Bleach bypass processing?

[chuck94022]

Does anyone have experience with bleach bypass processing? I like the effect in movies, but have never tried it myself.

I'm presuming this is done at film development time, not paper development, but I have never seen any details, so I could be wrong. Also, is it applicable to slides and C-41?

Anyway, I'd love to read a discussion on this, or a pointer to more info. I did search and find a short note from Bjorke circa 2003, but it wasn't more than a quick summary of the film process.

Thanks!

-chuck

[Eric Jones]

In motion pictures you can skip bleach either at the negative development stage or the positive print development stage. Each one gives you a different effect. Skipping bleach on the negative blows out your highlights with an increase of grain, increase in contrast and an increase in saturation. Skipping bleach on the positive print crushes blacks, increases contrast and decreases saturation with a nominal increase of grain (this can depend on how it was exposed, whether pushed processed or flashed). Motion picture film is also processed in different chemicals (ECN-2) than "normal" still films (C-41). Needless to say I have no idea of what the effect you would get by skipping bleach in C-41 is. I sure would be very interested in seeing it though. Anyone try it?

[chuck94022]

What about E6? Is it even worth the experiment?

[Nick Zentena]

The nice thing about doing your own processing is you can try out anything. Try it if you like it then it's worth it for you.

http://www.theasc.com/magazine/nov98/soupdujour/pg3.htm

http://www.cinematography.net/Pages%20GB/BLEACH.HTM

[Photo Engineer]

If you omit the bleach in E6 processing, you will get a black image. It will consist of a negative and positive silver image and a positive dye image. Not a very nice picture to behold.

PE

[psvensson]

In RA4 paper processing, you can replace the blix with fix. This leaves the exposed silver in, boosting contrast but reducing saturation. It can be quite attractive, and can save underexposed negs. I've heard you can do something similar with Cibachrome.