Are you getting crappy film prints? Should I blame digital?

[Jeff Canes]

I’ve had no problems with getting prints made from film with these laser jet printers that everybody is using these days.

The problem is like dirtily labs

 

[VSx]

1) I assume most little labs are using some type of digital to film system and I think this is the problem. How do these work?

Fuji Frontier. It's not the first but it may be the most prevalent digital mini-lab out there. Basic concept: all film gets scanned by a scanner, then sent to a laser section that paints the image on the photographic paper. Digital, electronic, all kinds of algorithms for all kinds of things, the main thing is it's NOT optical or even remotely close to being a direct from film to paper process. Newer Frontiers are using LEDs as the light source as opposed to a traditional lamp. I have no idea if the ones using LEDs are better or worse for the quirks of the digital minilab setup, the Frontier I'm familiar with still uses a traditional lamp. The paper process is no different than it was with the optical minilabs. It's still multi-contrast photographic stuff going through developer, bleach and fix. Frontier prints should still beat the pants off of any ink based print... like those Kodak picturemaker things or any home/office printer...

The Frontier isn't the only mini-lab that works this way I would imagine since the concept in itself isn't bad. It can make really nice prints from C-41 35mm if the operator knows how to tweak various settings and if it's totally dialed in for film types. I can't make a guess as to what percentage of Frontiers would be totally dialed in, but I can guarantee you that one being operated by someone who's being paid minimum wage or close to it doesn't have much of a chance of making beautiful prints from different film types consistantly. Wal*Mart uses Fuji Frontiers exclusively AFAIK and they may be pretty well dialed in but I don't know that from experience. Frontiers were one of the first digital mini-labs to get it right according to my boss. It's very idiot-proof but it's not perfect. I suspect the Kodak on Fuji thing may be a case of the machine not being balanced for the film type you are bringing them but I could be wrong. With minilabs (digital as well as optical in my experience) you balance the paper, and then you'll also have 'channels' for different film types basically... and those channels are balanced using control negatives for each film type/stock. That costs money to keep those control negs up to date, you can't just buy a set of them and keep using them for years... speaking of cost cutting measures...

I speak from the operator side of things. I would never have larger than 35mm formats printed on a frontier (of my own) based on what I've seen personally. I'm not even really crazy about real B&W 35mm prints from the frontier but those are more acceptible to me than the 120 prints I've seen C-41 and B&W. I'm extremely picky. I'm not a photographer, just someone who started working in a photo lab about 3 years before they got rid of their darkroom... yes it was a cost cutting measure. They didn't really want to be a pro/custom lab because the local market for that work was small and shrinking. That was the vibe I was given anyway - took me a long time to get over losing the darkroom and any time I would speak of it I would get laughed at.

I have noticed that particularly skin tones have this weird look, like they have almost been solarized or a 'softening' or 'blend' tool has been used. I bet there is some kind of 'skin tone algorithm-thingy' going on, we have a similar function on higher-end video cameras.

I'm a video geek first and foremost... though I've never had the pleasure of using and playing with the big boy's toys. So I don't know of the settings you speak of, but I do know of those artifacts from the Frontier Yes it's a setting. It can be turned off. The operator may or may not know this. The options for the setting are along the lines of 'shadows hard', 'shadows soft', 'all hard', 'all soft', highlights hard/soft too, and then OFF... or it might be 'standard' or 'none'. Depending on how the machine was set up the operator can change the setting without knowing the password to get into the set-up... those settings can work nicely in a few types of scenes, but it's my personal preference to leave them off.

3) Am I crazy? :crazy: Is this happening to you too? I can understand this happening with cheap-o digital enlargements, but regular prints should look good. It's discouraging and makes me not want to waste money of film, but I love it and don't really like shooting digital, but it kind of freaks me out because I fear that for the average Joe, digital to film prints are going to look better than film to digital to film prints.

You aren't crazy (but I might be ). Be prepared to pay more if you want better prints. That's all there is to it the way I see things. The old optical mini-labs disappeared because the VAST majority of people put price over quality*. I don't know about pro/custom labs (as opposed to one hour types) still having printers that go light source -> film -> lens -> paper, but that's honestly the best way to do it if you are picky about quality and the pro/custom labs are the ones most likely to still make prints that way I bet. It also requires more training, knowledge and experience from the operator than a digital mini-lab does... so again you'll be paying more for your prints most likely.

Just my 2 cents. Your mileage may vary. I'm nowhere near NY.
Stumbled into here googling for scans of film stock

*= this is true with video equipment as well - the video camera I paid $1200 for 2 years ago is nowhere near as good feature-wise as the one I paid $1400 for 10 years ago. This will probably repeat itself in digital camera as well... then again it's hard to find anything (less than a digital SLR) in a digital camera that has true exposure, shutter and focus controls already. I could care less about program exposure and scene modes or bluetooth or direct print or any of that crap. I will pay for FULL manual controls when I can afford it though.

 

[roguephotog]

I may have missed this in another person's entry but bear with me and if you can help me, please do!

I print at both Sam's Club one hour and West Photo in Minneapolis, MN. They have the same lab equipment but I noticed through the CDs I get that they do use slightly different resolution.

Sam's Club gives me 96dpi and 1818x1228 pixels = 12.792”x18.938” in viewing size

West Photo (the PRO lab) gives me 72dpi and 1800x1215 pixels = 16.8”x25” in viewing size

I usually print my 4x6 through Sam's Club using my CDs from West Photo - since the color correction is best this way.

What seems to be happening, though, the prints coming from Sam's Club are almost blurry. I've never learned to do my own devo. So I'm guessing it's like moving the paper around while it's developing. They look softer.

I think they use the Fuji Frontier machine everyone has been talking about. Can you explain to me how my prints could be coming out soft/blurry when the digital image I'm sending through to Sam's Club online (no human involvement on their end)?

I have a client super upset with me right now and I can't begin to tell her why her print at ProEx from her CD came out better than my print at Sam's/West from my neg and/or CD. Is it possible ProEx did some sort of sharpening, or "unsharp mask" in their computer before printing it?

Thanks so much if you can elaborate for me.

 

[modbohemian]

The current minilabs don't print optically anymore. Some genius thought that a good way to cut costs is to scan the neg and then expose the neg paper with a laser - just like a digital photo. The second genius desided that the consumers don't care about quality and decided not to scan at the full resolution of the scanner.

Are you serious?! Oh man, no wonder the original poster has been dissatisfied. What a criminal act.

Over the years, I've taken an occasional roll to a mini-lab, but generally I've never trusted them and fortunately, have a great local lab that produces great results at a reasonable cost.