“Greenscaling” Aerochrome + New Film Inversion Tool

Redscaling means shooting colour-negative film upside-down. When done correctly, the resulting effect is deep red tones with just the highlights shifting into greens and blues. But that’s not what happens when you do that to Aerochrome — one of the rarest and most expensive films out there.

In this newsletter, I’ll share my initial results from the ongoing experiment and talk about another project that’s been occupying most of my waking time this March: film Q.

In this newsletter: film Q. “Greenscaling” Aerochrome. Support this blog & get premium features with GOLD memberships!

film Q.

film Q is a web app that batch-inverts film scans (including large TIFFs and camera RAW files) without the need to install any software. It works with all internet-connected devices and uses a simple, well-documented method for inverting film negatives.

film Q is free for Analog.Cafe GOLD members. You can try it today!

Virtually every image I published on this website during the past four years has been inverted using a version of this app. But as you would imagine, a product that can serve thousands of photographers and our various needs is not the same as a small script for personal use. This is why I spent a lot of hours during the past two months on making it work for everyone.

I can’t overstate how complicated and taxing this project has been, but I also don’t want to bore you with technical details. So, in short, please be patient as I sort out bugs, and please share your feedback!

To use this app, you will need to connect your Dropbox account (the free plan works). Please note that film Q currently supports scans saved as JPEGs, TIFFs, PNGs, RAFs, NEFs, and ARWs. Please let me know if you use a camera that makes a different type of RAW file and I will try to include it. If you scan your film using a digital camera, I recommend you upload your RAW files for the best results.

Click here for the film Q User Guide. Email me if you have questions!

“Greenscaling” Aerochrome.

Last month, I promised to share my results of redscaling Aerochrome. Unfortunately, I got very busy building film Q, so the experiment is not complete. But I do have a sample of what the film will look like and a bit more info about the progress.

Aerochrome is a very expensive film, and thus, mistakes made with this emulsion are very pricey. I tried to be as economical with my supply as possible, but as it sometimes happens with experiments, a few frames got burned.

Of what remained, there were two samples I thought worth sharing in this letter: the first is at the very top of the article, where a cactus is photographed on a blue background and the second one of a giant tree in my neighbourhood (below).

I’ve got about a dozen frames of redscaled Aerochrome left, which I hope to expose, develop, and share with you in early April.

Apologies for the delay to those who expected to see all the images from the experiment earlier. The good news is that my assumptions about redscaling Aerochrome turned out mostly correct: reds turn white, infrared sensitivity is still there (though likely slightly diminished), and an orange filter seems to be the best tool for the task.

Yet there’s one part I did not predict, which is the direction in which the colour shift would occur. Recall redscaling and how it changes the look of a colour-negative film, making it appear dominantly red, almost one-dimensional. It appears that the effect is the opposite for Aerochrome. The images turn green!