quantity of precision 8X10 dupes with the contrast and hue corrections already built-in, which happen to be superb for internegative reproduction, then potential ra4 printing. And if E100 does get manufactured in sheets again, all of this discussion is still applicable, at least in principle. By objectively comparing different films, whether current or extinct, we learn a lot of useful things. Old printing processes also get revived and modernized. It has zero to do with what film is "best". It's about how films actually differ, and how that affects printing or other forms of reproduction. And since 8x10 chrome film is now approaching around $30 a shot with processing, at least your wallet might appreciate being nitpicky.

[Drew Wiley]

Pere, the debate over various flavors of Velvia tends to get pretty heated, at least over on APUG. I've shot and printed all of them. And I am appreciative of a higher contrast option being out there, but only when that option was actually needed. I preferred Velvia 100F for a simple reason. It was made in polyester rather than triacetate sheets, so was dimensionally stable and would hold mask registration. For the same reason I preferred Astia 100F to older Astia, but also for the finer grain. But Provia never was available in anything but acetate; so I used Kodak E100G as my mid-range chrome film when it became available. Luckily for me, the current selection of Kodak color negs sheet films are all on Estar base. Some of the finest color I've ever seen was on old Kodachrome 5x7 sheets, long before my time.

[faberryman]

Velvia was designed to be projected, not to be printed.So much for your Treasured Lands argument. And what about all that commercial work on chromes for publication back in the heyday?

[faberryman]

Drew, I think I've shot almost all slide films available since the 1980s.I shot slides too. Big deal. I preferred Kodachome. I thought Velvia was too garish. And it was impossible to print on Cibachome. Kodachrome was hard enough. Who cares? Doesn't make you or me an expert. Just some guys, like a lot of guys, working in their home darkrooms. Assuming you printed, and didn't just have slide shows for your family and friends. Drew, on the other hand, is operating on a different level.

[Pere Casals]

So much for your Treasured Lands argument. And what about all that commercial work on chromes for publication back in the heyday?

There is no doubt that slides were designed to perform optimally for projection, what it was its main market. It is silly to encode graphic information in the 3.0D densities if later that has to be printed. It is also silly to build that contrast if it will limit dynamic range capture.

Slides with regular processing do deliver the optimal result for projection, all slides do deliver a nice projection is well exposed/developed. It is like this... slides are projection stuff.

But it is also true that slides were used beyond projection because several factors, sure you know what those factors are. For commercial work slides removed the RA-4 printing interpretation, so the slide itself it was an absolute reference about what it should be printed on paper. The other principal factor is spectral footprint of several slide films. What velvia makes with incoming light can be imitated in a post processing, but we are speaking about imitating, not doing the same by far.

The Treasured Lands argument is powerful anyway. Beyond the book, if you could see those sheets on a light table... hmmm... I imagine that...

Look, we are used to see crappy 2.0D static contrast in the monitors and TVs, watching 3.5D stuff is another league.

[Drew Wiley]

Well, it seems I was regarded as something of an expert printer in Ciba, and was appropriately equipped. I built one of the very few 8x10 RGB additive enlargers in the world. There are a lot of different paths to masking, and I had my own special tweaks; but overall, I was probably at least as good a Ciba printer as anyone in the world. But I shot for my sake of my own prints, and rarely printed for others, which is quite a different ballgame requiring its own suite of skills. Yet all these skill sets tend to transfer to new applications. For example, my recent experiments with dye transfer printing (which I am NOT expert at, being just an off n' on beginner), have already taught me new things applicable to more routine RA4 color neg printing, at least in terms of significant improvements over traditional expectations. Quite a few of us go back and study old process and lab manuals from way back before I was ever born, and still learn useful new things. Anyone involved in true pigment printing (not inkjet) knows the value of honoring past learning, as well as modern methods. Now I'm dabbling in tricolor printing from black and white sheet film originals, which I'm equipped for. But it's just another fun thing. I will get something good, regardless. I always do, at least with persistence. I enjoy different kinds of darkroom work, but simply don't have the time or budget to do a lot of color printing right now. Hope to do some over the coming months, before black and white season again.

[interneg]

The irony of it was that in certain instances, Astia might look even richer in actual print, because the shoe fits the foot better. But Astia looked weaker on a light box, so gained far less market traction.

Definitely Fuji's best E6 film in my experience, no question.


When I briefly did some glossy magazine work, the editors refused to accept Velvia shots because they were difficult to reproduce.

Most likely because they didn't want to potentially have to cough up for spot colours to get a fair representation of the transparency.

