Photo Discoloration Issue

Empyreus · Apr 4, 2022

Hey everyone,

I am new to photography and started my journey with film. I've starting developing / scanning film for the first time and my first 3 roles turned out fine, however my last 3 color roles have had some discoloration around the edges. This was developed with Cinestills Simplified Color Kit over the course of a month, and scanned with my Fuji x-t20 then processed with Negative Lab Pro.

Roles of Film with Issue:

- Portra 160

- Portra 400

- Metropolis 400

I'm having a really hard time diagnosing where the discoloration is coming from and any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Example Photos:

https://imgur.com/a/ZHOgJyt

mohmad khatab · Apr 5, 2022

Empyreus said:
Cinestills Simplified Color Kit

My friend .

Did you dissolve all the contents of the powder at once with water?

The chemistry of Cinestills Simplified Color Kit, after two weeks, it begins to gradually degrade and crumble, and thus you get results that have some defects and problems,,

koraks · Apr 5, 2022

Empyreus said:
my last 3 color roles have had some discoloration around the edges

Might be fog due to an in-camera light leak. Or just a scanning issue...

brbo · Apr 5, 2022

Most probably a scanning/digitising issue. Uneven lighting of the negative probably due to lens vignetting (are you sure you are using a small enough aperture on the scanning lens?)

Do a simple test. Make a "scan" of two neighbouring frames on the film (so that the space between frames is in the middle of your scan) and compare the edges of the frames to what you get if you scan one full frame.

pentaxuser · Apr 5, 2022

Where's the discolouration around the edges ? There seems to be 4 scenes, a lake with hills in the background; tree-lined shot: some buildings; street graffiti with orange coloured car and a landscape with hills Are these the examples

The lake scene and street graffiti shots look very good on my screen, It is more difficult to judge the others as there is a lot of shade and it is difficult to judge colours

Put it like this. Had you shown these in the gallery I would not have seen anything to make me ask questions

pentaxuser

koraks · Apr 5, 2022

pentaxuser said:
Where's the discolouration around the edges ?

2nd and 3rd image.
Coincidentally both frames that are most likely to be severely underexposed.

pentaxuser · Apr 5, 2022

koraks said:
2nd and 3rd image.
Coincidentally both frames that are most likely to be severely underexposed.

OK and thanks I think you are referring to the change in the brown colour of the tree trunk and the edge of the building. I had wondered about the change in the tree trunk but couldn't rule out a change in the bark or some extra light reaching that part but the building I see now has some clear discoloration

Why only these two frames? If it was the processing why has it only affected these 2 frames? Whatever the reason it suggests that something other than the processing is at work, doesn't it? A scanning problem, possibly?

OP any chance of a digital photo of the problem negs?

pentaxuser

Empyreus · Apr 5, 2022

mohmad khatab said:
My friend .

Did you dissolve all the contents of the powder at once with water?

The chemistry of Cinestills Simplified Color Kit, after two weeks, it begins to gradually degrade and crumble, and thus you get results that have some defects and problems,,

I did dissolve the powder all at once, I also did not have this color issues for the first 3 roles I developed. A thought I have is just the chemistry going bad.

koraks said:
Might be fog due to an in-camera light leak. Or just a scanning issue...

Shouldn't be a light leak, as I have newer roles that were processed and do not have this issue.

brbo said:
Most probably a scanning/digitising issue. Uneven lighting of the negative probably due to lens vignetting (are you sure you are using a small enough aperture on the scanning lens?)

Do a simple test. Make a "scan" of two neighbouring frames on the film (so that the space between frames is in the middle of your scan) and compare the edges of the frames to what you get if you scan one full frame.

I am scanning with a laowa 65mm macro at f11 for these shots. I will try to do this when I get a chance, my film holder doesn't show much more than a frame but this might give some more insight.

pentaxuser said:
Where's the discolouration around the edges ? There seems to be 4 scenes, a lake with hills in the background; tree-lined shot: some buildings; street graffiti with orange coloured car and a landscape with hills Are these the examples

The lake scene and street graffiti shots look very good on my screen, It is more difficult to judge the others as there is a lot of shade and it is difficult to judge colours

Put it like this. Had you shown these in the gallery I would not have seen anything to make me ask questions

pentaxuser

I really appreciate the feedback, I am sure I am being hypercritical of my images. I am really trying to nail down my process and get my images looking very good so to me the colors were very different than I had wanted.

The photos of the lake and trees, to notice the discoloration as the trees appear to shift colors from green to brown. In person these were all very green trees. The graffiti starts to go magenta as you approach the left and right edges of the film. You can notice it more in the concrete.

pentaxuser said:
OK and thanks I think you are referring to the change in the brown colour of the tree trunk and the edge of the building. I had wondered about the change in the tree trunk but couldn't rule out a change in the bark or some extra light reaching that part but the building I see now has some clear discoloration

Why only these two frames? If it was the processing why has it only affected these 2 frames? Whatever the reason it suggests that something other than the processing is at work, doesn't it? A scanning problem, possibly?

OP any chance of a digital photo of the problem negs?

pentaxuser

That has been one thing that has confused me. So there are frames that don't have any issues but there are other frames that have issues of varying degrees. I can share my negatives as well, Negatives Link.

