Cross Processing is when you put a film though a chemistry that it was not designed for i.e E-6 reversal film though a C-41 Negative developer.
It is a very easy way to get "wacky" colours and extreme contrast and suits a wide range of subjects.
I have found that the best way to do this is to buy cheap out of date slide film, as colour fidelity isn't an issue here and then find a willing minilab for process only.
Be sure to inform the Lab that you want it to go though the wrong process as a helpful lab assistant may just send it off for E-6 process!
When you get your negatives back they will look like this:
Little or no shadow detail and a purple/blue colour with clear rebates.
After printing or scanning the positive image will probably look very strange, high contrast and normally quite yellow or green (the unpredictability is part of the fun):
Depending on your subject you might like to leave it just like that, but in the above picture I felt that green skin tone was not that flattering.
So for the final rendition after scanning I sent the image to Photoshop to 'tweak' it in curves in order to give slightly better skin tones and increase the contrast. There is really no correct rendition of a cross processed image, but that's one of the things that makes it fun, you could even do a series all with different hue adjustments.
Experiment!
All Images and text ©Mark Antony Smith 2007
