Making prints from slide film? Is the quality any different?

Minoltafan2904 · Jul 20, 2017

I've only been on the forum for a few days and i hope i'm not boring you with my posts but with the 4th quarter of 2017 getting closer, and the announcement that Ektachrome would be available by the 4th quarter of 2017 i have a dumb burning question.

Is it possible to make prints from slide film?
Will the quality of the prints be any different to a C-41 film?

I am really interested in trying out Ektachrome since i've never shot any E-6 film, but i don't really want slides, as i don't have the means to be able to scan slides!

I have only ever shot color negative and had them developed and printed into 10x15cm prints.

Anon Ymous · Jul 20, 2017

Yes, you can get prints from slides with about the same way you get from C41. Your film is first scanned, then printed on paper. The quality of such prints has much more to do with the minilab operator, than anything else and at 10x15cm you will have a hard time judging the sharpness and granularity of such photos. Colour palette is also something debatable and a matter of taste. Generally speaking, you can have stunning prints from either C41, or E6 film. Modern, quality films are exceptional. Perhaps E6 film is finer grained, but it doesn't always matter.

Minoltafan2904 · Jul 20, 2017

Just had a word with my local camera shop, and they said it could be done in theory but that it would be quite expensive, since there are only 1 or 2 labs that process E-6 on the Island.
I'll also have to see how much the new E100 costs, if it's over 10 Euros a roll i will have to think long and hard about it.
Or also i could have it developed traditionally and turned into slides, and buy a slide scanner to convert them to digital.

Rick A · Jul 20, 2017

Enlarge onto Harmon Direct Positive Paper. Kodak used to make a paper expressly for enlarging slides, sadly it's lang gone. You could also enlarge onto another sheet of film, then print from that, or simply cross process the slide film as a negative and print from that. The easiest way to print them these days (unfortunately) is to scan and print digitally.

twelvetone12 · Jul 20, 2017

You can also try out ra4 reversal, not perfect but very fun and with some practice you get nice results (there are various informative threads here on APUG on the subject).

MattKing · Jul 20, 2017

Minoltafan2904 said:
Or also i could have it developed traditionally and turned into slides, and buy a slide scanner to convert them to digital.

You will need to have it developed traditionally no matter what you do - there is only one practical thing to do with E6 materials, and that is to turn them into slides.
There used to be materials available that would permit directly printing from slides, but now the two main routes are scanning and printing digitally or, more rarely, preparing an internegative.

Theo Sulphate · Jul 20, 2017

Any interest in projecting the slides? Slide projectors are inexpensive these days.

Minoltafan2904 · Jul 20, 2017

I do have a working Pana-Vue slide viewer, but really i want to be able to digitize all my work and put it on Flickr.

Also i have 14 boxes of Kodachrome and Ektachrome slides from 1985, and 3 boxes of Agfachrome slides from 1991 that i would want to digitize, so i am considering getting a good scanner that can scan negatives and slides.

miha · Jul 20, 2017

Theo Sulphate said:
Any interest in projecting the slides? Slide projectors are inexpensive these days.

Here. I haven't shot slide film for a long time, mostly because I don't particularly like Provia or Veliva, but I pull out my slide projector once in a while for the unique experience it brings, my kids love it.

dmr · Jul 20, 2017

I've scanned and printed a lot of slide film, mostly Kodachrome prior to its demise. I've had great luck and have made a few very stunning 13x19 prints from Kodachrome slides.

Back when I was in high school and college, I wanted to shoot color, but I did not want to pay to have prints made of everything. I would shoot slides (Kodachrome or Ektachrome) and I could easily see which ones I wanted to have printed.

If you have never shot slide film, the one thing that's different is that there's far less room for exposure error. Slide film can't take a joke as far as exposure is concerned. You really need to be spot on. Negative film usually will forgive you for an over/under of 1-2 stops.

Minoltafan2904 · Jul 20, 2017

Yes i am aware that transparency films don't like being overexposed or underexposed.

faberryman · Jul 20, 2017

Rick A said:
Enlarge onto Harmon Direct Positive Paper. Kodak used to make a paper expressly for enlarging slides, sadly it's lang gone. You could also enlarge onto another sheet of film, then print from that, or simply cross process the slide film as a negative and print from that. The easiest way to print them these days (unfortunately) is to scan and print digitally.

Harmon Direct Positive Paper is black and white paper. If you want black and white prints, just shoot black and white film. I assume you are contemplating shooting color slide film because you want color prints, in which case, scanning and printing digitally is your best bet. Of course you could just shoot digital, and skip the processing and scanning. If you really don't want slides, I am not sure why you want to shoot slide film. Just shoot color negative film. You'll likely have much better results.

wiltw · Jul 20, 2017

If the question you asked were posed 30 years ago, the unanimous response would be that prints from slides were

generally finicky and labor intensive due to the need for interneg, and
generally the results were not as good as when shot on color neg and printed photographically unless you resorted to heroics
(it was a different issue using the offset press to reproduce slides for the printed page!)
and often would appear to 'pick up contrast'.

