To overexpose color negative film. Pros and cons.

I have been shooting color negative film for about 3 years. I would like to know your opinion/experience about overexposing color negative film. The pros and the cons that you have found over time.

I mainly shoot Portra 400 and 800 (both shot at box speed) and then, print them (RA4) with an enlarger.

I heard many things and I don´t know if the are just rumours or they are true. For example: Less apparent grain, loss of colour fidelity, increasing sharpness.

What do you think about? I am interested mostly on the effects when they are printed.

Up to ca. 1.5-2 stops overexposure not a whole lot of influence other than longer exposure times during printing. Beyond that, color crossover tends to start to become more of an issue and overall image quality deteriorates.

arturo_rs said:

Less apparent grain

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arturo_rs said:

increasing sharpness.

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I don't associate these with overexposure; in fact, the opposite.

About the grain and sharpness...I thought that if I increase the amount of light, in the developing process, there will be much "information". Good to know that @koraks

Setting your exposure to +1 film speed with color negative if you're using an in-camera meter is a good safety measure against your camera misreading the scene and underexposing. This can be useful if you're doing fast-paced photography where more careful metering methods could cause you to miss important shots. That room for error is one of the strengths of color negative.

Another case is when you want shallow depth of field but your camera's shutter can't go high enough. Using an ND filter would be preferable, but if you don't have one at the moment, it's the next best thing.

The film is designed to give maximum information at a certain film speed... adding extra light will push the exposure into the "shoulder of the curve" resulting in lower contrast and less detail recorded. But you really have to heavily overexpose for that to be a problem (certain films like Phoenix or Ektar behave a bit more like color positive and you shouldn't overexpose them much).

The grain in dark areas on the negative depends a lot on how you're setting the black point. You can make your shadows darker in printing/processing and reduce the grain, or brighten them and increase it. Increasing the overall contrast of the image will also increase the grain. Since overexposing reduces the contrast, it would make sense that it would also reduce the grain, unless you're stretching the contrast curve back afterwards. However, in the case of scanning, overexposure can increase scanner noise.

arturo_rs said:

About the grain and sharpness...I thought that if I increase the amount of light, in the developing process, there will be much "information".

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In terms of grain, with overexposure you basically create more density in the highlights and the layering of dye clouds that results from this, tends to result in a more grainy look when printed or scanned.
As to sharpness, overexposure results in more light piping and halation, which degrades contrast in small features, so things look less sharply defined.

Overall gross overexposure is to be avoided unless you're very specifically looking for a washed out, color-crossed effect, in which case you might overexpose deliberately by e.g. 4-5 stops.

I exposed once a 6x6 Portra 400 roll at ISO 100 by mistake and I developed it normally. Scanned and printed a couple to 20x20 cm, I didn't find anything to complaint about. Less saturation? Yes, but overall it was ok. More gain? Not really.

When I shoot Portra 160 I shot it at ISO100. Why because when I examine the curves published by Kodak I think it's really ISO100. For Portra 400 and 800 (which I try not to use) I would use box speed why? Because when i go for such speed I desperately need the speed.

arturo_rs said:

I have been shooting color negative film for about 3 years. I would like to know your opinion/experience about overexposing color negative film. The pros and the cons that you have found over time.

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Hi, my experience has been primarily with the lower-speed Kodak professional portrait/wedding films. Meaning Portra 160 and its predecessors. Where I worked, a large (very) chain studio outfit, we did pretty extensive testing of any "new" films and papers under consideration. We also looked, occasionally, at similar pro films from other makers.

I'm gonna put a link to a previous summary of some of our normal testing methods.

Short summary - when printing from 35mm film to 8x10 inch prints, hand-balanced to match skin tones, we essentially could not see any color differences between exposures ranging from about 1 f-stop underexposed to about 3 or 4 f-stops overexposed. When I say "we," I mean a group of qualified people, including professional color-correctors. Using properly lit color booths.

