When you plot the density of each color channel it's 3 lines. If the lines don't cross then you don't have crossover but if they shift from their expected position then you have a color shift.
When you plot the density of each color channel it's 3 lines. If the lines don't cross then you don't have crossover but if they shift from their expected position then you have a color shift.I don't get it. You're just repeating the same thing. Matt, everything you just described is what I was referring to (twice): the mismatched gamma. You already called it "crossover" earlier. It is trivial to understand, it is covered in Kodak's PDFs although it is not called "crossover" there. I still do not see the difference between color shift and color crossover. Looks like it's the same phenomena, but some call it "shift" and others prefer "crossover".
A shift is when the relative amounts of colour change - e.g. you get more blue throughout - which is easily correctible through a change of filtration at the printing stage.I don't get it. You're just repeating the same thing. Matt, everything you just described is what I was referring to (twice): the mismatched gamma. You already called it "crossover" earlier. It is trivial to understand, it is covered in Kodak's PDFs although it is not called "crossover" there. I still do not see the difference between color shift and color crossover. Looks like it's the same phenomena, but some call it "shift" and others prefer "crossover".
Good to know, thanks![...]
in short, an out of control process is a problem if you’re going to print optically. If you’re going to scan it, as long as you know what is actually happening, it’s not so much of a problem.
The OP has got some very good advice already.
Control strips are a must for any lab.
I would also think of how the minilab looks, is it neat and tidy.
If you can see processing machines, do they have stains on the side (bad sign) or are they clean looking (good sign). If house keeping is poor, you can bet the processing is too.
How is their attitude to film customers? Welcoming?
And most importantly, if anything goes wrong, blame the lab (that's a joke by the way)
I used to run the control strip in the 1 hr lab every day. But back at that time I had 100 rolls a day to process. Today many labs I heard couldn't get the 10 rolls for the smallest Noritsu processor and running a test strip for a few rolls is expensive.Good to know, thanks!
Thanks for your input. I will ask about the process control strips. I am reassured that my local lab meets most of your other criteria, except for the "welcoming" one. I don't know that film customers are treated any worse than the others, but some of the sales staff lose interest as soon as they decide I am not going to buy something expensive. I think I somehow got on their list of "timewasters" except for one or two employees who are usually very nice.
One practice I do not appreciate - several times they have handed me out-of-date film, at full retail price. When I notice, they act surprised, and exchange it for fresh film - but the old film goes back on the same shelf as the fresh stuff, ready for the next customer. I don't mind shooting out of date film, but I feel like they should be more up-front about it and offer a slight discount.
I worked in a hospital lab for 20-some years, so I am all too familiar with "blame the lab" - it was a popular thing to do among doctors and nurses.
Adrian is correct though, if you are experienced in manipulating (digitally) the three individual colour curves, you can correct out much of the problem. But do you want to have to do that - a reasonably automated approach doesn't easily allow for that?
Any of the Fuji C41 minilab processors I have seen in the last 10 - 15 years had a counter flow wash water system. They were very economical in water consumption.One issue to my surprise not even mentioned yet is the washing.
Applying a washless process for C-41 seems now industry standard in Europe at industrial labs.
Such is reasoned as being a means of reducing water consumption and is regarded as a major point in the sustainability of such lab.
Their attitude towards out of date film sounds like penny pinching. Why aren't they selling enough to turn over stock. The "surprise" sounds lame but well practiced. Not a nice thing. If you are happy with your processed negs then continue with them.Good to know, thanks!
Thanks for your input. I will ask about the process control strips. I am reassured that my local lab meets most of your other criteria, except for the "welcoming" one. I don't know that film customers are treated any worse than the others, but some of the sales staff lose interest as soon as they decide I am not going to buy something expensive. I think I somehow got on their list of "timewasters" except for one or two employees who are usually very nice.
One practice I do not appreciate - several times they have handed me out-of-date film, at full retail price. When I notice, they act surprised, and exchange it for fresh film - but the old film goes back on the same shelf as the fresh stuff, ready for the next customer. I don't mind shooting out of date film, but I feel like they should be more up-front about it and offer a slight discount.
I worked in a hospital lab for 20-some years, so I am all too familiar with "blame the lab" - it was a popular thing to do among doctors and nurses.
I am always offered the option to pick up my negatives later the same day, so the machine seems to be in constant use, rather than running periodic batches. I don't really know what kind of volume they do. I live in a city of about 150,000 population. There is only this one camera store, but of course there are also Wal-Marts, Walgreens, ect. where people can drop off negatives for processing.
When you say "...the quality will be poor" - one of my questions is, What does poor quality look like?
I have had them process at least half-a-dozen rolls in the past year or two. Two of those were out-dated film from my freezer, and may have slighty underexposed - so they were not reliable benchmarks. With fresh film, the 4x6 lab prints look fine. But if I understand correctly, these old Fuji Frontiers are pretty good at making OK prints even from sub-optimal negatives - yes? no? All of the lab-scans from my local lab, and also from Dwayne’s Photo in Parson's Kansas looked bad with excess grain / noise in the shadows.
Which highlights my problem - if I can't trust the prints because they may be hiding small errors in processing - and I can't trust the scans because they introduce a whole 'nother can of worms - then how do I tell if the processing is reliably producing accurate color?
+1
If they use control strips, you should see very little variation with C-41. They should be able to readily answer that question, and tell you how frequently they run a control strip.
One issue to my surprise not even mentioned yet is the washing.
Applying a washless process for C-41 seems now industry standard in Europe at industrial labs.
Such is reasoned as being a means of reducing water consumption and is regarded as a major point in the sustainability of such lab.