NJH · Jul 20, 2017

Its more than exposure, you have roughly 5 stops of dynamic range to play with I reckon so scenes where the sun is behind you or is lighting up the subject works great, scenes where subjects are in shade or have shadows on them will look very dark unless of course that is the desired effect, likewise brightly lit up areas in the sky will burn out for sure, I reckon you can work up to about 1 and 1/3 stops in the sky above your exposure to retain nice cloud detail for example. People say Provia has much more dynamic range than Velvia but my experience is that both are really contrasty, the main difference is that if you scan them you can pull loads out of the shadows from a Provia slide whereas Velvia is a struggle to dig into those shadows much. Having said all that what I love about slide film is that despite being really contrasty it rolls off at each end in a really nice natural manner, projected onto a nice big screen the highlights can have a glow to them a bit like how our own eyes respond when it is really bright. All just my opinion of course.

pentaxuser · Jul 20, 2017

wiltw said:
If the question you asked were posed 30 years ago, the unanimous response would be that prints from slides were

generally finicky and labor intensive due to the need for interneg, and

generally the results were not as good as when shot on color neg and printed photographically unless you resorted to heroics
(it was a different issue using the offset press to reproduce slides for the printed page!)

and often would appear to 'pick up contrast'.

I may have completely misunderstood what you have said here but I thought that 30 years ago prints from slides were of comparable quality to the then colour negative prints from colour negative film via the Cibachrome process. Wasn't the whole lament for the loss of Cibachrome only a few years ago due to the loss of superb prints from slides that the chemistry made possible?

pentaxuser

Sirius Glass · Jul 20, 2017

wiltw said:
If the question you asked were posed 30 years ago, the unanimous response would be that prints from slides were

generally finicky and labor intensive due to the need for interneg, and

generally the results were not as good as when shot on color neg and printed photographically unless you resorted to heroics
(it was a different issue using the offset press to reproduce slides for the printed page!)

and often would appear to 'pick up contrast'.

Thirty and even forty years ago almost any color lab could make high quality color prints from slides. I know because I had many slides printed back then. Sometimes the print would be a little more contrasty but that was almost always acceptable. There were no heroics involved, just some time and some money.

dmr · Jul 20, 2017

wiltw said:
If the question you asked were posed 30 years ago, the unanimous response would be that prints from slides were

generally finicky and labor intensive due to the need for interneg, and

generally the results were not as good as when shot on color neg and printed photographically unless you resorted to heroics
(it was a different issue using the offset press to reproduce slides for the printed page!)

and often would appear to 'pick up contrast'.

Back when I did this (early 70s) I took the slides to the Spiratone shop for "Processing By Kodak" and they told me that they made direct prints, no internegatives involved.

They were always crisp and clean. With rare exception what you saw on the slide was what you got on the print. I had many 4x6 and 5x7 prints done this way. Of course those I had printed were slides that turned out good.

They looked better (color, image quality, etc.) than the drug store color negative prints (Berkey, I assume) that were common.

The only difference was that the corners of the image area were rounded on the prints, not sharp angles as you would get with color negative prints of the day.

DREW WILEY · Jul 20, 2017

miha said:
Here. I haven't shot slide film for a long time, mostly because I don't particularly like Provia or Veliva, but I pull out my slide projector once in a while for the unique experience it brings, my kids love it.

DREW WILEY · Jul 20, 2017

Just depends on how much time and money you can commit to equipment, supplies, and the learning curve. But as far as commercial printing services go, the now need to be scanned and then printed either inkjet or onto Chromogenic paper via laser devices. You could buy a slide scanner and do it yourself. I personally prefer the internegative darkroom route, but doubt that anyone does that commercially anymore.

tomfrh · Jul 20, 2017

NJH said:
Its more than exposure, you have roughly 5 stops of dynamic range to play with

The limited DR is why exposure is so important, no? There's no dynamic range to catch you if you veer off.

NJH said:
Having said all that what I love about slide film is that despite being really contrasty it rolls off at each end in a really nice natural manner, projected onto a nice big screen the highlights can have a glow to them a bit like how our own eyes respond when it is really bright.

That's why I like it. The light is much punchier making it look realer.

removed account4 · Jul 20, 2017

OP

do you want b/w versions of the images or color ones ?
do you want "art prints" or copies of your slides ?

if you want b/w prints, you can go a few routes
as mentioned you can do ilford direct positive images, you can
make internegatives ( print or film ), copy negatives and then prints
or you can can make scans and have a modern printer make your images
or you make RGB negatives and make tri-chrome images, or gum prints &c ...

in this day and age it is easy to do lots and lots of things ...
and regarding the scanner
you don't need drum scans or a device that is NEW or costs as much as a used car
i regularly make+SELL scans from a 10 year old scanner that are HUGE
( most recently some that were 42x69 ), don't believe the hype that you need to spend thousands.

and if you have a digital camera you can make a "copy negative" with a light box
and if you want to make large images from those smallish files an epson all in one
expression 640 scanner costs about $70 and the program to do the editing costs about 50$
( i have compared scans made from my old+expensive flatbed and the cheap epsom, the cheap one holds up well )

have fun !

wiltw · Jul 20, 2017

pentaxuser said:
I may have completely misunderstood what you have said here but I thought that 30 years ago prints from slides were of comparable quality to the then colour negative prints from colour negative film via the Cibachrome process. Wasn't the whole lament for the loss of Cibachrome only a few years ago due to the loss of superb prints from slides that the chemistry made possible?

pentaxuser

Yes you misunderstood.

