New Kodak Portra 400 Beautiful When Pushed One Stop - Review Update

In my first review of the new Kodak Portra 400 I had one negative about the film

Cons : Needs post processing to bring out contrast 

Turns out there is a splendid work around: Unlike most other colour negative films Kodak Portra 400 shooting at ISO 640 and developed pushed 1 stop in normal C41 chemistry really brings out the contrast  and colors. These days this is my preferred way of using the film.  The dynamic range (contrast ratio) is increased at the expense of a slightly decreased latitude. In addition an extra 2/3 to a stop of increased ISO really helps out in hand holding medium format cameras.

Beware that unfortunately not all labs will correctly push c41 films.

Kodak Portra 400 Shot at ISO 640 and pushed one stop in C41chemistry

Slide show of some more pushed Kodak Portra 400

Faux Cross-Processing

Cross processing is simply developing film in a different process then it was intended to be processed. The most common type of cross processing is developing slide film as colour negative film. Normal slide film is processing is called E6 and normal colour negative film processing is called c41,

If you are interested here is a slide show of some of my slide film cross-processed in c41.

Also here is my blog posting exposing some of the myths of cross-processing:


Now days there are plenty of actions that try to duplicate the "Cross-processed" look. But it turns out much of what we consider the cross processing look and feel is as a result of a lab scan as opposed to a printed photograph. Mini lab scanners when scanning cross processed film as a normal c41 assumes a nonexistent orange base plus a normal colour channel gamma.

I am interested in duplicating the look of cross processing by back engineering a normal image back to a faux cross processed negative. Just for fun after scanning I converted a Portra 400 negative film to a cross processed slide by reversing the result and then reversed the negative back to a positive assuming a none existing orange base that a regular negative film would have.

This is my first attempt in using a model rather then a canned action:

Original Photo

Faux Cross Processed