Green tones on shadows and blacks

glbeas · Sep 6, 2018

Unai López said:
Isn't the zone system for black and white?
Do i need to expose for the shadows to have details on the highlight too?

As far as learning to get correct exposures the zone system is good for color too, you just cant do the developer compensations with color negative film. The point of it is to be able to visualise the range of brightness going on to the film and adjust the exposure to take advantage of the films abilities and weaknesses.

alentine · Sep 6, 2018

Unai López said:
View attachment 207534 View attachment 207535
This are the negative of the respective photos. take a look

Good you have downloaded photos of the negatives.
From the color and density of the film side patterns, development looks perfect.
Still suspect scanning problem. I started to think that the shop scanner software was adjusted to assum all films are daylight, and compensating for various density and color from frame to fram.
Your film scan is over corrected and in the wrong direction, I think.
I can not assume bad scanner at this time, before you do the following:
Study scans from other frames in the same films that was correctly exposed in daylight/around midday.
Let us know please.
If you comeback to the lab, ask for scan of individual frams with manual corrections, not the preset corrections.

Unai López · Sep 6, 2018

alentine said:
Good you have downloaded photos of the negatives.
From the color and density of the film side patterns, development looks perfect.
Still suspect scanning problem. I started to think that the shop scanner software was adjusted to assum all films are daylight, and compensating for various density and color from frame to fram.
Your film scan is over corrected and in the wrong direction, I think.
I can not assume bad scanner at this time, before you do the following:
Study scans from other frames in the same films that was correctly exposed in daylight/around midday.
Let us know please.
If you comeback to the lab, ask for scan of individual frams with manual corrections, not the preset corrections.

I'll buy a new scanner soon so the lab will only develop i. Maybe i can correct it

MattKing · Sep 6, 2018

Unai López said:
I'll buy a new scanner soon so the lab will only develop i. Maybe i can correct it

Well the negatives appear well developed, I think you will find that even if the scanning is better, the under-exposure will still mean that you will end up with disappointing results.
They may not be green, but they will still be very dark.

Unai López · Sep 6, 2018

MattKing said:
Well the negatives appear well developed, I think you will find that even if the scanning is better, the under-exposure will still mean that you will end up with disappointing results.
They may not be green, but they will still be very dark.

On the 2 pics i wanted a black silhouette but it became green

RPC · Sep 6, 2018

alentine said:
From the color and density of the film side patterns, development looks perfect.

You cannot tell development quality from looking at these. If you could, labs would not need control strips. For example, crossover and its degree cannot be revealed by such markings. That said, I think the problem is in the scanning.

pentaxuser · Sep 6, 2018

Unai López said:
On the 2 pics i wanted a black silhouette but it became green

With the right scanner I am sure this will be possible. It is certainly what I'd expect from what looks to be properly processed negative.

pentaxuser

RPC · Sep 6, 2018

Pentaxuser, can you tell me how you are so sure these are properly processed negatives?

scheimfluger_77 · Sep 6, 2018

I am 20+ years removed from my minilab experience but the problem here is at least two-fold. First is under exposure. If that were the only issue, the black would still be BLACK, not some other hue. If we assume that the other part of the problem is film processing... it’s obvious there is serious crossover happening with the RGB plots, particularly in the shadows. If the lab’s process was in balance, i.e. tested daily and adjusted accordingly (read: replenishment within manufacturers specs), the plots would remain consistent right to the bottom of the toe. Easy-Peasy, but you have to monitor daily. The negatives look overly magenta to me, which is consistent with the green print cast.

The other side to this is the scanning, as has already been mentioned. OP when you scan your negs turn off all adjustments in your software. Be sure you are scanning just the full negative area, including the shadows, but don’t compensate in the brightness/contrast, curves, levels, color balance or any other setting. Turn off all automatic controls. Once you are sure of that, than your resultant scan should accurately reflect the information within the negative. If your scan returns the green cast in the positive, or magenta in the negative—your scanning is probably accurate and as good as can be done in this instance. The problem is somewhere in the processing.