...if you want a color print as your primary product, shoot color neg!!!
If you work REAAAL hard, you can get the quality of
[print from slide] to be almost as good as [print from neg]
It is always more work to get print from slide because of interneg, but it is even MORE work to get it close in quality
If you wanted a real good color print from slides, SOME slide subjects render incredibly stunning on Cibachrome! And this did not require an interneg to print...it was direct from slide to print.
I lament the demise of Cibachrome, at the end of the 1990's it was the ONLY reason why I continued to do any darkroom work at all !...
But the color rendition of Cibachrome was NOT necessarily good for all subjects or print purposes; it always 'picked up contrast' vs. the slide. Stunning rendition was not necessarily 'faithful' rendition, and not all print subjects -- not portraits!!! -- are well rendered on Cibachrome.
One needed to very skillfully choose what slide to print on Cibachrome...it was, to me, a stunning 'specialty product' with the right shots.

I have zero experience with non-Cibachrome direct reversal paper like Kodak Ektachrome Radiance, so I can't generalize about results of printing slides to Ektachrome Radiance. Anecdotally, the steady migration from color reversal to color negative by commercial photographers meant the Ektachrome Radiance family and associated R3 chemicals had simply become uneconomical to produce, so it was discontinued in 2002.

pentaxuser · Jul 21, 2017

It was the use of the phrase "posing the question 30 years ago" and then listing the difficulties you mention that threw me. It sounded as if these difficulties you mentioned in your post were of that time.

pentaxuser

Minoltafan2904 · Jul 22, 2017

Reading your replies i think i will ditch the idea of making prints, and just have them normally developed into slides, and i will scan them myself with the appropriate slide scanner, and since i have hundreds of slides that i want to digitize anyway i think it would be a good investment.

lantau · Jul 22, 2017

Minoltafan2904 said:
Reading your replies i think i will ditch the idea of making prints, and just have them normally developed into slides, and i will scan them myself with the appropriate slide scanner, and since i have hundreds of slides that i want to digitize anyway i think it would be a good investment.

Since there is no analog printing of slides anymore, let me just make this quick remark:

It would be best to ask people for examples of slide scans to see if you like the results. Even better if someone could scan one of your existing slides for you, to see if the results are good enough. You wouldn't want to spend money and be disappointed by the difference to your actual slide.

It's really tough to get the screen image to look like the slide. You'll need some experience in Lightroom (or like me get it in the process). Unlike a colour negative, where (m)any results are valid the slide is what it is. Attached is an image which I consider close to the original look. My screens are profiled, so yours is likely a bit too bright. Velvia 50 in 6x6. The fine gradation and microcontrast are near impossible to replicate. Nothing beats the slide. But at least this image is almost within the colour gammut of Kodak Endura Metallic, at least the soft proof claims so. A few green highlights light up as out of gammut. I guess I will have to try myself to have a some prints made from my velvias.

I don't have a through-light scanner, hence I cannot confirm it first hand, but from what people report about them the quality is very limited. Simple optics and relatively simple mechanics, which need to move the scan head for a long distance at very tiny steps that need to be incredibly exact. And for slide the biggest problem seems to be that scanners cannot handle the densities (colour negatives are more transparent). IMHO scanners are near obsolete. Large format is probably the exception, because my recommendation below may only be good for medium format and smaller.

With a copy stand (I use good but affordable one made by Kaiser) and a light plate you can use a suitable camera to copy slides and negatives. With the right exposure you will punch through an underexposed slide and get whatever information is left in the emulsion. I doubt any scanner can do exposure times of 1/8s or even longer. If the camera happens to be a digital one (if so it really should be tethered to a computer for remote control and focusing) you will end up with a usable analog slide image in computer readable form. That means a raw file, anything else is useless to make adujstments.

If you don't already have such a camera it might be too expensive to buy just for that purpose. Depends on you. But cheaper than a drum scanner, while equivalent for most amateur needs. Ok, my medium format resolution is limited without stitching, which I'm not bothering with. Good enough for me. The all manual work flow is similar to an enlarger.

If you have a negative film behind the lens, theoretically you can create inter negatives with the same copy stand. I haven't done that yet, but it is on my list of things to play with. Especially useful when wet printing in the darkroom. But I'm afraid I won't get to do RA4 this year. Haven't even been able to do a singe b/w print this year.

If you'd like to ask me for details you can DM me since these topics seems to be off topic in both analog and digital forums.

Image in full res here: https://www.flickr.com/gp/139815197@N06/0z1839

Making prints from slide film? Is the quality any different?

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