Push and Skip Bleach

[Sanji Robinson]

Hi,

 

If I want high contrast, deep blacks but normal color saturation, would you advice against a skip bleach and 1 stop push on the negative? As opposed to developing normally and taking care of the contrast in the D.I?

 

Not planning on using the Panaflasher/Varicon, so relying on the low contrast of Vision3 to retain some shadow detail if I take the skip bleach/push path.

 

Finishing digitally.

Edited February 18, 2016 by Sanji Robinson

[Kenny N Suleimanagich]

If you skip bleach you'll have very little control of the color saturation later on, and it'll be far from "normal." If you're finishing digitally I would just do it in the grade.

Edited February 18, 2016 by Kenny N Suleimanagich

[Satsuki Murashige]

Also, if you expose a moderately thick negative (+1/2 to +2/3 stop) that will help add contrast and saturation. Just don't go too far with overexposure since that will lead to overly dense highlights and consequently noise in the scan.

[Sanji Robinson]

Satsuki, you mean overexposure and bringing it down in the D.I will yield more contrast

 

But does anybody have experience with skip bleach and pushing 1 stop?

Edited February 19, 2016 by Sanji Robinson

[Satsuki Murashige]

You can always just add contrast during grading in post if you want. But by slightly overexposing the negative, you'll get a slightly more contrasty look and a little bit more saturation naturally. That's what I would advise if you wanted to make photochemical prints in the lab. It's a very subtle effect compared to what you can do digitally, so if you want a strong effect, then you'll have to do it with digital grading.

 

David Mullen is the resident expert on creating looks with alternate film processing. But basically, skip bleaching the negative increases contrast and reduces saturation, which it sounds like you don't want. It also increases density of the negative overall since you are basically leaving in a layer of black and white film grain that usually gets washed out. This causes the highlights to burn out much faster than normal. Pushing the film by one stop will make this worse, since this increases contrast by pushing the highlights up faster than the shadows. So I don't think this will give you the look you want.

 

When there were more choices of film stocks, you could have used Fuji Vivid stock which had inherently more contrast and saturation. Unfortunately, Fujifilm no longer makes any motion picture stock. Or you could have used color reversal film, also no longer made for motion picture cameras. Fuji does still make color reversal for still photography, but unfortunately it is prohibitively expensive to get them to make it with BH perfs and in the roll sizes required for motion picture cameras. One other option would be to make a print from your negative and scan that. But really, the simplest and most controllable way of getting the look you want is to just do it digitally.

[Giray Izcan]

I would underexpose the stock one stop but pull one stop to decrease contrast. Te contrast will be higher with bleach bypass inherently anyways so pulling it one stop would make it a bit more subtle. The reason you would underexpose it to control your highlights since your highlights will be pretty hot inherently as a result of bleach bypass process. Also, watch your shadows and highlights, because your shadows and your highlights will clip a lot sooner than normal processing.

[Gregg MacPherson]

 

Hi,

 

If I want high contrast, deep blacks but normal color saturation, would you advice against a skip bleach and 1 stop push on the negative?

Is your overal timeline fairly relaxed? Can you find a lab that is often running skip bleach, and just put your tests in the cue with that rather than being a special order? One well contolled experiment is a very good thing.