I should qualify the setup. The test shots were made using professional-grade electronic flash in a more or less standard studio configuration. This means that the three color-sensitive layers of the film are in balance with each other - this is the "color temperature" of light that these films are designed for.

To clarify this point let me give the example of a "warmer" light (one with a lower color temperature). Such a light is deficient in the bluish content relative to red. So the blue-sensitive part of the film will have a lesser exposure compared to the red-sensitive part. But when using the "correct" light sources the color-sensitive layers will be in balance with each other, exposure-wise. If they are NOT in balance then one expects the overall exposure latitude to be reduced. And, there is a good likelihood that at least one color layer is being underexposed, depending on the exposure meter. So if shooting existing light of unknown characteristics, it may be a good idea to arbitrarily increase exposure by a stop or so.

A second point is that the film processing was done in large well-controlled cine processors, with plenty of developer volume. So the developer is never capacity-limited as I expect most amateur/hobbyist processing is. (Overexposed film exhausts the developer faster.)

Regarding sharpness, etc., we did not specifically evaluate this. But... if there were anything obvious we would certainly have noticed it. I should also point out that we were shooting at something like f/16 where diffraction is taking the edge off of maximum resolving power.

I would not automatically presume that other films would behave this well; I'm just stating test results that I/we observed under specific conditions.

I disagree with Mr Bill, that is, with respect to present film choices. And I have put my money where my mouth is - try it with costly 8x10 film, where your wallet won't forgive error. Of course, for initial bracketing tests with any unfamiliar film, I do it on affordable 120 roll film instead.

Routinely overexposing color neg film is an anachronistic holdover from earlier days, likely to be counterproductive with current films. It's also been a margin of safety for quick-draw shoot from the hip types, who don't want to bother with a light meter, and rely on imagined latitude instead. That kind of propensity might be factored into the design and marketing of amateur films like Kodak Gold, but doesn't make sense with more finely tuned films like Portra and Ektar. Go with box speed instead, or you might end up with unwanted color shifts at the extremes.

I'm quite aware of how well balanced current Portra 160 is. I use it as an internegative film for chromes intended for RA4 print outcome. And it's artificially warmed for sake of pleasing skintones, hence Portra = portrait. But significantly underexposed/overexposed, something is going to give way - maybe not those studio-esque skintones, but unquestionably something else in the color palette. As Dirty Harry with his .44 magnum said, "A man's got to know his limitations"; and every film has its limitations. A thoughtful perusal of the dye curves on the spec sheets informs one of the significant degree of crossover which occurs when one challenges the boundaries. Some of that is deliberately engineered in, and some an unintended but inevitable minefield of curve crossover.

Although weddings and portraiture are not my personal trade, I have had collectors of my own color prints request me to shoot their own portraits and weddings, whether on site, enviro-style, or studio-style. And I used various films going clear back to Vericolor L right up to the present selection, and even chrome films printed onto Cibachrome - yeah, I was good enough at it for stunning portraits. And I charged per print, not per job.

One can take all kinds of liberties with these film for creative effect. That's fine; I've done it myself. But by objective standards, the parameters are more limited. And one also needs to keep in mind that colors in nature often reproduce differently than those indoors artificially lit. And a lot of wedding and portrait photography occurs outdoors too, without assistance from artificial lighting.

I tend to "overexpose" by about a stop. Part of that is to give myself a little extra wiggle room, part of that is because I run all my color film through ecn2, which is a bit less active.