[Drew Wiley]

There's something odd about Velvia dyes that makes them especially tricky with Portra 160 internegatives too. I've gotten some interesting results, but not predictably accurate like with other chrome films. And it's not just contrast related, since suitable contrast masks are also involved.

[Mark Sampson]

I'm thinking that the OP should run some tests using his regular lab.
Whoever they might be, I'm sure that they'd be happy to work with him to get good results. All my custom lab experience is 35-40 years ago now, but we were always happy to help a customer out.

[Bernice Loui]

Some time in the early 1990's QT Luong and me had lunch together in MTV. That was when QT Luong was still working at SRI, me not too far from MTV. He brought a stack of 5x7 color transparencies, me some B & W prints. We shared images, liked each others images and moved on to yak about other stuff.

Point being, this is much about finding one's creative-artistic voice. Once that has been discovered and cultivated continue on to share your voice with others. Some will appreciate what you have to say, others not so much, others will despise anything you say. It is not about following a path that is believe to result in a projection, it is about finding your own path.


Bernice



ok, let's show an example of what a velvia pro job can be:

Treasured Lands. This book is mostly made (IIRC) with 5x7" velvia. Images are beyond 500MPix effective and require no intrusive Ps edition so in year 2119 those captures will still be of top notch quality with unsurpassed aesthetic value and sporting pure athenticity.

Supose you are to trek 59 national parks to capture its beauty. What imaging system would you take ? Would you prefer a D850 instead?

[Drew Wiley]

Labs are getting scarcer. There are still several dip n dunk machines here in the SF Bay area that can do push or pull, but none still process anything bigger than 4x5 film. The demand was still strong enough to process both E6 and C41 8X10, but then the labs got the property sold out from under them and they had to find smaller cheaper lease space which mandated less big process machinery. The same thing happened with picture frame wholesale suppliers. There were three big frame supply wholesalers locally, and the demand for such distribution is exceptionally high in this area, but it's hard to justify staying in business when a single real estate transaction will net more profit than decades of even highly successful ordinary business. The lot sells, the warehouse or whatever gets outright leveled, then super expensive techie condos and office space go up. Not all such schemes are themselves successful. And I scratch my head at all these young people earning six figure incomes and being forced to live in cars and camper shells, or crowding together in a house and being unable to afford furniture after the rent is paid. In some Silicon Valley neighborhoods the average minimum DOWN PAYMENT to buy a two bedroom house is nearly 700K. Crazy. I don't live anywhere that trendy, but am sure glad I bought my property here 45 years ago. It would be unthinkable otherwise.

[Corran]

We've now had 3 pages of pointless banter unrelated to the topic at hand.

I appreciate what marcookie has done, but clearly the point of the topic is getting lost - and I think it is an important and interesting one, so can we please stop?

Perhaps marcookie can provide at some point a nice comparison from two identical images.

Personally, I've been pulling E6 (First Developer) for years, and it helps, but is hard to control and can cause color change. If you are good at post-processing the scan, since as already mentioned wet printing from positives is basically dead, the color issues can be easily solved. You can also experiment with pulling the color developer, which will open up the shadows but can quickly get messy with color shift as I believe this is a process that essentially goes to completion, but I'm not sure.

[Pere Casals]

Point being, this is much about finding one's creative-artistic voice. .... It is not about following a path that is believe to result in a projection, it is about finding your own path.

Bernice, I like the way you speak now.

Perfect if velvia does not like you, but we should realize how important it has been in the pre-digitalization times for pro nature photographers, and how powerful it remains for its today's users.

[Bernice Loui]

Except this has always been the way, nothing new.

Initial post referring to Morley Bear's book Wilder Shore was specifically intended to example what exposure and development altered Ektachrome aka color transparency images look like. Point being, this has been done for a long time, nothing new here. Exception is, the era when good color prints made via the color transparency film process is essentially dead today with rare exceptions like Christopher Burkett :
http://www.photographywest.com/pages/CBArtistsStatement.html

Seen his color images in real life, they are good.


Now Pere, I'm going to be blunt with you.
Based on your images posted, text written, you're still learning and trying to discover your artistic-creative voice. There are a LOT of others here who have a Whole LOT more experience, technical expertise and artistic-creative guidance to offer you... if you would set aside ego and all that to listen with the goal and intent to fully understand what they are trying to tell you. They have MUCH to offer, don't ignore them, discount them as they are trying to help you. Difficulty is, help and advise cannot be effective until the target individual is ready to be helped and receive knowledge, wisdom and guidance.



Bernice






Bernice, I like the way you speak now.

Perfect if velvia des not like you, but we should realize how important it has been in the pre-digitalization times for pro nature photographers, and how powerful it is for its today's users.

