Are all shop-developed films now a digital medium

[jameswilgeroth]

Hi all,

I have been totally disappointed by some of the photos that i have received back from various developing companies and brands. Upon close inspection of some of my photographs, i have noticed that they have a digitized appreance i.e. no natural-looking/analogue depth to them and a pixelled look (despite using an ASA of 100). Also, colour quality is generally awful. My questions are as follows:

i) Are all prints now made by digitally scanning a negative
ii) If yes to above, does anyone agree with me that this is truly a sad state of affairs? If yes to above, surely the only way to get clear, seamless photos is to develop them yourself?

Would love to hear your comments on all of this

James

 

[Battou]

Not all but almost all. It's getting harder and harder to find places that do optical printing anymore but they do exist.

 

[Torus34]

As people become accustomed to pictures with less and less detail [witness the explosion of cellphone photography], commercial processing will not be under great pressure to maintain a high level of detail in the printing process. This is especially true when new technology can provide a significant reduction in the cost of converting an image to hard copy. Never forget that the vast majority of commercial photograph processing is done for folks who are not exactly [how shall I say it?] super-critical with respect to print quality. They're pleased when they see that they haven't cut off the top of someone's head.

It's interesting to see this happening whilst high-end digital cameras are still extolling the virtues of higher and higher [and ultimately meaningless] pixel counts.

 

[jameswilgeroth]

Interesting to see the link drawn between the way that 'high-end' digital cameras are ultimately only as good, or shall i say only as poor, as the quality of the processing that takes place. Furthermore, for the average person, this processing will result in an awful image. I really cannot express enough the complete shock and distaste for some of the processing that i have received on what would otherwise be very nice photographs.

I plan on processing some of the colour negatives of the pooly developed prints with black and white chemicals. Although not completely useful as a comparison between chemical and digital processing of film, it will be interesting to see what level of line clarity and tonal gradients i can achieve, and to further compare my results with the poor originals.

 

[blash]

The Visual Science Lab: April 2009

I assure you, film and optical printing is alive and well

 

[christopher walrath]

Does anyone agree with me that this is truly a sad state of affairs? If yes to above, surely the only way to get clear, seamless photos is to develop them yourself?

This is why my downstairs half bath gets hijacked every weekend for either a printing session or else a few hours of 'Agitate and Rap'.

 

[Henry Peach]

i) Are all prints now made by digitally scanning a negative

Any lab that has upgraded their printing equipment in the last 8 or 10 years is probably using machines that scan the negs, and then expose the paper with lasers.

ii) If yes to above, does anyone agree with me that this is truly a sad state of affairs? If yes to above, surely the only way to get clear, seamless photos is to develop them yourself?

No. There is something wrong at the labs you are using. If you use a lab that knows what they are doing the prints from the new laser C-printers are indistinguishable from optical prints by the naked human eyeball. To suggest that pros and serious amateurs would accept lower quality is just silly. I have 20"x30" digital C-prints and silver gelatin prints hanging on my walls right next to old school machine printed C prints and hand printed silver gelatin prints. You can't tell the difference even with your nose pressed right up against them. Find a good lab.

I don't know where you are located, but Douglas Photographic still offers a lot of film services as well as digital, and they know what they are doing. Even they use the digital process to make machine C-prints from film, but they do offer custom hand printing old school style for a price!

 

[Mike_E]

Henry, good posts. Welcome to the forum!!

Mike

 

[ann]

james

i don't understand this statement
"I plan on processing some of the colour negatives of the pooly developed prints with black and white chemicals"

do you mean you want to make some black and white prints from color negatives?

there is a problem with having a lot of one hour labs make this type of print as they print on color paper using color chemicals and don't/won't color correct so the black and white print is neutral. They tend to take on a color cast, usually magenta, but it could be anything

 

[PaulofOregon]

Any lab that has upgraded their printing equipment in the last 8 or 10 years is probably using machines that scan the negs, and then expose the paper with lasers.



No. There is something wrong at the labs you are using. If you use a lab that knows what they are doing the prints from the new laser C-printers are indistinguishable from optical prints by the naked human eyeball. To suggest that pros and serious amateurs would accept lower quality is just silly. I have 20"x30" digital C-prints and silver gelatin prints hanging on my walls right next to old school machine printed C prints and hand printed silver gelatin prints. You can't tell the difference even with your nose pressed right up against them. Find a good lab.

I don't know where you are located, but Douglas Photographic still offers a lot of film services as well as digital, and they know what they are doing. Even they use the digital process to make machine C-prints from film, but they do offer custom hand printing old school style for a price!

I owned a lab that the printing technique was different, not using lasers but the same technology used in DLP projectors, light directed off a mirror then down hundreds of tubes to the paper. My 2901 Noritsu was an advancement from the first generation, something a few early digital photo printers had problems with, not enough 'light' so a poor dmax- the 'blacks weren't black enough. So mine had two sets of arrays of print heads feeding light down tubes spaced for 400dpi quality. Amazing tech! Had a color wheel blow up once, fortunately under a service contract for repairs! DLP explained- Digital Light Processing - Wikipedia

 

[PaulofOregon]

james

i don't understand this statement
"I plan on processing some of the colour negatives of the pooly developed prints with black and white chemicals"

do you mean you want to make some black and white prints from color negatives?

there is a problem with having a lot of one hour labs make this type of print as they print on color paper using color chemicals and don't/won't color correct so the black and white print is neutral. They tend to take on a color cast, usually magenta, but it could be anything

While true 12 years ago some labs now use high end inkjet printers- ask for one that uses multiple 'black inks', in other words one that has various grays along with black inks. It is true that 'true B&W' prints on color paper' is difficult, but not impossible, to get decent B&W prints. If you want the best quality in B&W you almost have to do the entire process yourself. Commercial labs doing B&W film processing batch all the films in the 'same soup', doing it yourself you can start out with better negs by customizing the development of the film. Then learn better techniques for processing the prints on B&W paper. Adding a little Elon to most standard paper developers will extend the tone of the paper without flattening the contrast, something I learned from an old master who owned the oldest portrait studio in North America, Oscar White, the last owner of Pach Brothers Studio in Manhattan. He passed away in the last year in his late 90s.