When you consider @Mr Bill 's excellent advice, it is important to remember that the business he was working in used controlled lighting and, one would assume, careful metering - thus the chance of under-exposure was probably fairly small.
And in addition, one would expect that the qualities and inherent contrast of the light sources were probably not creating excessively contrasty conditions.
Increasing exposure from what appears to be the minimum amount that provides high quality results helps deal with potential under-exposure. That increase may also give you more abilities to deal with excessive contrast - at least give you more choices at the custom printing stage.
Increased exposure is a useful tool that can be applied in specific circumstances. There are downsides in relation to sharpness and highlight rendition.
The fact that dye clouds are present can mean that the appearance of grain can actually be change in a way that you consider it to be improved - we see that with the C41 processed black and white films, of which only the Ilford offering remains.
If you regularly photograph in a wide variety of conditions where exposure is challenging and excessive contrast often presents itself, consistent over-exposure may be prudent. If you like how the character of the grain changes with over-exposure, you may choose that course as well.

DREW WILEY said:

I disagree with Mr Bill, that is, with respect to present film choices.

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Hi, I can't say, for sure, with CURRENT films. But, my past experience with Portra was that sensitometrically it was very stable, as in a mature product. On this basis I would GUESS that it's performance is still very similar.

We used such a volume of film that entire emulsions were reserved for our use. And each time a new emulsion came into our warehouse they pulled a couple of semi-random 100 foot rolls. We would expose and process some sensitometric wedges for evaluation. At some point this was halted cuz things never changed. Fwiw, regarding VPSIII, we tracked the entire life cycle of the film. We could see it being slightly tweaked a handful of times in the earlier years; one emulsion would show a slight anomaly, which we took to be an "outlier. But then, perhaps 6 months later, ALL new emulsions would have the same "anomaly," meaning that the first one had been something of a "trial balloon." In the case of Portra 160 I don't think such running changes, sensitometrically, were seen (I was not in that department any more, but they would have probably told me.) So my guess is that it's still fundamentally the same.

DREW WILEY said:

And I have put my money where my mouth is - try it with costly 8x10 film, where you wallet won't forgive error

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Drew, with all due respect, I think you have no idea of the extent of what our operation was. Instead of 8x10" film, think on the order of a couple semi-trucks from Rochester pulling up to your loading dock every week. (In all honesty this was almost exclusively color paper; we ran through about a dozen master rolls per day.) Our film usage was relatively measly, only maybe 5 or 6 or 7 miles of 35mm per day. About half processed through our main lab; the rest through several satellite labs.

FWIW I generally respect your opinions and don't take disagreements personally (well, maybe a little). But in this case, let me ask: have you actually DONE the tests that would disprove my GUESS that current Portra 160 could perform in the manner I described?

And a second thing, I vaguely recall you saying that you don't process your own film? Am I to understand that this is the case? So, how would you know the quality of the film processing, even if you did the tests i mention? (In our case, EVERY significant test has at least one "process control strip" attached to the test film itself.)

That's kinda rhetorical, but it's my guess that much of the small scale c-41 processing suffers from "sparse development." Meaning that some of the developer components, such as CD-4 and bromide/iodide go out-of-spec during the processing run. (There ARE actually specs for these things, just unknown to the general public.) If I'm correct about this, which I'm not absolutely certain of, then overexposed film, especially 3 or 4 stops over, is gonna suffer significantly greater "starvation." So testing like this would not be a fair assessment of the film's capability.

Answer - I have probably done more critical tests with Portra 160 than any commercial lab because I've adapted it to a far more stringent hue repro application than required by general photography. I state this mainly in the past tense, since 8X10 color film is getting almost unaffordable in the present, unless it's something I already have a reserve of in the freezer.

I've also had several personal friends and clients of my own who owned enormous professional labs with the very best equipment. One of them had three labs with combined studio space, one consisting of a six-story downtown highrise, another in a two-story complex half the size of a football field, and the third location consisting of half a block of underground space with millions of dollars worth of equipment in it. You name it - C41and E6, RA4 and Ciba in large size high volume, everything except dye transfer. How many workaholic lab owners do you know who came close to being a billionaire by that means?

With those kinds of choices around me, in one case right across the tracks from my own office, do you think I'd be gambling with anything less than the highest standards of process control when it came to developing my own C41 and E6 needs? And they needed me too, since I was working for the company supplying most of their maintenance and remodeling needs, plus technical advice. We were surrounded by Biotech and chemical industries as well, and served in an analogous one-on-one manner. We all became mutual trusted personal friends.