[Pere Casals]

Yes, I'm learning a lot here. I've received extensive guidance, and by debating key concepts I check if what I'm learning is consistent.

Debating controversial concepts is an excellent source of advanced knowledge...

[Larry Gebhardt]

ok, let's show an example of what a velvia pro job can be:

Treasured Lands. This book is mostly made (IIRC) with 5x7" velvia. Images are beyond 500MPix effective and require no intrusive Ps edition so in year 2119 those captures will still be of top notch quality with unsurpassed aesthetic value and sporting pure athenticity.

Supose you are to trek 59 national parks to capture its beauty. What imaging system would you take ? Would you prefer a D850 instead?


I believe QT shot a lot of Astia as well as Velvia. This was for the added latitude. He says as much at https://www.terragalleria.com/parks/info/faqs.html

[Tin Can]

Perhaps take a break.

Kodak Ektachrome current production facilities. (https://www.popsci.com/inside-kodak-factory-photos)

Kodak Movie Film Q&A (https://www.kodak.com/US/en/motion/Support/Technical_Information/Frequently_Asked_Questions/default.htm)

Kodak Push / Pull Processing (https://www.kodak.com/US/en/motion/support/technical_information/processing_information/push_pull_processing/default.htm)

[Bernice Loui]

"I work exclusively in color, for I find it a crucial part of the visual experience. Like many landscape photographers, I have used extensively Fuji Velvia, for its vivid colors that seem good at matching the memories of a scene. However, these days, I use exclusively Fuji Astia. This film provides me with a more natural palette. Interestingly, I find that while in smaller formats, this film, because of its less saturated palette, does not match the colors that the mind perceived in a natural landscape, in a 5x7 transparency, the precise rendition of the textures, identical or better than what can be observed at the scene, is just right to recreate the visual experience of being there. Technically, Fuji Astia has three important advantages, first it holds almost more full stop of contrast more than Velvia, making it in particular easier to retain shadow detail in full light or sky detail in overcast conditions, second, the full additional shutter speed is very useful for freezing the motion of vegetation, and third, the reciprocity failure corrections are not necessary until 30s exposures, while Velvia definitively needs them starting from 10s."


-Fuji Astia remains one of the best E6 films for a long list of reasons both technical and visual, IMO.
There was a time when:
190439

Bernice





I believe QT shot a lot of Astia as well as Velvia. This was for the added latitude. He says as much at https://www.terragalleria.com/parks/info/faqs.html

[faberryman]

I believe QT shot a lot of Astia as well as Velvia. This was for the added latitude. He says as much at https://www.terragalleria.com/parks/info/faqs.html
Sorry. The truth doesn't fit the narrative.

[Pere Casals]

Sorry. The truth doesn't fit the narrative.

The truth is that astia was discontinued early because of low sales, while velvia 50/100 was the principal tool of nature pro photographers in the pre digitalization age. In fact the marketing target of sensia was mainly portraiture, at least it was the best fuji slide for that.

Of course many landscape scenes were also perfect for sensia, IMHO it records light purity very nicely.

Regarging Treasured Lands it looks mainly velvia, but we may ask. The review in OnLandscape by Tim Parkin says that.

Today only several privileged individuals may have a freezer of sensia sheets, vest alternative is pulling provia a bit, which also it's amazing stuff.

[interneg]

Today only several privileged individuals may have a freezer of sensia sheets

Made of rocking horse droppings presumably.

[Drew Wiley]

Who cares who used what? The point is to pick the appropriate tools for the task; and not all situations are the same. Fuji offered three levels of contrast and saturation in E6 sheets, which was nice. A few of the best 8x10 shots I ever got were on Velvia; but for me is was never a versatile film and amounted to only about 5% of my large format work. Now the choices are unfortunately very limited. If a great mid-range sheet film like E100G arises again, that would be wonderful. We'll see. I don't think we'll ever get another Astia. It didn't sell well. But that fact had nothing to do with its actual repro potential, but with the basic ignorance of many photographers, most of whom are not themselves printmakers. But Pere is completely wrong about Velvia being the primary pro tool, as various flavors of Kodak Ektachrome did not even exist parallel, and as if the tiny percent of landscape photographers he seems aware of represented the whole. And a great deal of water passed under the bridge long before the web and all its "instant-expert" nonsense ever arrived. I remember when you looked at lots of real prints when discussing such things, with other highly dedicated printmakers. Now people just post some tiny little furball on the web and presume that is authoritative. Everybody is an expert these days. I hope Velvia sticks around; but it is at an extreme end. And Fuji keeps whittling down its film manufacture in general. Even a home-run black-and-white product like ACROS is now gone. So it's premature to bet on the long-term survival of E6 films in general. But let's try to keep this in a large format context, not "slides". Sensia was never a sheet film, nor in our lifetimes, Kodachrome or Scotchchrome or any number of other options. Agfa offered lower-saturation sheet film for quite awhile, though it was never popular in the US. I shot and printed pre-E6 Agfa film that did come in sheets and had even higher contrast than Velvia. It did a remarkable job on certain hues. Very grainy. My older brother made a lot of money in nature stock photography with that film.
The contrast was handled simply by selecting lower contrast scenes to begin with, or carrying a portable fill-light reflector or diffuser for small subjects. Entire stock agencies were filled with large format sheets before Velvia was ever invented, a great many of them on Ektachrome 64, and some of those are still being published.

