Processing E-6 film as B&W and bleach out the silver color filter BEFORE developing?

[Tronds]

What about the scala / dr5 process....

Scala / dr5 makes b&w slides from b&w films.
This is not what I want. What I want is to be able to use the large amount of free E-6 slide film that I have.
E-6 processing is expensive. It requires the film to be sent away. Cost about $25 including shipping.

b&w films makes great negatives for printing or scanning with standards development processes.

Besides that the films have to be sent out if the country to be processed.
Shipping to USA: US$44.-
Processing: US$14.75
Shippping back to Norway US$20.-

Cost for one film processed: US$78.75.

Not exactly cheap!

So, what choice do I have then?
Process the films as b&w and get rid of the coloir filters in some way og just throw them into the bin.
Making slides is NOT my goal. In fact, this is not wanted. Negatives is best since they can be printed in the darkroom.

Trond

[Photo Engineer]

Some films use a yellow dye which can be removed by other types of bleaches. OTOMH, IDK if Kodachrome still used CLS or had converted to a dye.

Then again, Kodak published a formula that purported to bleach the CLS layer in color films when they were processed in B&W. I don't have that formula but it was on an E6 page on the EK web site.

PE

[Tronds]

Some films use a yellow dye which can be removed by other types of bleaches. OTOMH, IDK if Kodachrome still used CLS or had converted to a dye.

Then again, Kodak published a formula that purported to bleach the CLS layer in color films when they were processed in B&W. I don't have that formula but it was on an E6 page on the EK web site.

PE

I have read that.
Citric acid in kodak rapid fixer.

Tried that and it took some of the color filters out, but the CLS layer was still there.
I didn't use Kodak rapid fixer, but I don't know how important it is to use one rapid fixer instead of another rapid fixer.

Farmers reducer removes the CLS layer, but it also takes a bit out of the image.

I might end up with a b&w reversal process. It seems that this is the only way to get rid of the CLS layer and still keep an image on the film.

[Photo Engineer]

It is intended for use with reversal color films processed as B&W negatives IIRC. And the fixer may well be important in this case.

PE

[Bob-D659]

For anyone looking for the Kodak file:

http://www.kodak.com/global/en/consu...s/pdf/ae31.pdf

[holmburgers]

Ok, since all hope is lost... well most of it anyways, how about this for a crazy idea?..

Certain "loading agents", as J.S. Friedman refers to them in The History of Color Photography, will allow for a slow and controllable diffusion of chemicals into a multilayer emulsion. This was used in the early work of Mannes & Godowsky with Kodachrome; controlled diffusion into certain layers.

Perhaps by loading farmer's reducer with these loading agents (glycerin, sugar, alcohol, perhaps there are others), you would be able to only affect the upper two layers; blue sensitive emulsion & yellow filter layer, leaving the green & red layers intact.

Just a thought...