Any of the Fuji C41 minilab processors I have seen in the last 10 - 15 years had a counter flow wash water system. They were very economical in water consumption.
hrmmm… even when it’s in process, they’re not parallel. Each color channel has its own gamma. In my experience, when people refer to “crossover” or the “curves got crossed” that just means the gamma of each color isn’t what it’s expected to be relative to what RA-4 would need to actually produce the colors it should.
Ps, I'm doubtful that the wide exposure range/matching color can be achieved in a Jobo processor, largely because of the sparse developer volumes. My experience has been in machines where the tank volume is large enough that it would take a considerable amount of heavily overexposed film to put even a slight blip on a control chart.
have you used North Coast for E6 and and BW and what has been your experience.Bad color, incomplete blixing, underdeveloped, etc.
Having a lab for a city that size is nice. The metro area around me is ~600,000 and there is only 1 'pro' lab that runs C41 once a week, B&W probably less and shut down their E6 line. The last time I had E6 done by them, it came out with a magenta cast. They started dying a slow death about a decade ago when their costs had everyone draining their bank accounts. The last thing I took them was a 2 rolls of B&W and got machine prints. That'll be $50, please.
Dwayne's is iffy on the scans. I live less than 2 hours from them so I tried them a couple times. Was not thrilled. North Coast Photo has been exceptional since I started using them some years ago.
Control strips are good to ask about.
have you used North Coast for E6 and and BW and what has been your experience.
FWIW, when the so-called washless systems were introduced, they were mainly a way to deal with the very stringent effluent regulations just coming out. The existing large photo labs of the day could generally afford the new technologies being developed to deal with such. But the new one-hour labs springing up everywhere didn't have that luxury. Thus, the washless systems - they essentially reduced the "wash" (final rinse, or whatever they called it) to a volume that could be hauled off-site for disposal at an "affordable" price. So there was no need for a connection to the sewer system with the appropriate permit, setting specific effluent limits, monitoring schedules, and the like.
Yep, even the earliest one-hour labs, such as Noritsu System II and System IIIs, used countercurrent flow systems. And of course, minimizing water use was a primary driver - the more tanks the more the flow rate can be reduced. And long before one-hour labs existed, high volume finishers all used multi-stage systems. Everything is a set of tradeoffs.
As I've mentioned on this forum previously, my experience with C-41 processing using a Jobo has lead me to be generous with solution volumes, 3 or 4 films per litre of developer and no replenishment.
Yes, but today, when it is not only about legal or technical issues, big players need to show their committment to sustainability. So a washless process is presented in this context.
Thanks. I do my own scans with a V850. What scans sizes do you get with them?Yes, all of the above. No problems whatsoever. Their Noritsu scans are very nice and I've used the files for some larger prints in the past. I just started uploading some things to Flickr and everything that I have there so far has been done by NCPS. I just sent them 7 more rolls of C41, B&W and E6 so I'm sure I'll be getting some more on there soon. John Cramer | Flickr
Thanks. I do my own scans with a V850. What scans sizes do you get with them?
Also, How has you experience been with them with getting the development right and no dust and stuff on the negatives?
Hi, I've mentioned this before, but the color channels, as "seen" by the RA4 paper, ARE apparently parallel. If you've ever seen my posts on overexposing of Portra film I give a first-hand account of studio testing where we could color balance optical RA4 prints (on professional papers), matching flesh highlights to within 1cc color, and finding that we could get nearly dead on color matches from roughly 1 stop underexposed to around 3 to 4 stops overexposed. When I say dead-on, I mean that professional color correctors, viewing prints in a proper color booth, essentially cannot tell them apart. I don't believe this would be possible without parallel response curves. The reason that the plotted curves, as in film data sheets, are NOT parallel is because they are done with a certain narrow densitometer response, called Status M. For reference, Giorgianni, formerly of Kodak, explains the same thing in his book. So the densitometer curves end up not being parallel, and probably scanner curves are even different from this (unless the scanner has a Status M response).
Ps, I'm doubtful that the wide exposure range/matching color can be achieved in a Jobo processor, largely because of the sparse developer volumes. My experience has been in machines where the tank volume is large enough that it would take a considerable amount of heavily overexposed film to put even a slight blip on a control chart.
I have no way of knowing what IRA-4 paper sees. I only know what my scanning system sees, and there, even kodak’s reference control strip presents as non parallel. Each color channel has its own gamma.
I can, more or less, understand where you're coming from. My issue is that I periodically see you saying that the color curves are not parallel, whereas this is an really an artifact of your system. In the place where these systems were designed, but specifically for Portra films/professional papers, the "color curves ARE parallel. (To be more correct i should only say the NEUTRAL color response curves.) The curves become non-parallel when the film is viewed by something other than the appropriate paper, or when processing is "out of spec," which will almost certainly happen with sparse developer usage.
If you don't want to hear me repeating this issue, all you have to do to is put a small disclaimer, "in my system," when you say the curves are NOT parallel.
FWIW I can't say anything about the "parallel or not" situation for films other than the pro portrait films of Kodak (and a couple of other makers), as I don't have (much) first-hand knowledge.
Interesting perspective. Prints are what are valuable and meaningful to me. If you are in the digital realm then negative or slide really makes no difference because the digitization process and manipulations through software are entirely flexible. Why do you bother with film?@btaylor I won't get into comparing prints. All forms of reflected light medium are uninteresting to me. Scanned Ektar on a high quality display is what defines "wow". I hated prints even back in the 90s. Went from projectors to monitors, never bothered with dead trees.
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