[Pere Casals]

Drew, I don't say that velvia was the most pro tool...

What I say is that it dominated a share of the pro market, the pro nature photography, since its release until the digitalization. It mainly substituted kodachrome.

Velvia never had been "popular" :) for fashion... this was another market share...

[Larry Gebhardt]

Sorry. The truth doesn't fit the narrative.

I was only commenting because I remembered QT used a lot of cut down Astia 8x10 and wanted to at least set the record straight that he used more than just Velvia for the National Parks 5x7 work. I remembered that fact because at the time he mentioned it I was doing the same thing.

As to the original point of this thread I tried pulling a few slide films to work better with Ilfochrome, but it didn't work out for me (not really any additional shadow detail if I remember correctly). But then I was trying to get into Ilfochrome when supplies were getting harder to come by and I eventually gave up after a few bad batches of chemicals. What a waste of time and money that period was.

[Drew Wiley]

I had no problem getting the pro P3 chemicals, but like a number of others, ended up with mishandled boxes of expensive Ciba paper that had been mauled in the latter US distribution warehouse. I still have a box of 20x24 in the freezer and sufficient chemistry, but have no idea if it is still good even frozen. Too busy doing other kinds of printing to find out. .... But Pere, I'm having a problem with your logic. Sure, Velvia was chosen by a lot of 35mm pros for its saturation. But in a large format context, which was mandatory for scenics etc for a long time, neither Kodachrome nor Velvia were around. And even when Fujichrome 50 showed up, well before Velvia per se, quite a few practitioners stuck with Ektachrome, which was easier to reproduce either in print or publication. As scanners became more standard, some of this shifted; but that fact did not eradicate the problem inherent to high contrast films. I obviously have no way of knowing worldwide statistics, but here in the US, Velvia was something of an outlier with large format shooters. Provia and various Ektachromes were more the standard fare. I personally thought Kodachrome 25 and Cibachrome were a marriage made in heaven, but just didn't print much Kodachrome myself because of the vastly superior results of large format film in general. I printed all kinds of sheet film, including some pre-E6 types. Velvia was the trickiest of them all. But I pretty much mastered that too. It often took a sledgehammer amount of masking and sheer lumens. I've remastered a few choice Velvia images on Portra internegs; but even there it is a headache. Astia 100F is the most cooperative sheet film, followed by E100G and old school Ektachrome 64. But just like a kid in an ice cream shop, I've tried out all the flavors. It's really sad that the era of a serious selection is gone, but I've necessarily moved on. And if E100 does come out in sheets again, it is, in my opinion, the most versatile E6 emulsion ever, being mid-range contrast on a superb polyester base. But it pulls poorly, if someone has that in mind.

[Bernice Loui]

There was a time back in them days when The New Lab (They ran a Refrema processor, at one time did in house Kodachrome with a full time Chemist to make sure the chemistry was proper) was one of the prime E6 labs in San Francisco, then Faulkner, Process Techniques in Sunnyvale, and others.

If you were to ask them which E6 films were most commonly used, it would be Ektachrome E100, 64 with Fujichrome a distant second. third would be Agfa Chrome which IMO was a GOOD E6 film. The other way to survey what films were used, simply look at the boxes and boxes of Kodak Ektachrome waiting in will-call and what films folks were looking at on the forest of light tables at The New Lab back then.

There are very real reasons why Ektachrome was so prevalent back in the color transparency for mass printing days, it had to do with industry standard and what actually works for color separation and printing back then.

Fuji Sensia was a consumer E6, 35mm film burned several hundred rolls of this stuff. It was OK, but never seen it as sheet film.

All this stuff is mostly moot as that era is essentially gone and dead today. Some folks who were in the thick of all that back then are residual memories of a time long gone.