Also here are the full albums of all the images, I feel like the colors being off are really noticeable in the second album.
- Album 1
- Album 2
- Album 3

Sirius Glass · Apr 5, 2022

.

Welcome to ~~APUG~~ Photrio!!

pentaxuser · Apr 5, 2022

The photos of the lake and trees, to notice the discoloration as the trees appear to shift colors from green to brown. In person these were all very green trees.

OK This is a real head scratcher I see the gradual change from green to brown but has assumed that this was a real and natural change. If it isn't then it looks to be one of the most perfect but faulty changes I have ever seen

Yes in album 2 most of the trees are brown but this unnatural cast appears to be confined to the trees and in some cases has not spread to far greenery in the hills. I cannot see a magenta cast on the concrete but it may be significant that the shots where there is no green to brown change are the shots that contain no green in the first place

I only print RA4 under an enlarger so really can't comment on scanning or whether anything in the scanner/ scanning software might be interfering

If there is a magenta cast then yes this might affect how green the green material is. In the city building shot the brown seems to be on both edges and the grass looks more neutral grey than I think it should but those buildings in the middle look to be untainted by the magenta/brown In fact in that shot the concrete slabs round what appears to be a plinth behind the grass look too blue. In fact if anything the cast apart from the brown may be too blue in all of the concrete

Under an enlarger I'd try in the brown tree shots to reduce magenta in stages by a couple of units at a time to see what happens. What you need to do in scanning I have no idea

I am unsure what Sirius' ", " means either

pentaxuser

Sirius Glass · Apr 5, 2022

pentaxuser said:
...

pentaxuser

Just a hello to a new member.

pentaxuser · Apr 5, 2022

Sirius Glass said:
Just a hello to a new member.

Thanks That's a new code for hello to me

pentaxuser

Empyreus · Apr 5, 2022

pentaxuser said:
The photos of the lake and trees, to notice the discoloration as the trees appear to shift colors from green to brown. In person these were all very green trees.

OK This is a real head scratcher I see the gradual change from green to brown but has assumed that this was a real and natural change. If it isn't then it looks to be one of the most perfect but faulty changes I have ever seen

Yes in album 2 most of the trees are brown but this unnatural cast appears to be confined to the trees and in some cases has not spread to far greenery in the hills. I cannot see a magenta cast on the concrete but it may be significant that the shots where there is no green to brown change are the shots that contain no green in the first place

I only print RA4 under an enlarger so really can't comment on scanning or whether anything in the scanner/ scanning software might be interfering

If there is a magenta cast then yes this might affect how green the green material is. In the city building shot the brown seems to be on both edges and the grass looks more neutral grey than I think it should but those buildings in the middle look to be untainted by the magenta/brown In fact in that shot the concrete slabs round what appears to be a plinth behind the grass look too blue. In fact if anything the cast apart from the brown may be too blue in all of the concrete

Under an enlarger I'd try in the brown tree shots to reduce magenta in stages by a couple of units at a time to see what happens. What you need to do in scanning I have no idea

I am unsure what Sirius' ", " means either

pentaxuser

I appreciate you taking a look at everything! I think I'm going to try to find some time to mess around rescanning the negatives and see if somehow I messed up something. Part of me still thinks the unnatural cast might be just an issue with the Chemicals since my first 3 albums all seem fine, and then this popped up with the second 3.

Sirius Glass said:
Just a hello to a new member.

Thanks for the welcome!

koraks · Apr 6, 2022

Empyreus said:
The photos of the lake and trees, to notice the discoloration as the trees appear to shift colors from green to brown. In person these were all very green trees. The graffiti starts to go magenta as you approach the left and right edges of the film. You can notice it more in the concrete.

You have some (considerable) crossover. It's the kind of problem that rears its head if the developer goes off.

pentaxuser · Apr 6, 2022

koraks said:
You have some (considerable) crossover. It's the kind of problem that rears its head if the developer goes off.

Does crossover affect green the most as it is that colour that seems to have been affected. The green fir trees went steadily brown the closer to the lake buildings they were? In the second album it was the trees again and this time they were almost a chestnut brown colour. Or is that just a random thing in the sense that if the developer has gone off then using it on the next set of negatives might result in it affecting other colours, so next time the trees will be fine but another colour will be affected?

Thanks

pentaxuser

koraks · Apr 6, 2022

pentaxuser said:
Does crossover affect green the most

Crossover, by definition, does not affect one color.

Empyreus · Apr 6, 2022

koraks said:
You have some (considerable) crossover. It's the kind of problem that rears its head if the developer goes off.

I guess there probably isn't a realistic way for me to test my developer and see if that's the issue. I'll just have to make a new batch when I have some roles saved up.

koraks · Apr 7, 2022

You could do that and see if the situation improves. And make sure to expose properly; it seems the problematic frames are underexposed and the digital corrections needed to rectify that only emphasize the problem.

Photo Discoloration Issue

Empyreus

mohmad khatab

koraks

Moderator

brbo

pentaxuser

koraks

Moderator

pentaxuser

Empyreus

Sirius Glass

pentaxuser

Sirius Glass

pentaxuser

Empyreus

koraks

Moderator

pentaxuser

koraks

Moderator

Empyreus

koraks

Moderator

Photo Discoloration Issue

Moderator

Moderator

Moderator

Moderator

Moderator

Privacy & Transparency

Privacy & Transparency