I don't know where you were located; but it would be a mistake to think that demand or quality control would have been anything lesser on the West Coast. Yeah, all those guys I mentioned are now retired; but there are still a few big labs around processing a lot of E6 and C1 film everyday with excellent equipment, everything form 35mm to 8x10, or hypothetically even 11x14 if someone showed up with it.

Current Portra, as you surmise, is indeed just a further step along in the evolution of similar products beforehand; but all those incremental steps add up; and on an objective basis, it's arguably a better product then ever. Ektar 100, however, is of an entirely different lineage, and itself significantly improved from earlier renditions.

MattKing said:

When you consider @Mr Bill 's excellent advice, it is important to remember that the business he was working in used controlled lighting and, one would assume, careful metering - thus the chance of under-exposure was probably fairly small.

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Thanks Matt, but not sure that I actually gave any real advice.

Re "careful metering," no, essentially no metering at all. At least in most cases. Back in those days we had something like 25 or 30 field techs who would "install" new studios according to some lighting plan. Their final step was to shoot actual test film (actual humans in the photo, plus color test charts, etc.). Then "overnight" the test film to the home office (or whatever lab the studio was assigned to). A "film inspector" would then give an official clearance based on that.

The reason we could do that is that every flash pack/head assy leaving our camera shop had been verified as to actual light output. So once things are installed we know what the result is gonna be. Unless someone screwed up, or something damaged in shipment, we knew where the results would be.

At one time the head(s) of the tech group wanted to equip all of the techs with meters, which they did. But, the problems were like people on this forum encounter. These people were not photographers, for the most part, more like tech school grads. And some didn't really understand how to set up and use the meters. So that didn't work out, and eventually all the meters disappeared from the tool kits.

Regarding exposure errors, these were fairly common. A lighthead fails and nobody notices it. Or someone does service on the camera and inadvertently leaves the lens aperture wide open. So this is part of the reason why we tested so extensively; we wanna know what kind of problems we might anticipate. Or, if we were dissatisfied... actually Kodak would have modified the product, OR worst case, keep manufacturing the older film for us.

MattKing said:

When you consider @Mr Bill 's excellent advice, it is important to remember that the business he was working in used controlled lighting and, one would assume, careful metering - thus the chance of under-exposure was probably fairly small.
And in addition, one would expect that the qualities and inherent contrast of the light sources were probably not creating excessively contrasty conditions.
Increasing exposure from what appears to be the minimum amount that provides high quality results helps deal with potential under-exposure. That increase may also give you more abilities to deal with excessive contrast - at least give you more choices at the custom printing stage.
Increased exposure is a useful tool that can be applied in specific circumstances. There are downsides in relation to sharpness and highlight rendition.
The fact that dye clouds are present can mean that the appearance of grain can actually be change in a way that you consider it to be improved - we see that with the C41 processed black and white films, of which only the Ilford offering remains.
If you regularly photograph in a wide variety of conditions where exposure is challenging and excessive contrast often presents itself, consistent over-exposure may be prudent. If you like how the character of the grain changes with over-exposure, you may choose that course as well.

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!
Shooting color neg films professionally, for event coverage, I would rate ISO 160 film at EI100, simply as a [cushion against muddy color reproduction in the shadow areas if a specific shot got a bit underexposed] because of the fact that all metered scenes can be subjected to a bit of 'metering error' in the panic of rapid situational shooting preventing us from always careful ,methodical analysis of the situation.
That simply utilized, to my advantage, the fact that modern color neg is more tolerant of +1EV overexposure than it is tolerant of -1EV underexposure. If shooting much more controlled conditions, like studio or on-location portraiture, I would shoot at box rated speed.

DREW WILEY said:

Answer - I have probably done more critical tests with Portra 160 than any commercial lab because I've adapted it to a far more stringent hue repro application than required by general photography.