Bernice

[Larry Gebhardt]

Back to the original subject. I finally watched the video (I rarely watch videos) to see if I missed something in the reading, and sure enough I did. I had assumed the pull also came with an intentional over exposure of the same amount as the pull. This makes the result less surprising to me, and then makes me wonder if the same result could be achieved with simply reducing exposure by half a stop. Based on scans on the monitor it's really hard to judge the changes.

Marco, next time you're testing this I'd recommend shooting three sheets with the same static light 2 at the normal metering and one with 1/2 stop less exposure. Then have the -1/2 and one normal developed normally and have the other normal exposure pulled like you did on the second image. Then evaluate the highlights, midtones and shadows with the same scanner settings. That would tell me a lot, I think.

One other observation is the light doesn't appear the same between the two shots. In the overexposed one it seems to have more blue, especially visible in the water fall. That could have fooled the meter reading and overexposed the blue layer more than you recorded. That sort of thing happens with digital all the time and is easy to see in the histograms. But not so easily in film. Adding a slight warming filter might have brought the scene back to a normal color temp and less overexposure.

[Drew Wiley]

The amount of "pull" and the amount of necessary overexposure should NOT be equal if a contrast reduction is in mind. Otherwise, you're merely trying to correct for an ASA error. But the exact proportion needs to be determined by testing, since it varies by film type. And yes, expect a partial color shift with current E6 films due to crossover. But no, you can't precisely correct that with balancing filters because pulling affects one part of the film curve more than the rest. You get similar problems with pre-flashing, but mainly in the shadows rather than highlights. There is generally some kind of unwanted "side effect".

[Bruce Watson]

Personally, I've been pulling E6 (First Developer) for years, and it helps, but is hard to control and can cause color change. If you are good at post-processing the scan, since as already mentioned wet printing from positives is basically dead, the color issues can be easily solved. You can also experiment with pulling the color developer, which will open up the shadows but can quickly get messy with color shift as I believe this is a process that essentially goes to completion, but I'm not sure.

Yes, finally! What I remember about trannies is that shortening development by even a small amount can result in some interesting (and perplexing) color artifacts. I'm glad someone said it out loud.

I've had less luck fixing these in an image editor after scanning than you have apparently. But it doesn't have to be accurate, it just has to look good, and that is certainly do-able in my book. My advice (and Kodak's IIRC) is: if you need color accuracy, use color negative film.

[Drew Wiley]

Why is wet printing from positives dead? Yes, generating a good interneg from a chrome involves an intermediate step prior to RA4, but so does scanning. And it's a helluva lot easier than the old days when a good print meant dye transfer or carbro printing from a set of up to 15 or so matched color separations and masks. And people still do all kinds of "alt" prints from chromes. The options are almost endless. There's nothing wrong with a challenge. Inkjet is pretty disappointing in a lot of ways, visually, though convenience dominates with the masses. Admittedly, I now make a lot more RA4 prints directly from color negs (sometimes masked) than from chrome internegs, but hope to do at least a few of those in upcoming weeks. And since color accuracy has been brought up, some of my best results ever have been obtained from Portra internegs of chrome films. The devil is in the details, as usual. It takes quite a bit of
testing and practice to get it right. But that's the case with everything of quality in photography.

[Pere Casals]

then makes me wonder if the same result could be achieved with simply reducing exposure by half a stop.

Larry, IMHO it's not the same. Pulling the development is a compression that increases the dynamic range that can be captured in the scene. At the end first development is a BW development...

[Larry Gebhardt]

The amount of "pull" and the amount of necessary overexposure should NOT be equal if a contrast reduction is in mind. Otherwise, you're merely trying to correct for an ASA error. But the exact proportion needs to be determined by testing, since it varies by film type. And yes, expect a partial color shift with current E6 films due to crossover. But no, you can't precisely correct that with balancing filters because pulling affects one part of the film curve more than the rest. You get similar problems with pre-flashing, but mainly in the shadows rather than highlights. There is generally some kind of unwanted "side effect".

Drew, I thought from the use of the word "pull" what was being proposed was just over exposing and under developing. That's what pull means to me, as in the opposite of push. So by simply under developing it's like a pull with film that's underexposed. Given that, I'm not surprised it reduced the highlights. What I'm curious about is what it does overall. A test with the same scene and different processing/exposure would be helpful.

