C-41 and commercial processing

I recently picked up a couple of rolls of Ektar 100 to try out. As a test, I shot "most" of the same shots side by side with a digital with similar settings. I figured this would give me a good metric to compare the strengths and weaknesses of both. Unaware of any local "pro" labs, I dumped it off at the local 1 hour place. I had my doubts about the printing from the start but at least the neg's should be OK.

Here is where my questions begin: how much "correcting" is done on the modern equipment that scans the neg then prints with a laser, and how much control does the operator have?

Case in point; one shot I know for a fact was 4 stops over exposed. I really liked the light on a friend of mine so I took a shot, then decided I liked the DOF at f/1.4 and opened up but never touched the shutter. Immediately realizing what I did, I bumped the shutter up 4 stops and took it again. Wouldn't you know, the prints all look virtually identical in regard to exposure?

Similarly, I took some sunset shots with a shadowed snowbank in the foreground. I exposed for the beautiful orange sky and let the snow fall to a deep, rich blue. But on my prints the machine attempted to get the snow to the neutral range and completely washed out the color. Looks absolutely terrible!

So I managed to find a local "pro" lab and dumped off the negs last night. I asked for "no corrections" as some of the shots were intentionally under or over exposed. I was told that the scanning software makes certain corrections automatically and they only have so much control, unlike the analog days. I'll be going to pick up the prints in a few hours to see how much better they managed.

So my question to anyone familiar with modern minilab equipment is, how much control "is" left over the process any more? What "corrections" are done automatically and what can be easily overridden? According to their site they use Noritsu minilabs but do not list a model.

Well, i am no expert on mini-lab (there are people here who have them at home, search and you shall find) but i know certain things can be controlled such as brightness, color saturation, contrast, scene lighting color correction, sharpness and cropping. Now there is a bigger issue here also and that is how the machine is calibrated. To render your negatives "correct" the mini-labs scanner has to be calibrated with its output/printer. So even if they print your negs with the settings to 0 (no correction) that does not mean that the slides/negs will come out as you see them on the light table nor your scanned result, because your systems will not be calibrated in the same way (this is why we have color profiles). Instead talk to the operator, say that you want the snow blue, and so forth, if he cares and knows his stuff he can make it happen.

if not get a color enlarger and learn the process (its not hard, takes a bit of time and in the end cheaper)

(just to make a point, i payed 2.2x more for my calibration hardware/software then I did for my Epson 750, but then i have everything calibrated from the scanner to the printer, if you dont callibrate the scanner/screen/printer then you have no control)

cheers

Thank you for the reply. I have two enlargers capable of color but the cost of doing RA-4 printing at home is just not feasible. Limited paper availability, expensive chemicals and short shelf life just make it not worthwhile. I do have a CPP2 that i have not used yet but may eventually decide to go onto hybrid processing in the future (at the moment everything is in storage as I am between houses). I will also need to pick up a decent film scanner as well. Sadly, as much as I would love to learn color printing, I that is something I will probably never get to experience.

Interesting notes about the settings, thank you. The operator seemed "somewhat" knowledgable of the equipment but like many places these days their focus is 90% on digital base, although they apparently do a lot of digital-to-emulsion printing. From what I've heard from a few local old hands, this was the go-to place back in the film days but a lot could have changed since then. Back then I'm sure the machines were optical not digital as well.

Going now to see if the prints are done I guess I will know soon.

Thanks again.

PeteZ8 said:

So I managed to find a local "pro" lab and dumped off the negs last night. I asked for "no corrections" as some of the shots were intentionally under or over exposed. I was told that the scanning software makes certain corrections automatically and they only have so much control, unlike the analog days.

Click to expand...

I've gone the rounds with my local pro lab over similar issues regarding c41 and e6 processing and printing. The response you got was basically what I was told by the part-time evening help. But when I actually spoke with the owner, he was very understanding and even offered to reprint/scan anything that I wasn't completely happy with. He didn't seem to think that "no corrections" would be any more difficult than the standard make-it-look-like-digital auto settings. Or, rather, he isn't going to pass along any of the difficulties to me

If you can, try to chat with the person(s) who actually does the processing, printing, scanning, rather than a salesperson, and see what they say. Hopefully they can help you out.

