Whats wrong with my negative?

Here's a crop of a 6x6 negative.. notice the weird tracing around the branches and edges:



Is this a problem with development, exposure, or scanning?

-thanks in advance,
1kgcoffee

If your scan software has a sharpening feature, try turning it off.
It's probably also worthwhile to look at that region of the negative with a magnifier to verify that the negative is ok, especially with regard to the gray areas in the tree branches. Under fixing, or spent fixer can cause somewhat similar effects. But the wavy lines between the light and dark areas look like sharpening run amok. If it's a fixing problem, re-fixing with fresh fix and washing should take care of it.

bdial said:

If your scan software has a sharpening feature, try turning it off.

Click to expand...

+1

Other option: some kind of error correction of the scaner software. It seems to affect only the branches in front of a dark background, might be your software identifies this as a scratch or dust or hair on the neg and tries to correct for it.

Scan it with all optional improvement features turned off, then it should disappear.

Thanks for the responses.

The negs look good on a light table. After fiddling around with the software 'settings' and rescanning a few times the issue seems to have gone away. Also I think the unsharp mask at medium was set too high...

Looks like 'solarization'

If scanning the negative directly, make sure that Digital ICE any form of infrared scratch removal is turned OFF whenever scanning black and white.

We seem to have a lot of "What's wrong with my negative?" posts that are down to scanning/scanner problems. Presumably this arises because the negative owner hasn't got the facilities to make a print. If the owner of the neg has to/wants to follow the hybrid route, does this mean that the hybrid route involves difficulties that the digital route doesn't or is it simply that the hybrid user needs to know more about scanning and scanners to avoid what may be an non-existing problem with the negative?

Either way it would seem that the solution for the posters is either to get more information on hybrid skills or move to digital. Isn't it the case that both solutions take us to the departure from this branch of what was largely an analogue APUG when I joined in 2005 or have we reached the point that hybrid now belongs to mainframe APUG?

I note that the vast majority of gallery pics are negative scans, even to the extent that some nice toning in some pics isn't toning at all. The recent trend I have observed suggests that we are close to or have already arrived at an intermingling of analogue and hybrid. Can we or should we "draw a line in the sand"

pentaxuser

Good question, pentaxuser.

It's true I don't currently have the facilities, although I am in the process of getting them. Digital has it's own limitations. I have come here from digital for the reason that I prefer the process, the look of film and the gear itself is cheap. Film and printing is not so inexpensive and if we want film photography to grow (which it is) we can use digital to help it. Like it or not we live in digital times. If I had not seen scans on youtube and flickr I would not be here right now. Contributing, buying hundreds of dollars of film and chemicals that support a shrinking industry. Scanning is part of the proofing process and also a way to back up and share my negatives in case anything should happen to them. In my mind, any film photographer not scanning is cheating themselves.

A good photographer uses whatever tools are available to accomplish his vision. If Ansel Adams were still alive you could bet that he would be scanning like Michael Kenna. Just because the tools weren't available then doesn't make antithecal to film. I haven't been here as long you but it seems a waste and a bit hypocritical since the site itself exists as 1's and 0's.

Your thread and it could easily have been other threads simply prompted me to pose the question about where we go in this question of Hybrid. Once upon a time most stock answers would have directed the thread starter to the Hybrid forum but in recent months this hasn't been the case.

I agree that any hybrid user needs the information that helps avoid confusion between a "negative" problem and a "scanning" problem but should this occupy the analogue section of APUG? Maybe the stock answer needs to be the question: Does the problem show itself under a negative loupe. If so, it belongs here and if not, then it is one for the Hybrid section.

Alternatively APUG recognises the creeping trend and accepts that hybrid belongs here and all we require is that the member tells us that a loupe confirms it is a negative problem where we can all answer or that it is not a negative problem but the member is a hybrid user then those with the interest and skills in hybrid can answer and those without such skills and interest can move to other threads where the problem and solution is purely analogue.

These are simply suggestions

pentaxuser

I have a feeling that the only reason this thread (and a few other threads that are heavily concerned with scanning) hasn't been closed down with a recommendation for DPUG is that Sean is currently putting huge amounts of time and effort and money into the revamp of all the software and websites, to permit moving the thread to the hybrid part of what will soon be a more comprehensive and customizable resource.

What I am looking forward to is someone creating a resource that people can refer to that helps people tell the difference between scanning problems and film problems.

I believe we need some flexibility when dealing with hybrid topics. I currently shoot hybrid, but have bought an enlarged, papers, chemicals et al and plan to do wet prints soon (unfortunately work and issues with aging parents have prevented me from setting up a proper darkroom). We shouldn't forget that today's hybrid photographer may well be a pure analog photographer down the road.

That is a digital issue, not an analog problem.

I see a problem with judging negative development by using scans. If it is decided in the future to make conventional wet prints how will this effect things? Until making wet prints is feasible I would suggest sticking with box speed with the use of a commercial film developer. No need for surprises.