[Drew Wiley]

Hi Bernice. Interesting that you once worked at an SF lab. The biggest one of all was Ziba which occupied an entire six story highrise downtown on Howard St, plus a highly equipped labs here on the East Bay. But they didn't cater much to the public; mostly a big in-house studio operation with massive Ciba as well as C-print capacity. At one time, over forty large-format enlargers were in use, including a number of high-end 8x10 Durst units. Then we had another big lab full service in Custom Process, which only did C-prints and b&w up to mural size, plus a couple of smaller labs dedicated to Ciba. Most had Refrema machines. I had my own Ciba setup. None of those old E-6 films are obsolete as long as they're still printable by one means or another. I figure that with the years left on my life, I'll get to maybe 2% of my own stash of old 4x5 and 8x10 chromes. Hundreds have already been printed, but nearly all the big Cibachromes sold long ago and can't be replaced. I was never geared to high quantity production anyway. The current Fujiflex polyester Supergloss medium is a worthy successor to Ciba, but much less idiosyncratic. I just loaded a couple of enlargers for that kind of printing later in the week. The colorhead settings are just a tiny bit off from typical Fuji CAII RC paper, so going back n forth is quite easy. Unfortunately, it only comes in big expensive rolls nowadays, so has to be cut down into sheets in the darkroom.

[Larry Gebhardt]

Larry, IMHO it's not the same. Pulling the development is a compression that increases the dynamic range that can be captured in the scene. At the end first development is a BW development...

I think the test I proposed would test for that.

[Pere Casals]

I think the test I proposed would test for that.
Yes, of course...

[Drew Wiley]

Larry, breaking rules is fine as long as one gets what he's after. And in this day and age, one doesn't have to necessarily get a hole in one, but can hypothetically split the difference by getting "close enough" using some film tweak, then PS correct afterwards. I do it all darkroom-style, and prefer to do all the tweaking via masking, which is a lot more predictable than pulling, and still leaves you with a conventional chrome or color negative suitable for various other methods. But don't confuse b&w Zone methodology for what pushing or pulling traditionally meant in relation to automated commercial lab processing. The terminology gets thrown around a lot casually over on APUG relative to black and white development, and confuses the whole subject. It can be used to ATTEMPT to correct for exposure errors, i.e., accidentally exposing color film at the wrong ASA. Or it has been used by some (including me) to try to SLIGHTLY expand or reduce the overall and still get a reasonably hue-correct chrome. As as several people including myself have already hinted, it's harder to get a good pull than a good push, especially with current chrome films. Color neg films carry potential complications of their own. So you are correct in assuming that you want to overexpose a bit for sake of a pull, but it's not proportional. I really recommend doing an ASA bracketing test with roll film first, before sheet film. But start conservatively, say, just half a stop of "pull" per a specific lab's own interpretation of that term. I can't comment on do-it-yourself E6 options, since even more variables will complicate the topic.

[Corran]

Today, one can scan, color-correct, and then digitally print on "real" silver materials. Inkjet doesn't even have to be part of the discussion. While I will defer to Drew on the color negative film interneg option, I would guess current use of that method to be almost nil.


But it doesn't have to be accurate, it just has to look good, and that is certainly do-able in my book.

Yep


Marco, next time you're testing this I'd recommend shooting three sheets with the same static light 2 at the normal metering and one with 1/2 stop less exposure. Then have the -1/2 and one normal developed normally and have the other normal exposure pulled like you did on the second image. Then evaluate the highlights, midtones and shadows with the same scanner settings. That would tell me a lot, I think.

Agree, if he (or anyone) can stomach a bit of extra cost I would love to see that. I'm not much for doing those kinds of tests myself.

[Drew Wiley]

Commercially nil indeed. But even in its heyday, internegs got a bad rap because so much of it was done sloppy in the big labs. That doesn't have to be the case. But with true interneg films extinct, one has to resort to extant color neg films which has a different curve structure. But this can easily be accommodated either by contrast masking the chrome in advance, or using a film recorder. The end result can be distinctly better than in the good ole days. The only thing which keeps me from doing much of it is the sheer cost of 8x10 film of all varieties at this time. You need at least 3 sheets: your original chrome, a sheet or more of black and film for masking, depending on the complexity of the correction, and a sheet of Portra 160 for the actual internegative. It gets time-consuming and expensive, though perhaps not too bad for 4x5 format. Digitally printing on "real silver materials" - potentially exactly the same RA4 papers as we with an enlarger, requires some very expensive equipment, so is more likely to be done by a dedicated lab than at home. But in this era when everyone expects "instant everything", even routine darkroom tasks seems overwhelming. Folks would rather sit at a monitor and slither and dither endless hours correcting images, hardly a worthwhile tradeoff in my opinion. Best to get as much as possible correct in the original exposure to begin with.