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I actually asked if you'd done the test I was talking about.

I don't doubt that you were doing more critical hue related tests. We were a mass market portrait outfit, doing mostly machine prints to a standard. Nominal 5cc color tolerance, but probably 2/3 of our work was within 2cc during our "normal" part of the year. At peak times, near Christmas, for example, the production nearly doubled. So lots of new seasonal help, and certainly we shipped a lot of crap in those days, I'm pretty sure.

But before we committed to a new film, such as when Portra first came out, we did pretty extensive testing to see what problems we might encounter. This would always include an extended exposure sequence. And we would get very finicky with this sort of thing. Because we're gonna be committed longer term.

As I previously stated, after hand balancing to match, professional color correctors could essentially not tell the exposures apart, on the basis of color. Within the range I stated. Perhaps you could have told them apart, perhaps not; I dunno. All of our color corrector had been screened with the Munsell some-number hue test. Out of 60 or 80 people on file I think 3 stood out. These 3 could do the test rapidly, bam, bam, bam, and get a perfect score; no doubt in their mind. I would guess that those people might have been able to determine the differences; I dunno. But they stood out from more "normal" people.

But again, since you said you disagreed with the test results I described, but for CURRENT Portra 160, I asked, did you do the actual test? From your response I am guessing not.

DREW WILEY said:

I've also had several personal friends and clients of my own who owned enormous professional labs with the very best equipment.

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Is this really relevant? Do you really wanna go there?

DREW WILEY said:

With those kinds of choices around me, in one case right across the tracks from my own office, do you think I'd be gambling with anything less than the highest standards of process control when it came to developing my own C41 and E6 needs?

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Well, I dunno; that's why I asked. So did you just trust on their reputation? When we did our testing we verified, via attached control strips, that this specific film was seeing a well-centered process.

FWIW there is a fairly wide tolerance range on process control charts. A lab could easily have a 10% replenishment offset in either direction and be considered in "good control." Does this matter? I dunno; we didn't test for that. We just made sure that the plots were about as centered as they could be when we ran the tests.

DREW WILEY said:

I don't know where you were located; but it would be a mistake to think that demand or quality control would have been anything lesser on the West Coast.

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I don't think that West Coast would necessarily have lesser QC; I don't know why you would say that. I would say that just about any competent lab techs, given adequate equipment, could have the same level of process control. Provided that their management allows (or demands) it. But I don't think it can really be done in something like a Jobo rotary processor or even a dip n dunk machine. (The Jobo is limited in developer volume, plus oxidizes the developer during operation. And the dip n dunk machine has variable development time (I believe), depending on which end of the hanging roll (please correct me if I'm wrong, dip n dunk owners). Plus the dip n dunk is gonna be agitation limited; don't wanna blow the film around.

In the outfit I was from, the lab(s) functioned more like a picture factory. You set things up like a factory, running with as tight a tolerance at each step as can be done at reasonable cost. High volume work, very efficiently done. Working toward a specified tolerance for the final product, and a limited product range. Whereas a "normal" pro lab caters to the pro photographer customer, more along the lines of a custom shop. Less efficient production... has to be more expensive. Greater variability in the incoming film - different film types, more variable exposures. So more than likely more variation in the control charts.

wiltw said:

Shooting color neg films professionally, for event coverage, I would rate ISO 160 film at EI100, simply as a [cushion against muddy color reproduction in the shadow areas if a specific shot got a bit underexposed]

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Hi, I would concur that it's a smart thing to do. Now, in my experience, underexposed Portra 160 didn't really get "muddy." Rather, the blackest part of the scene would start to get a little "gritty." This is the "high speed" (high sensitivity) part of emulsion, with coarser grains, showing up. In a normal exposure you wouldn't see this cuz the (optical) printing exposure is longer - it would print to a solid black.