Any properly exposed negative with the full range of tones and the magenta cast would be harder to spot as the printing machine would have enough information to correct for the cast. The problem could be on the printing side of the operation but given how the negatives look to me, I think it is the film development.

ced · Sep 7, 2018

One or 2 clicks. Not perfect but it gives an idea. Can't discuss as some get their knickers in knots.
This post is in the Mixed Workflow Section anyhow.

RPC · Sep 7, 2018

A good fix but doesn't help the OP to know the exact cause of the green and how to prevent it

ced · Sep 7, 2018

I think it is a combination of under exposure & lousy scan. I think a good lab would print it just fine.

RPC · Sep 7, 2018

I think that is likely the case as well, as others have suggested. The OP should see if the lab will try again at no charge.

jim10219 · Sep 7, 2018

Yeah, it's a scanning issue. Though it is still underexposed a bit. You might consider using a graduated neutral density filter for stuff like this, unless you want a silhouette. In which case, you overexposed it a bit. In either case, the scanner didn't do such a good job.

But regardless of what scanner you use, you'll likely have to correct the colors in a photo editing program like Photoshop. You can't rely on the scanner software alone to do all of the work. I find that even using an automated color correcting software that works fine for "properly" exposed negative, you typically get bad results with "improperly" exposed negatives. Hence why manual control and skill are so important.

Here's a quick edit I did to the photo you posted. If you look at the histogram of the original photo, you can see that it wasn't scanned or edited well. My edit isn't a whole lot better, as I just spend about 20 seconds on it, but it shows what 20 seconds worth of manual effort can do that automatic software cannot. All I did was blindly adjust the color balance using the histogram with the curves tool. If it were my photo, there would be a lot more I would do to it to get even better colors and such, but that would take significantly more time than 20 seconds.

RPC · Sep 7, 2018

Keep in mind the OP indicated he wanted the pics to appear as silhouettes, probably more like ced's post, very dark, near black. Underexposing the film probably was appropriate.

jim10219 · Sep 7, 2018

RPC said:
Keep in mind the OP indicated he wanted the pics to appear as silhouettes, probably more like ced's post, very dark, near black. Underexposing the film may have been appropriate.

Yeah, I know. I was just showing that the colors are all there and correctly balanced in the photo, meaning it's a scanning issue. I was also kind of dealing with it more generally, in case someone else runs into a similar issue and stumbles upon this thread in the future. But you are correct.

pentaxuser · Sep 7, 2018

RPC said:
Pentaxuser, can you tell me how you are so sure these are properly processed negatives?

I never said I was "so sure". I based my properly processed remark on my experience with C41 negatives, the remarks of others here whom I suspect have had more experience with examining negatives and very similar looking negatives in a thread a couple of months ago by someone called ekkybedmond where his negatives were underexposed but without any cast.

I note that on balance you feel it is probably a scanning issue as well. It seemed to me that now we have seen his negatives the next probably most productive course to suggest was that he gets them scanned by someone and some scanner that can jointly do a good job. Clearly as ced has demonstrated without spending very long on it, the print the OP desires can be achieved.

OP,one more suggestion if I may ask you; can you show us other negs in the same film and the resultant prints or at least tell us if other prints/scans from other negatives in the same film were equally bad i.e did they all have green or other casts?

I will take it that we are all agreed that underexposure per se as was the intention here of the OP does not result in a green cast in the print?

pentaxuser

glbeas · Sep 7, 2018

To a point. More exposure would make for better contrast between the sky and landscape and help eliminate some of the color problems. Even if the frame was exposed with perfect detail in the shadows and highlights you have the option of printing it down to black in the shadows. Personally I would opt for exposing the sky in the high midtones for best color and let the foreground do its thing, which would probably be maybe two stops at most more than what the OP gave his.
I think he is working in the right direction trying things out for himself and studying the results. Hopefully this discussion will help guide him to his next steps.

Unai López · Sep 7, 2018

Thanks a lot for your help guys. On the next rolls i'll try to expose a bit lighter and i'll try to scan them myself and see if that works

Green tones on shadows and blacks

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