[interneg]

E6 has a great push capability and less than great pull or drop...


Total agreement here. I thought the approx -1/2 stop pull limit on E-6 without introducing potentially significant colour issues was well known...

Not that there's anything wrong with distorting E-6 films to creative ends, but so much of this thread seems to be about anything but creative use of the material...

[Drew Wiley]

I consistently managed 3/4 stop pull with first generation Provia sheet film before noticeable crossover. Every other film, only half-stop pull, unless I was deliberately after a skewed "creative" effect. I never experimented with pulling still older Ektachrome 64, since the contrast was rather tame to begin with.

[marcookie]

We've now had 3 pages of pointless banter unrelated to the topic at hand.

I appreciate what marcookie has done, but clearly the point of the topic is getting lost - and I think it is an important and interesting one, so can we please stop?

Perhaps marcookie can provide at some point a nice comparison from two identical images.

Personally, I've been pulling E6 (First Developer) for years, and it helps, but is hard to control and can cause color change. If you are good at post-processing the scan, since as already mentioned wet printing from positives is basically dead, the color issues can be easily solved. You can also experiment with pulling the color developer, which will open up the shadows but can quickly get messy with color shift as I believe this is a process that essentially goes to completion, but I'm not sure.

I have a comparison with same images and plan to post it this weekend after careful scanning.
And yes the thread is getting lost, but this also show that the topic is somewhat relevant!

[marcookie]

Back to the original subject. I finally watched the video (I rarely watch videos) to see if I missed something in the reading, and sure enough I did. I had assumed the pull also came with an intentional over exposure of the same amount as the pull. This makes the result less surprising to me, and then makes me wonder if the same result could be achieved with simply reducing exposure by half a stop. Based on scans on the monitor it's really hard to judge the changes.

Marco, next time you're testing this I'd recommend shooting three sheets with the same static light 2 at the normal metering and one with 1/2 stop less exposure. Then have the -1/2 and one normal developed normally and have the other normal exposure pulled like you did on the second image. Then evaluate the highlights, midtones and shadows with the same scanner settings. That would tell me a lot, I think.

One other observation is the light doesn't appear the same between the two shots. In the overexposed one it seems to have more blue, especially visible in the water fall. That could have fooled the meter reading and overexposed the blue layer more than you recorded. That sort of thing happens with digital all the time and is easy to see in the histograms. But not so easily in film. Adding a slight warming filter might have brought the scene back to a normal color temp and less overexposure.

Thank you for your comment. The photography was exposed as indicated in the posted images. I added this information to the original post to avoid confusion.
I have made more recent tests with the same image and different push/pull (will share soon).

Regarding the filter, I think that would also have "saved" the image by darkening the blue water most (water is blue by itself, but mostly also because it reflects the blue sky). Although that would have also warmed the image, that up to now I have not found necessary with Velvia.

[marcookie]

Hi,

The high contrast of slide film is both its strength and weakness. It is very easy to lose detail on the highlights: everything that meters above Zone VII is rendered as pure white on most transparency material. I was curious to see if some this detail was recoverable--in other words, if the dynamic range of slide film could be increased somehow. This could be done by under-developing (pulling) the film...


I am going to bring this post back to this original aim of linking some technical and "artistic" aspects of photography.

The question is why it appears that there is more information in the highlights of Velvia 50 that what is retained after reversing the film, information that can be recovered when under-developing the film.
I think this is mostly due the color developer bath of the E-6 process: under-developing the film leaves more unreacted silver salts with which the colors can react to.
In negative film chemistry, highlights are rendered optical density that linearly builds up with exposure leaving less and less Ag salts. Instead, the color developer in E-6 appears to need a certain amount of unreacted Ag salts--a sort of threshold of Ag salts to have minimal density (i.e. texture in the highlights).

I am a chemist during the day and all this is just fun to think and thinker about for me. If then this reasoning leads to some (minor) artistic improvement of my images, and to some understainding by the readers--this is a nice added bonus.


I will post more test that compare the same image. Stay tuned if interested.

[Pere Casals]

I think this is mostly due the color developer bath of the E-6 process: under-developing the film leaves more unreacted silver salts with which the colors can react to.

Yes, this is...

In the 6 bath process:

> First developer converts a share of the silver halide into metallic silver, the shorter development the more silver halide remains...

> Then reversal bath (chemically) exposes the remaining silver halide, this can be substituted by manually exposing the film to full light.

> Then the Color Developer agent version 3 (CD-3, or an improved version) bath develops all remaining silver halide (to also metallic silver), so CD-3 gets locally oxydized from that reaction, that locally oxydized CD-3 is what reacts with in emulsion color couplers to form permanent color dyes.


