More photography stuff: cross-processing

Anyone ever tried this?

Basically, it’s shooting a slide film, but processing it as if it was print film. The result is an artificially saturated colour; the effect is pretty striking and I’ve seen it occasionally in magazines, on music album covers and in wedding portrait portfolios.

If anyone has experience of cross-processing, what technical issues (if any) are there? How much do you use it (as a percentage of all photos taken) and what do you think of it – gimmicky? trendy? Also, do you feel that it suits a particular subject matter (e.g. portrait, landscape, etc.)?

Apologies for not having an example to link to (I tend to minimise browsing whilst at work).

Why not just do it in Photoshop?

In Photoshop

With real film

From Kodak

I haven’t done it in ages, but I got some nice autumn scenery pics and some interesting portraits.

Experiment, bracket, and take lots of notes.

It seemed cool when I did it, but it only really worked for me on landscapes with a huge variation in colours.

Remember Laser Prints™? From Miami labs? Same general effect.

The effect is the art, not the subject, imho.

Still, play around with it. You might find it quite enlightening.

Oooh! I remember one subject it worked great on. Everybody raved about this set of photos. The Saturn VI at NASA in Clear Lake City (before it became an amusement park, I went all the time)

That subject just about begged for cross processing.

Dammit! Saturn V

not VI

V

(And people wonder how I got to 5k so quick.)

I’m through now. :slight_smile:

Excellent links - thanks NoClueBoy!

Given the antiquated nature of my home pc, I might find it quicker to shoot b&w, then hand-tint, rather than try and use software to manipulate images… :o

I was contemplating doing some landscapes - seems like a fun way to experiment.