Florence Cross-Processed Fun!

[erikhaugsby]

So I finally got around to developing some of my color films from my August Europe trip, and I'm pretty pleased with how these turned out.

The (almost) entire roll was shot with my 90 f/2.8 on the M2. Kodak Elite Chrome 100 in C-41 chemicals.

50 f/2 DR

I really should have had a lens hood:bang:

 

[ZorkiKat]

Great shots erikhausby! Were the crossprocessed negatives scanned directly or printed prior to scanning? The colours look rather 'normal'. I get normal-looking positives when crossed negatives are scanned.

Jay

 

[ClaremontPhoto]

I Xpro (old) E6 film in C41 and scan from negs, and get saturated colors so long as I was photographing in bright sunlight:

 

[erikhaugsby]

Great shots erikhausby! Were the crossprocessed negatives scanned directly or printed prior to scanning? The colours look rather 'normal'. I get normal-looking positives when crossed negatives are scanned.

Jay

They were scanned directly from the E6 negatives; I didn't do any saturation or contrast editing in post-processing.

 

[phototone]

I am having a hard time understanding what advantage (if any) this cross processing gives over Kodaks most saturated color negative film. Color negative film is, in general less expensive to purchase than slide film, if the intent is for negatives. In scanning, one can "bump" up the contrast and saturation to any level wanted. Perhaps others can educate me.

 

[ZorkiKat]

I am having a hard time understanding what advantage (if any) this cross processing gives over Kodaks most saturated color negative film. Color negative film is, in general less expensive to purchase than slide film, if the intent is for negatives. In scanning, one can "bump" up the contrast and saturation to any level wanted. Perhaps others can educate me.

The main reason for crossprocessing is not getting just saturated images, but rather altered, surreal hues which are not achieved by using colour negative film normally exposed and processed. Crossprocessed images are typically
high in contrast, and have hues which aren't faithful to the original. Saturation is one characteristic, but this isn't always the primary objective. "Unreal" flesh tones, exaggerated reds and blues, harsh contrasts, burnt out highlights and deep shadows (depending on exposure) are the usual aimpoints.

Due to the adjustments applied by the scanner software, scanned crossed negatives often end up looking like "normal" images from "normal" colour negatives. Traditional (eg, on RA-4 wet paper) printing these negatives on colour paper will often result in prints with the unusual, yet desireable (at least by those who engage into crossprocessing seriously) pictorial traits mentioned previously.

While it is possible to mimic these effects by using photoediting software on otherwise normal colour images, cross-processed negatives however offer the advantage of yielding a more limited, steeper-contrast palette which the cross-processing crowd dig. The same software can render a 'normalised' image from a crossed neg to restore, so to speak, what was lost in the digitisation process.

Jay