Is Ektar 100 Best Suited For Individual Darkroom Printing?

DF · Dec 14, 2022

So I got back a roll of Ektar 100 prints 35mm and the prints - scans from the neg's, are at best, mediocre compared to the ones shot on Fuji 200, Superia, and Kodak Gold.
Colors were muted, pale, almost lifeless where shots from other three gave me rich, saturated bountiful colors - blue skies, deep greens, intense reds/yellows/oranges.
Ektar was very sharp though, but what's going on? I don't print my own color, so If I paid to have old school prints done from Ektar, how much better could they be?

koraks · Dec 14, 2022

There's nothing in Ektar that makes it inherently unsuited for scanning. Just scan again/better and/or adjust colors to your liking in the scans you've got. Keep in mind with scans it's much like a digital camera RAW file: doesn't matter what it looks like out of the box and just post-process to your heart's content.

Don_ih · Dec 14, 2022

I believe Ektar is usually quite saturated, with good contrast. I've only shot it in 4x5 - and only a few sheets. I considered the colour reproduction pretty good. I did enlarge the shots - they printed well.

Photomultiplier · Dec 14, 2022

I did some RA4 prints from Ektar 100 negatives as well as scans. The scans were done on a drum scanner and inversion was done manually.
The reason for the optical prints was to check if my inversion had anything in common with the colors as they were intended by the Kodak chemists.

Results were great, the images looked about the same. Color filtration can be fiddled with, of course, but the contrast and saturation was spot on and looked beautiful.

This is the image:

Alan Edward Klein · Dec 14, 2022

DF said:
So I got back a roll of Ektar 100 prints 35mm and the prints - scans from the neg's, are at best, mediocre compared to the ones shot on Fuji 200, Superia, and Kodak Gold.
Colors were muted, pale, almost lifeless where shots from other three gave me rich, saturated bountiful colors - blue skies, deep greens, intense reds/yellows/oranges.
Ektar was very sharp though, but what's going on? I don't print my own color, so If I paid to have old school prints done from Ektar, how much better could they be?

Leaving aside problems with the lab, if your exposures weren't right on, the colors in the print will be off. I also assume that the lab did the scans and adjustments automatically. SO results could be off, especially if the original exposures weren't right on. Doing each one individually will probably get you better results. But it will cost.

Paul Howell · Dec 14, 2022

I've printed color for many years starting in the late 60s, last roll was Ektar 100, along with Pro Image and Color Plus, before that Porta, Kodak Gold 200 and 400, Fuji 100 and one roll of converted movie film. I had no issues with Ektar at all, it is well saturated, the colors pop, it was my landscape fav.

DF · Dec 14, 2022

Alan Edward Klein said:
Leaving aside problems with the lab, if your exposures weren't right on, the colors in the print will be off. I also assume that the lab did the scans and adjustments automatically. SO results could be off, especially if the original exposures weren't right on. Doing each one individually will probably get you better results. But it will cost.

This is something new for me - looking elsewhere beside myself for disappointing results, so, could I, should I contact the lab and see if they will give me a 2nd set of 36 from the same negs - but this time tell them to do better scanning?
I've been a steady customer there for 2 years now and have been pleased with my prints.

DREW WILEY · Dec 14, 2022

Budget scanning often struggles with 35mm Ektar because the sampling size is too small in relation to the dye curve contrast gradients. So you either need a high-quality drum scan or a bigger film format. Otherwise, you are being misled by what you see from the scan, and it will look far more washed out and blaaah than the film image really is. And that fact has nothing to do with what you'll get in a darkroom print if correctly done. I have posted many times before on how to correctly shoot Ektar, as well as how to RA4 print it. It's capable of stunning darkroom results if you know what you're doing. Ignore the scans.

But since you don't print your own work, and rely on labs, it's all depends on their own specific papers, equipment, and level of competence. I've always been of the persuasion that if you want something done right, you have to do its yourself. But that comes with a long learning curve and a serious equipment investment of my own. Commercially, you're most likely to get a high-quality print from an outfit having a dedicated laser printer connected to an RA4 processor, along with an integrated high-end scanner. You can get better results that way than in an inkjet print, but it will probably cost more. Few places still do in-house optical enlargement onto color paper using traditional enlargers, though many of us on this forum still prefer to do it that way.

Or to re-phrase things, you get what you pay for. High quality custom prints aren't cheap like ordinary photofinisher snapshots. And Ektar is a different animal from typical color neg films, needing its own variety of printing skill or programming.

Alan Edward Klein · Dec 14, 2022

DF said:
This is something new for me - looking elsewhere beside myself for disappointing results, so, could I, should I contact the lab and see if they will give me a 2nd set of 36 from the same negs - but this time tell them to do better scanning?
I've been a steady customer there for 2 years now and have been pleased with my prints.

Sure, I'd definitely call them. They may realize what the problem is right away. regardless, it's worth the call.

koraks · Dec 15, 2022

DREW WILEY said:
Budget scanning often struggles with 35mm Ektar because the sampling size is too small in relation to the dye curve contrast gradients.

