Developing and printing proved really expensive for 35mm Sprocket photos. So developing and scanning seemed a solution, but are results satisfactory?
Cutting a long story short.
Purchased 35mm Back for Diana F+.
Tried the 3 masking possibilities.
Discovered printing sprockets was painfully expensive @photolab
Tried several methods of scanning negatives
Purchased a 35mm Film Scanner
Painfully slow to do Panoramic Sprockets shots
Colours changed
How do I know which colour is the original? Specially when scanning x-process or tungsten
I can understand that printed photos at the lab are enhanced by machine, and once more when scanned by scanner.
When I scan on my negative scanner the color is awfully dull, is it my scanner or is it my photos which are not being enhanced by machines?
Find the following examples:
Developed cropped photos:
Negative scan with sprockets:
When I took the photos I always took in consideration that there would be sprockets. So the cropped photos by the lab seemed cut, but the colours are much more vivid.
Is digitally enhancing the only option for vivid photos?
13 komentov
asharnanae
In my personal opinion: The problem is that the scanner is taking the sprocket hole as the darkest tone of the negative, which in reality it is not, this is causing the scanner to falsely shift all of the other colours/tones of the true photo to become lighter or washed out to compensate. to get a true scan you need to ask it to exposed for the inner part of the negative, and disregard the sprockets.
Part of it is also that the machine at the lab is exposing the negative to get the best print out of it, which is what you would do yourself with an enlarger in a darkroom, and what most people here do when changing the settings of how the negative is scanned by their scanner, so that they get a good representation of their negatives. But this is only truly correct for the negative if it is correctly exposed with good shadows, mid tones and highlights. For heavily under or over exposed ones, you have to push the scanning limits, as you would have to push the limits of what you could enlarge with a darkroom. Its a fine line, of where digital enlargement and development stop and digital manipulation begins.
In terms of colours and knowing what colours should be, in the most basic terms, the colours should be the opposite of the ones you can see on the negative. Tungsten films have always had a purple cast for me, or vivid shades of red and orange when scanned, and the film itself is greeny-yellow and greeny-blue in shades.
hope thats helpful :)
luna_antonio
@asharnanae Excatly what I mean, the digital process i would have to do, in order to achieve what i believe the true colours to be, i would have to digitally enhance the photo.
Check out this photo:
http://www.lomograph(…)os/16666990
it was taken with a Tungsten film, it was developed, printed @ the lab, obviously looking at the negatives they came green, so i know that the acutal print does not resemble anything like what the lab printed photo looks like.
Equally when i sent the redscale (extended range) to print @the lab they came out what i expected them to be
http://www.lomograph(…)os/15005600
I can understand that ignoring the sprocket holes is porbably the best idea. but look at @erikagrendel photo, its not only very well defined, but the colours are well balanced, and the sprockets holes are there http://www.lomograph(…)os/14416841
Is it my current setup system? or should i really enhance them on photoshop?
schemerel
I think you have no choice but to digitally enhance, but you have to do it in a way that stays true to the image, and keep it to a minimum. I just got my scanner yesterday and I have the same dillema. I have scanned a couple of images and I have turned on colour correction while scanning, and then in photoshop I have just done auto levels, auto colour auto contrast. By doing this I have tried to emulate the scanning procedure at the lab. The truth is, unless you print the negatives yourselve in a darkroom, they are always slightly digitally enhanced. And even in a darkroom you can play around with contrast and stuff like that :) Just try to create a workflow that you feel comftable with, or try to achieve the same color results as your lab and record the way you dit that.
good luck !
schemerel
oh and what scanner are you using, maybe the colours are dull because it's not a very good scanner
schemerel
and another thing: when scanning xpro, I've been told to scan the slide film as a POSITIVE (color correction on) then invert it in photoshop.
luna_antonio
The scanner looks like this http://www.solostock(…)30555z0.jpg I share it with @georginasamso, she slightly tampers with the colours, but she hasn´t done sprockets yet, which proves to be quite a tedious task since i have to do 4 scans for each frame, then blending them on photoshop so that they become one. I´ll soon try auto balancing in photoshop just like you say, the problem comes when i am doing x--slides and x-pros. I would like to find a user who also has a tower scanner, and has done sprocket shots scans, to see what sort of results they get. Cause i know many who scan on their flatbed, and get different resuls with the digitalizer. Just like I imagine people such as @t0m7 or @natalieerachel use. I am truely thankful for your comments.
schemerel
Did you pay alot for it ? I've seen many of these for cheap and the quality was equally as cheap, I'm sorry to say. If you take a lot of pictures it's realy worth it to buy a semi decent scanner, especially if you can share the costs with your friend. I have bought an Epson v600 for €200 . That may sound expensive but the last two times I went to the lab (for developing and scans, no prints) I payed €40, so times 2 that makes €80 which is almost half of what I payes for my scanner. It's well worth it. I have already rescanned some negatives my lab had missed, and finally I can scan my panorama's and other strange formats. Both Epson and Canon have reasonable priced negative scanners, and you can do medium format with them as well.
luna_antonio
@georginasamso and I looked into it quite a lot into it. Infact if you see her photos you might see that her´s come out reasonably well, I agree with you epson v600 is well worththe money! i belive most big lomo fans, and people like @kleeblatt use it. The result is great. I might begin to just adjust some of the contrasts, once i have joint the 4 photos together (when i do panoramic) and 2 when i do squares. Regarding the costs of developing i agree with you completely we had had more than enough paying development and prints. The investment is well worth it.
asharnanae
I too have an epson scanner, a V700, best buy I ever made. I think if you really want to do a lot of panoramic and sprocket shots then a flatbed scanner would be well worth it. I even use a simple piece of sheet glass to hold down my lomokino rolls, so that I don't need to cut them.
And yes, the photo from venice seems to have been colour corrected, to bring it back into a more normal range. Colour cast removal is a automatic facet of most printing machines sadly. Redscale ones they generally leave because its such an obvious and marked shift.
When I said expose for the main photo, I meant just ask the scanner to look at that area to judge the colours, but still scan the whole neg, sprockets and all. Some scanners will do this, some wont.
I rarely have to to put anything into photoshop (unless its very badly exposed) I use the manual settings in my scanner to bring up the image that I feel reflects the best/truest interpretation of the neg.
erikagrendel
well, as you asked me to add my opinion and you used my photo as an example as well, I feel that I should write here something ... The photo from Venice was definitely not colour corrected, although, it was done on an older scanner of my friend (i'm planning to buy Epson soon as I heard about its qualities). Speaking about sprockets and their scanning, I guess that you will find this blog helpful, as I am myself no professional and I am learning from everyone here who has more experience.
check this: http://www.lomograph(…)oscan-8800f
luna_antonio
Thank you for comments! As soon as i get the change to upload some more i´ll let you know!
schlogoat
I have an old Epson 3170 and have had to use the 120 film mask for the sprockets, which is a bit laborious, but not as much as doing each photo in several stages! Kudos! The scanner is getting a little knackered as its an old model now but the results are alright. I'm newish to sprocket holes in film, and black and white have come out a lot more washed out than colour. I have done some tone adjustments on colour nonetheless, and have also felt a bit like I'm not sure where the line is where it becomes manipulation. I guess that just keeping it to the bare minimum is the key.
luna_antonio
All our problems will be solved by the lomo film scanner. That is my hope!