How to get a “pushed film” look without actually push-processing it.
Push-processing means adding development time or temperature to your film so it acts as a more sensitive film than it’s marked on the box. For example, you can push an ISO 100 film to EI 200 by simply metering it as if it were an ISO 200 film (giving it one stop of light less) and then either asking your lab or, by yourself, keep it in chemicals for a set time longer so that the shadows and highlights develop more.
Pushing film helps get action shots with low-ISO film and photographing in dimmer light than the film is designed for. But pushing film typically increases contrast and, if it’s a colour film, saturation — which can be a desirable effect.
Unfortunately, not all labs can push-process your film. Or if they could, it might add to your total costs. Even if you develop at home, there isn’t always enough time to push-process something, or you may be mixing films in a single tank and don’t want to alter the development times for just one film.
Luckily, if you can get high-quality scans and your film has a reasonably wide dynamic range (7+ stops), you can underexpose it by 1-2 stops (same as when you’d push your film by +1 or +2 stops) and *develop normally*.
Your scans will appear dark and may have colour shifts. But once you correct those issues using your favourite image editing app, the results can look very close to what you’d expect if you were to push this film by the same number of stops.
I’m attaching an example test shot pair of Kodak Kodacolor 100 exposed and developed normally (left), then underexposed by -2 stops (right) and developed normally (this was actually on the same roll).
Both films were scanned on Nikon SUPER COOLSCAN 5000ED (analog.cafe/r/nikon-super-…) and inverted with #film Q. I’ve corrected them using the greyscale masking technique.
How to edit film scans (this article explains what a high-quality scan means and how greyscale masking works for colour correction): analog.cafe/r/how-to-edit-…
Dmitri