How do you define sampling size? Color resolution/ bit depth? Even a mediocre scanner at 8bit will be able to capture most or even all of the gamut of the film, but posterization will occur whenever the real gamut exceeds what the scanner can capture. This won't result in "washed out and blaah" images. Case in point: even a mediocre scanner will give halfway decent scans of E6 film while this is dat more challenging in terms of color gamut.

Yes, it helps to scan at 16 bit to reduce posterization to a minimum. But that's not specific to Ektar.

The more likely problem is the digital processing and/or profiling to restore the intended colors from the raw digital capture. As I said before: just edit the scans to get the desired color rendition.

Coincidentally, this is why people (including myself!) sometimes complain about scanning C41 film especially compared to E6 scans, since with C41 it involves additional adjustment to create a color rendition that is pleasing - let's not go to the issue if it's realistic, since c41 is inherently different from E6 in this respect. Either this adjustment is done in the scanning software, perhaps based on film-specific profiles, and then everyone is "happy with the scans I got from the lab", or it needs to be done manually and then you have to have an idea of what you're doing to get a decent end result.

Coincidentally I scanned a 35mm Ektar frame the other day (or rather, a few) because my significant other wanted a print from it exceeding the RA4 roll size I keep at hand, so I had to inkjet it. Of course the raw scan from my old and busted Scan Dual IV looked like crap - bland, color shifted and definitely "blaah" in Drew's terminology, but some adjustments on the individual RGB curves brought it right back in line with the RA4 proof print I used as a reference.

brbo · Dec 15, 2022

DF said:
Is Ektar 100 Best Suited For Individual Darkroom Printing?

EVERY negative film is subjected to individual interpretation, so every negative is best suited for individual printing/scanning.

But, I guess you want to know why, in your case, it's only Ektar that came back not to your liking and that is a question that only you and your lab can answer. We can't see your negatives, can't see the scans, can't see the prints...

It's definitely not that Ektar is that different than all the other colour negative films out there.

DREW WILEY · Dec 15, 2022

I don't personally scan anymore, Koraks, but I do know that even a $50,000 Creo scanner used at budget rate won't deliver decent 35mm Ektar scans. By budget, I mean the kind of thing you get complementary on a disc, along with a contact print, for a nominal overcharge to basic C41 processing. It's nothing more than a clue to the contents of your strip of film. For serious printing, even by them digitally, a higher quality individual frame scan is necessary. I do all my own color printing based on my own RA4 test strips, so don't get confused by any of that. Scans, prints, either way, "you get what you pay for". But it takes more to get a good Ektar rendering in scan from a small 35mm shot than even an equivalent 120 frame, where even budget scans from the same outfit come out way way better. This has to do with the "sampling size" - no need to go into the technical specifics of that here, which might be more appropriate under the hybrid or digital section.

And Ektar IS DIFFERENT due to its higher contrast and saturation, and more specifically, its steeper dye peak structure. But there are unquestionably Kodak specifications for programs factoring this distinction. The question is whether they're taken into account as the exception to the general rule in rapid automated high-volume workflows. Locally, it's only with mid-priced or high-priced scan fees you obtain that tweak. Maybe a small operator would do it as a courtesy. I don't know, because I rarely need scans, and when I do, they're premium scans for sake of offset press repro.

Alan Edward Klein · Dec 15, 2022

I gave up shooting Ektar. For some reason I just can't get the colors right either because I didn't expose the film right or that the editing process is just too difficult. Even when I look at other people who post shots that they say are great, the blue sky doesn't look realIistically blue to me and the colors just don't seem to hold together to look like something you would see in real life.

Steven Lee · Dec 15, 2022

DF said:
Ektar was very sharp though, but what's going on?

Scanning is a skill, probably comparable to wet printing skill in terms of the learning curve. Not all labs posses this skill (or willing to use it because of time investment), regardless of their equipment.

Steven Lee · Dec 15, 2022

I am not the best scanner operator in the world, but with just a bit of effort the Ektar colors do not look muted or lifeless to me:

DREW WILEY · Dec 15, 2022

Alan - Ektar is color temp sensitive, and needs color temp filtering at the time of the shot for best results, especially with respect to blue and cyan rendition. It's not artificially warmed like most color neg films, which are geared to portraiture. I can personally make prints from Ektar in the darkroom which are almost indistinguishable from those made from chromes, but there is a learning curve to that. And Ektar itself doesn't listen well to people who go around bragging how they correct "anything" in PS post-shot; they can't. But Ektar is capable of resolving quite a range of hues which other color negs films have always struggled with. And given how it has about a stop wider latitude each direction than chrome films, it's a wonderful addition to our current film options.