As the CD-3 development is made to completion (I guess) then the single way to adjust process is in the first development stage. You adjust how much halide remains and this translates to more or less color formation.

So at the end all original silver halide has been transformed into metal, a share is transformed in the first development, and the rest is transformed by CD-3, and all that metal is removed by the bleaching in a later stage.


You may cross process the E-6 film to BW. If after first development you fix the film then you get a BW negative,

You may also do FD + bleach + light + a second BW developer to obtain a BW silver slide like in BW reversal process. That positive image is from the silver halide that reacts with the CD-3 in the regular E-6 process.

For this reason a pull development extends latitude into highlights (I made a wrong statement earlier, now removed, saying that latitude was extended into the shadows), as it remains more halide in the highlights, building more density for the same exposure, thus extending DR.

[SergeyT]

>> The two images were exposed as indicated above via the zone system, but they were then given different development. The picture with normal development has blown out highlights, and some areas looks too bright. The one that was underdeveloped by half stop shows significantly more details in the highlights.

Both images could benefit from less exposure eliminating the need in deviating from normal dev.

[interneg]

The question is why it appears that there is more information in the highlights of Velvia 50 that what is retained after reversing the film, information that can be recovered when under-developing the film.

I'd suggest it has more to do with the fundamentals of how E6/ reversal films have to work, rather than being genuinely recoverable.

Here's (https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/e-6-processing-and-deviating-from-the-standard-guidelines-regarding-the-1st-developer.14737/#post-205830)what's happening when you push/ pull E6 films, explained by Ron Mowrey, a retired Kodak photographic engineer who worked on (and holds patents in) a number of relevant aspects of colour film processes & products.


You may cross process the E-6 film to BW. If after first development you fix the film then you get a BW negative,

You may also do FD + bleach + light + a second BW developer to obtain a BW silver slide like in BW reversal process. That positive image is from the silver halide that reacts with the CD-3 in the regular E-6 process.


Not as simple as you claim - there's a yellow filter layer (often made from Carey-Lea Silver) to deal with. Kodak AE-31 (https://125px.com/docs/chemicals/kodak/ae31.pdf) is the document that you need to consult in order to potentially deal with that.

[Pere Casals]

Kodak AE-31 (https://125px.com/docs/chemicals/kodak/ae31.pdf)

Thanks

[marcookie]

Here's [/URL]what's happening when you push/ pull E6 films, explained by Ron Mowrey, a retired Kodak photographic engineer who worked on (and holds patents in) a number of relevant aspects of colour film processes & products.


Thank you for the link. Very interesting that the photographic engineer states that contrast can either increase or decrease by pushing film. I found that with Provia contrast increases with pushing, as with typical pushing procedures. I will be posting scans later today if I manage to.

[bob carnie]

Commercially nil indeed. But even in its heyday, internegs got a bad rap because so much of it was done sloppy in the big labs. That doesn't have to be the case. But with true interneg films extinct, one has to resort to extant color neg films which has a different curve structure. But this can easily be accommodated either by contrast masking the chrome in advance, or using a film recorder. The end result can be distinctly better than in the good ole days. The only thing which keeps me from doing much of it is the sheer cost of 8x10 film of all varieties at this time. You need at least 3 sheets: your original chrome, a sheet or more of black and film for masking, depending on the complexity of the correction, and a sheet of Portra 160 for the actual internegative. It gets time-consuming and expensive, though perhaps not too bad for 4x5 format. Digitally printing on "real silver materials" - potentially exactly the same RA4 papers as we with an enlarger, requires some very expensive equipment, so is more likely to be done by a dedicated lab than at home. But in this era when everyone expects "instant everything", even routine darkroom tasks seems overwhelming. Folks would rather sit at a monitor and slither and dither endless hours correcting images, hardly a worthwhile tradeoff in my opinion. Best to get as much as possible correct in the original exposure to begin with.

The best colour internegs were contact internegs, absolutely no doubt about it.
and there were three methods of correcting cross curve which we used.. But in the end the eye was the judge, we used a gradient from pure black to white . Cross Curves would show themselves on the background transition areas... Every new box of film was checked even if it was new emulsion.. The computer system Kodak supplied or the density difference method or the curve plotting method was employed base on which method you prefer, once you got into range a print needed to be made and judging the greyscale gradient would let you know the final 1 or 2 point tweek on the filter scale.

[marcookie]

I made a more detailed comparison of the effect of development on Provia 100. Link. (https://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?152026-Pushing-and-Pulling-Transparency-Film&p=1496860#post1496860)