Thanks again for the reply. I went in a bit ago and they said they were in process, so I told them no rush I will stop by tomorrow. I did actually speak with the technician yesterday and today; he was the one that informed me with the newer machines there are some adjustments made automatically. I guess I will know tomorrow how well it all worked out. My scanner is in storage but I'll take pictures of some prints side by side to compare.

RA-4 at home is not as tough/expensive as you might think. Kodak endura (end of life, clearly but it's out there) is still available in sheets. PLenty of fuji choices. Chemsitry lasts quite a while. Costs are really not that bad. $25 for a box of 50 8x10 endura in sheets. Chemistry from Pakor/Adorama/B&H. It sounds like you have a processor already. I do RA-4 at home without even a drain or running water in my darkroom.

The results are so SO much better than any minilab will ever be able to provide, it's just amazing. Really night and day. If I only was able to get minilab prints, I'd probably give up shooting film, they are generally that bad. A real optical print from a nice neg is just fantastic looking by comparison.

-Ed

Over-exposed C-41 in general and the newer films in particular are quite forgiving - sometimes, depending on the film, you get more of a pastel colour palette vs. correctly exposing or under-exposing the same film, but sometimes you'd be hard pressed to find the difference, especially if the lab's machine has the correct film colour profile loaded and has it set to automatically correct. So, I wouldn't be terribly surprised if your over-exposed shot looks the same or very similar to your correctly-exposed shot.

That said, if you put "no corrections" and they can't do that, I'd be very suspicious - I've done it at 1-hr places myself on occasion, and they had no issues. It's my understanding that it is a 1- or 2-button setting on most of the current mini-lab machines (or so I've been told - they won't let me touch them ). If they're not using a minilab and are doing dip-and-dunk instead, though, and scanning afterword, it might be more complicated for them.

I have no experience of this kind of labs but, as usual, I would like to give a suggestion

Even if the minilab doesn't have an explicit "zero filtering" position, it should have the possibility to filter all images with the same filtering, some kind of a "filter lock".

So you might photograph, in the first exposure of the film, a grey card in daylight, and tell the operator to lock filtering after the first image (meaning, all subsequent images to be filtered like the first).

That way, if you take some pictures with sunset light, having "orange greys", the machine will not convert them to neutral greys and your sunset will look like a sunset (and probably even too much so).

By the same token, if the machine can lock exposure, you can have the operator lock also exposure, besides filtering, on the first image (18% grey), and if you take a picture which is 4 EVs overexposed, you will get it actually 4 EV overexposed.

I don't see the usefulness of locking exposure with negatives, but I would understand the usefulness of locking filtering if the process is automated (not operator-assisted). That would be equivalent to shooting slides without filtering: very orange sunsets, blue casts on open shade. If you use instead CC filters, by locking filtering on the first exposure of a grey card in daylight you should end up with exactly the filtering you want even if the machine is totally automatic.

Fabrizio

Or, just scan (gasp!) the negs. Enjoy them as digital images easily shared, easily corrected. Correct as you wish and then upload them to any number of sites that will print them amazingly close, in my experience, to what you saw on your monitor.

I went through many attempts like you are way back when because I believed in the inherit good qualities of color neg film. I tried things like shooting a gray card at correct exposure and requesting all prints from the same setting. Sometimes it worked out, usually not. For awhile ca. 1994 I used RGB Labs in North Hollywood to process the C-41 negs, and with selected options, print and/or make into slides using Kodak 5022 (IIRC) "print" film. For my needs, I was very pleased. No longer in business. Need I say, "Of course?"

Project Basho in Germantown has darkrooms you can rent, as well as classes; see the thread on APUG.
Calumet in S. Phila. has supplies- you will be amazed how cheap colour paper is, compared to B&W.

David