Alan Edward Klein · Dec 15, 2022

DREW WILEY said:
Alan - Ektar is color temp sensitive, and needs color temp filtering at the time of the shot for best results, especially with respect to blue and cyan rendition. It's not artificially warmed like most color neg films, which are geared to portraiture. I can personally make prints from Ektar in the darkroom which are almost indistinguishable from those made from chromes, but there is a learning curve to that. And Ektar itself doesn't listen well to people who go around bragging how they correct "anything" in PS post-shot; they can't. But Ektar is capable of resolving quite a range of hues which other color negs films have always struggled with. And given how it has about a stop wider latitude each direction than chrome films, it's a wonderful addition to our current film options.

Would you compare all chromes to each other? I mean is Velvia 50 the same as Provia 100 or Portra in latitude?

mshchem · Dec 15, 2022

DREW WILEY said:
Ektar is color temp sensitive, and needs color temp filtering at the time of the shot for best results

AMEN! No auto white balance with film!

sillo · Dec 15, 2022

My Pakon spits out some pretty great results from Ektar

brbo · Dec 15, 2022

Darkroom print, Ektar, shade, no filter:

50 EUR scanner, one of them is Ektar the other is Lomo 800, high noon, no filters:

Drum scan, tungsten film (Vision3 500T), daylight/shade/whatnot, no filter:

(if only I had filters!!!)

DREW WILEY · Dec 15, 2022

brbo - the book shot, all in shade, would be easy to cyan correct with a slight warming filter like a KR1.5. But the tree shot, some in open sunlight, but the shadows symptomizing deep blue shade under that open sky, is a trickier problem. What I use for that kind of issue is a film flashing attachment, where I pre-expose a portable 18% gray disc through a filter stack which includes a diffusing sheet, a warming filter equivalent to a KR1.5, and a neutral density sheet to the effect the cumulative density of the entire stack is around .60, or two stops below middle gray. That is done at the same shutter and speed setting as the final shot. That way, the deep shadows get double the exposure, lightening them somewhat, along with warming filtration to offset the blue, while the middle and upper values aren't shifted in color at all.

Note that this is a curve crossover problem with Ektar, and therefore hard to post-correct. It's not the same kind of challenge as simply altering the overall color cast using colorhead settings in the darkroom or post-scan digitally. Deep shadows under blue skies actually are bluish. The Impressionists made good use of that fact, and so have some color chrome film photographers. But with Ektar, it takes on an
exaggerated cyan-inflected bias that is seldom pleasing.

Even with the book pile photo, where some of the book covers and indeed blue, and some rather turqouise, and still others magenta or reddish, while those distinction are evident as-is, the hues would be much cleaner and separate from one another if a bit of warming filtration had been used in the first place. Just further saturating the color in PS, or boosting it in the darkroom with a richer paper, doesn't accomplish the same thing.

mshchem · Dec 15, 2022

brbo said:
Darkroom print, Ektar, shade, no filter:

50 EUR scanner, one of them is Ektar the other is Lomo 800, high noon, no filters:

Drum scan, tungsten film (Vision3 500T), daylight/shade/whatnot, no filter:

(if only I had filters!!!)

I love the 1/2 frame panoramic.

brbo · Dec 16, 2022

mshchem said:
I love the 1/2 frame panoramic.

Thanks! But, you do know you are looking at an illusion, do you? Such shots are impossible in real world without a stack of ten filters on the lens, film preflashing, $100.000 scanner and/or elaborate masking in darkroom.

pentaxuser · Dec 16, 2022

brbo said:
Thanks! But, you do know you are looking at an illusion, do you? Such shots are impossible in real world without a stack of ten filters on the lens, film preflashing, $100.000 scanner and/or elaborate masking in darkroom.

Wow that sounds even worse that Drew's procedure so those shots are now off my Christmas list

pentaxuser

DREW WILEY · Dec 16, 2022

Yeah, it's really horribly impossible to spend ten seconds screwing a $20 skylight or common warming filter onto the front of a lens. But then people spend endless hours trying to fix it afterwards, and finally start cussing at Kodak for making a bad product. I've heard that blame game over and over again on this very forum. And correcting it at the time of the shot is darn near as hard as attaching a cable release, so I'm sure that is an utterly impossible inconvenience for many, almost as bad as tying your shoelaces.

I freely offer you a valid clue, and all you can think of is, .... Yikes, that might involve another five minutes. But if you want to experiment with a shortcut to the pre-flashing method, Tiffen offers a stronger 812 pink-amber warming filter that pretty much is a single-punch knockout to the excessive blue in open-shade shadows, but that will leave behind a bit warming in the highlights too. It's one of the few filters they offer coated as well as plain glass.

All of this kind of thing is old hat. Hollywood cinematographers have been doing this kind of filtration forever, it seems, especially once color neg films became available to them, mainly with classic old Harrison and Harrison warming filters. I'm surprised some of you even take the effort to go to the gas station to fill up in order to get to location. Gosh, that adds another 15 minutes. Life is soooo hard.

Is Ektar 100 Best Suited For Individual Darkroom Printing?

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