E6 Film Processing

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Process E6 is the standard process for colour reversal film, also known as “Slide” or “Positive” film. Films for process E6 will be marked “E6”. Click here for help identifying film.

All Colour Reversal film manufactured today requires E6 process. At Ag, we run a professionally monitored E6 service with control strips run and analysed by densitometer daily. We also have sufficient volumes of film to ensure excellent processing consistency, vital with E6 as the process thrives on a critical mass.

When scanning or printing your film, our experienced technicians professionally balance, by eye, all images individually for colour, density and contrast to ensure consistent results frame to frame, roll to roll. Our policy is to balance images so as to obtain the best from your film and deliver usable files with a balance of shadow and highlight detail – please note, this is our own judgement. If you would prefer flat, low contrast, scan files ready for your own balancing and editing, or no adjustments at all – please select these from the drop down box.

Please note: Accuracy of your film exposure is absolutely critical with colour reversal film – poor exposure will be punished with very disappointing results. This, together with film quality (best before date, storage, age), lens, camera quality and operation will have a very significant impact on the resulting scan, print or projection quality. In our opinion when shooting colour reversal film in particular, you should utilise a camera with a reliable built in meter AND intelligently interpret the exposure suggestion carefully bearing in mind the nature of the scene and make adjustments as required. If you are using a camera with no meter, we strongly recommend using a decent hand held meter such as a Sekonic L308B or similar. Use of the “sunny 16” rule, phone apps, digital cameras etc to ascertain correct exposure can lead, in our experience with many customers, to disappointing results.

Push – Pull processing. In contrast with colour negative film, pushing and pulling E6 process has a very significant impact. If you have exposed your film at a different speed to box speed, please select Push or Pull from the drop down box and also mark the film accordingly. If you don’t, your images will likely be too dark or too light. It is harder to correct transparency over exposure than underexposure, but generally any exposure error is tougher to correct digitally than it is with colour negative film.

If you have Kodachrome film, please see our Specialist section, as this is not Process E6. Film for process CT18, E3 and E4, unfortunately, cannot be processed.