If you're in non-ideal lighting, where the color temperature is not ideal, it would be much easier for one of the film's color-sensitive layers to be relatively underexposed. So during optical printing you might see this layer not be able to print to a solid black, and thus show grittiness in just one color. So in this case it seems like it would be helpful to increase the exposure somewhat to keep that color-sensitive layer from bottoming out.

arturo_rs said:

I heard many things and I don´t know if the are just rumours or they are true. For example: Less apparent grain, loss of colour fidelity, increasing sharpness.

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That's news to me.
Generally it is contrast that is affected by over- or underexposure (or poor technique e.g. introducing flare). Negative film has a lot of generous lee-way before any marked exposure error is visible, notwithstanding gross user error. Colour can be muted from over-exposure, intensified by under-exposure — there are many varied results that can be obtained. Unless you are using the less generous chrome film where exposure variations are very visible and more easily tracked, you'll need to re-rate the film ± 2-3 stops to see marked differences in contrast and colour (and...where did the grain and increased sharpness come from?) — making notes as you go along up and down (e.g. using the exposure dial as a simple method of adjustment). At the end stage, it is important for your lab to be informed of the film you are presenting as being more or less experimental — that no exposure compensation — auto or operator-made, be undertaken during processing. RA4 printing — traditional darkroom or laser — presents its own curveball when printing from either chromes or negatives. Specifically to printing, my practice is to generally very gently over-exposure chrome film +0.3 to +0.6 — greatly dependent on prevailing conditions, as some light is lost during the print-step. The many variations and methods you can dream up should be accompanied by detailed notes as you go along. This is the quickest and most accurate method of confirming what is happening — for or against what you think.

I explicitly stated Portra 160, Bill, not Portra 160NC or any other predecessor product, though I have familiarity with those too. In other words, CURRENT PORTA 160. I hope I don't have keep repeating the obvious. And I really don't care to argue with you, because you haven't undertaken the same workflow as I have. Different objectives.

As and far as my lab connections - I don't know why you'd poo poo world class operations you've never interacted with yourself. I'm talking about full industrial setups with constant monitoring, with the very highest quality equipment. The best of these had a very narrow clientele, including their own studio work - the best equipped studio itself I've ever seen, with a limited number of very high paid career assistanta, which was also exceptional. The owner himself never took a vacation in his adult life, although he owned three resorts and a number of restaurants;
he worked until he was around 80.

As far as dip n'dunk goes, that's the ONLY way I'll allow my own color sheet film to be developed. It's considered standard in these parts. Roll film is a different story.

DREW WILEY said:

I explicitly stated Portra 160, Bill, not Portra 160NC or any other predecessor product, though I have familiarity with those too. In other words, CURRENT PORTA 160. I hope I don't have keep repeating the obvious...

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I guess i wasn't clear; the exact same tests were done on Portra 160. I just didn't have direct involvement so I didn't describe it. As was normal (for us) with such preliminary tests, it was followed up by a couple day's visit by a team of film and emulsion engineers/scientists from Kodak, with a repertoire of tests for us to process. As one of the Kodak execs said, Kodak would be crazy to roll out a new such film without trialing through our company.

Additionally, I don't have certainty that today's Portra 160 is still the same as the 15 years ago Portra.

DREW WILEY said:

As and far as my lab connections - I don't know why you'd poo poo world class operations you've never interacted with yourself.

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I don't mean to poo poo your lab connections. I'm sure they do fine work - most likely higher quality than we did. As I said, we operated more in the manner of a factory, manufacturing portraits to a certain spec.

But I think your connections are irrelevant here. And the fact that you know these people doesn't really carry weight with me. In my supreme arrogance I think that I, or at least my former QC team, likely had deeper inside knowledge and industry connections than they - all of em. (I'm talking mainly the process end here.) Certainly, from your descriptions, they were considerably smaller operations. And my own photography experience/ knowledge is far more extensive than what one might think based on my posts here. But I digress.

