What's sad though is that the average Joe C-41 shooter will never understand what is lost.
Hi Mark.
In the case you presented, my only advice is to ask for your film to be printed with "No corrections added". In which case they should all be printed as "normal", allowing highlights to blow out and colour shifts to remain.
From the lab's point of view - remember they are there to make $$ and the only way they can be assured of that is to (hopefully) produce well exposed, colour corrected prints. In your instance, you just want uncorrected proofs and they should, rightly, produce what you are asking for.
That is exactly what I want.
Getting them to listen is the challenge
I was surprised to find out that this no correction setting is my local Wal-Mart's norm. Right price, right settings. This will do until I get the darkroom operational, this summer God willing.
No. I can say with 100% certainty looking at the backprint of a walmart print, that "no correction" is not the norm. There have been no MANUAL corrections, but the following settings are changed from neutral: Sharpness=+1, saturation is increased, and "autocorrections"(think autolevels in photoshop) are enabled.
I am puzzled by the repeated use of the term "no corrections".
When a print is made from a color negative, the reddish mask must be removed by your printing system, ...
Zeros on the back of the print does not mean no correction! And if you think the zeros mean you are seeing what you shot, you are not. You are seeing what the machine thought you should see.
If you want to get an idea of how your different shots compare you could select a negative that appears well exposed, make an acceptable print from it, then use those same color and density settings to print all your other shots. This way, lighter ones would remain lighter, darker would remain darker, color shifts would be seen, etc, and you would have a good idea of what you have done.
Bob,
Here's the back of mine.
I have a color darkroom and for my own quality control, for each film I use, I have shot a McBeth color chart with electronic flash, bracketed, then carefully processed the film. I then selected the best exposure and made the best print I could make from it. Thus I have a standard for both negatives and prints to compare everything else with. I can use those color and density settings to print nearly everything else I shoot for that film, with usually only minor deviations, but it can tell me what I have done shooting wise. But I mostly use it not so much for shooting as to check my processing and printing.
RPC
Each film has its own "corrections" for the orange film base - this gives a correctly colour balanced print under daylight conditions.
When I talk about "corrected" prints, I am referring to removing any colour casts (green grass often makes the machine print too magenta), correcting for photos taken under tungsten or flouro lighting (too yellow or green)and darkening or slightly lightening highlight or shadow detail. In my lab an "uncorrected" print meant that it was printed without any corrections to these casts or over/underexposure - the colour balance remained "daylight" (neutral) and any corrections required were ignored.
Note I'm talking about a Noritsu machine that was not yet digital capable - I decided any corrections by "reading" the negative. I cannot comment of the newer machines that operators print by looking at a screen. Think I could probably still beat the machine for output time and most probably colour balance as well. Nothing compares to being able to read the neg - any screen that isn't calibrated correctly will hamper the final results and the "automation" does produce some outrageous results!, eg: just like your PC and printer.
- Nanette
www.nanettereid.com
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