I think we will just have to remain in disagreement.

Mr Bill said:

I don't think that West Coast would necessarily have lesser QC; I don't know why you would say that. I would say that just about any competent lab techs, given adequate equipment, could have the same level of process control. Provided that their management allows (or demands) it. But I don't think it can really be done in something like a Jobo rotary processor or even a dip n dunk machine. (The Jobo is limited in developer volume, plus oxidizes the developer during operation. And the dip n dunk machine has variable development time (I believe), depending on which end of the hanging roll (please correct me if I'm wrong, dip n dunk owners). Plus the dip n dunk is gonna be agitation limited; don't wanna blow the film around.

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With the Dip N Dunk processors I've worked with, there was certainly a development difference with roll film. One end with 120 film, and both ends with 135 film.

The 120 film always hung straight down, so the bottom was first in the developer and last out.

The 135 film was hung over a slightly concave wheel/pully like apparatus, emulsion out, with both ends of the roll first in the developer and last out of the developer.

With C41 being 3'15" the lift and shift of the film racks was done every 3'00". with the lift and shifting of the film racks taking15 seconds.

From memory, the difference was about 1/10 of a stop density at a minimum, to about 1/5 of a stop at the maximum. These variants were usually dependent upon the state of the bath, as in it was maybe running a bit hot or a bit cool as replenishment was a bit agricultural, so to speak.

Agitation was nitrogen bursts every 10 seconds.

Mr Bill said:

Hi, I would concur that it's a smart thing to do. Now, in my experience, underexposed Portra 160 didn't really get "muddy." Rather, the blackest part of the scene would start to get a little "gritty." This is the "high speed" (high sensitivity) part of emulsion, with coarser grains, showing up. In a normal exposure you wouldn't see this cuz the (optical) printing exposure is longer - it would print to a solid black.

If you're in non-ideal lighting, where the color temperature is not ideal, it would be much easier for one of the film's color-sensitive layers to be relatively underexposed. So during optical printing you might see this layer not be able to print to a solid black, and thus show grittiness in just one color. So in this case it seems like it would be helpful to increase the exposure somewhat to keep that color-sensitive layer from bottoming out.

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Do not disagree...my own professional shooting days were back in the era of NPS and NPH, and I never shot Portra 160 as I ended professional shooting before that emerged.

The last of the heyday of big film portrait and wedding studios ended around here about a decade ago. At the liquidation sale, there were boxes and boxes of Vericolor sheet film in sizes ranging form 4x5 and 8x10, all the way up to 11X14 and 12X16. Shelf loads of both Fuji and Kodak chrome film too in comparable dimensions; plus an enormous quantity of leftover roll film of the earlier Portra category. Probably too outdated to be of any real value, since none of it was refrigerated. But the real deal-breaker was that the liquidator, in order to prove there actually was film in all those yellow and green boxes, opened them up, and took cell phone pictures of the stacks of sheet film itself laying on a big table!

Now I see that kind of niche being filled by little shops specializing in darkroom black and white prints instead, or other clever workarounds that give them a competitive advantage over the herds of digital shooters. Several studios have requested me to train them in darkroom skills; but I never had the time or inclination for that. There is still high-volume commercial color film development going on in the area, but I doubt much of it is related to the wedding trade anymore. Now most young couples want the images posted on the web the next day, and only later regret that they never had a tactile album, or framed portraits, made. Times have changed.

DREW WILEY said:

But the real deal-breaker was that the liquidator, in order to prove there actually was film in all those yellow and green boxes, opened them up, and took cell phone pictures of the stacks of sheet film itself laying on a big table!

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How on Earth could anybody (even someone with no photographic experience) think that was a good Idea? It says to open in total darkness only, right on the box.

MultiFormat Shooter said:

How on Earth could anybody (even someone with no photographic experience) think that was a good Idea? It says to open in total darkness only, right on the box.

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I regret to inform you that this happens more than we would like. Specially with paper.