I'm guessing this is a processing error . . .

Here are a couple of crops from a roll of 400UC I shot over the

Christmas break. I got this roll back from a local lab yesterday,

but didn't notice this problem until I started scanning the negs a

few minutes ago. Basically, every area of the film that is above a

certain brightness is blurred, and the colors are kind of wierd

overall. Did the lab cross-process my film?<div></div>

Here's a tighter crop where you can better see the effect I'm referring to.<div></div>

I notice that the blurriness goes away when I turn ICE off, almost like they B&W processed my obviously COLOR neg film. These $*(@$& brain-dead idiots!

I really LIKE the effect! Some people would pay good money to have it as a Photoshop plug-in ;-)

 

Just curious - what does the film look like on a light box? Is it blurry?

Noboru,

 

I made a few PS adjustments. In my opinion this photo is underexposed to start with so I did a level adjustment. I also removed the bleuish cast with levels. Still, it does not improve this photo much. The colors look weird indeed, just check the orange car in front, really weird. This is most certainly a processing error, it's hard to say what the lab operator has done to your film though. Maybe exhausted chemicals? Have you dealt with them before? I'd go back if I were you and aks for an explanation and a refund of the money you paid them or a new 400UC film.

My PS adjustment<div></div>

The film looks sharp as normal on a light box, but the colors are jacked. What really pisses me off is that I used this film to shoot the gingerbread house displays in downtown Seattle, and now the colors look like vomit. I've never worked in a processing lab, but honestly, how hard can it be to read the letters "C-41" on the canister and put the film in the right tank?? I was getting really good service from this lab, but this type of screwup makes me want to can them for good. Maybe I just need to cool down, but I'm supposed to photograph my sister's wedding next week, and right now I'm thinking there's absolutely no way I'm sending such an important job to this lab. Aaaarrrghh!

"I'm supposed to photograph my sister's wedding next week". Even though they screwed-up this roll of film, I still think it's better to stick with this lab as they have always delivered quality in the past. Changing labs is not an option in my opinion because you have no time to 'test' the new lab.

Yeah, I suppose changing labs would be rather rash. Here's one from the same roll that turned out kind of interesting.<div></div>

Are you sure it's not just your scanner playing up? Did you get prints done from the lab? Just a silly guess but was the film damp or is there condensation on your lens? It's just that you don't know for sure what is up and you appear to be blaming the lab.

I wouldn't think that your lab cross/p'd your negs. I don't know of many labs that do trannies on site - but maybe that's just a UK thing, but it's kind of tricky, almost impossible to mix the two up and run a C41 through E6 chem. I'd look at your scanner settings before taking your pictures back to the lab and demanding to have it rectified with some cash, or at least some free processing.

 

Once you've excluded the obvious, the truth will out!

I think the key here is when you mention:

 

"I notice that the blurriness goes away when I turn ICE off, almost like they B&W processed my obviously COLOR neg film"

 

This leads me to believe that what you have is silver retention. Take it bak and have them re-bleach and re-fix the film. This should clear up the problem.

Any chance it's a light leak in the camera? I've had some strange effects from small leaks.

Looks like condensation on the lens to me. Had you just come out of a warm building into the outdoor cold? Cross processing is highly unlikely -- do you know for a fact that the lab even has an E-6 machine? They certainly didn't develop it in B&W chemicals or you wouldn't have color.

I agree with Nigel. If the effect goes away when you turn ICE off, then it has something to do with IR density (used by Digital ICE). Retained silver is the only thing I can think of (beyond dirt and scratches) that would affect the IR channel. With most color negative film, incomplete bleaching is most apparent in the higher negative densities which is what you are observing. As Nigel suggests, the lab can run the film through the process again to complete the bleaching and fixing.

okay. how do I tell mine I WANT this effect. this is lovely, i like it, how about i send you some rolls to give to them to "ruin."

 

the pictures look "old," sort of. nice :)

i like juergen's PSed result, that's the "nice" i'm talking about :P

It look like some sort of processing error - exactly what is hard to say without seeing the actual negatives or prints. If the lab can't give you a credible reason for their error, then there is no way I would use them to D&P a wedding, or indeed anything else in the future.

<blockquote><i>Did the lab cross-process my film?</i></blockquote>

If that was the case you would have ended up with a positive, which would be quite easy to notice. And CP'ing doesn't add blur.

Thanks for your informative responses (as for the off-topic responses . . . <p> light leaks: no light leak would do this; <p> condensation: the effect is on the entire roll; <p> scanner: it works fine; <p> E-6: this lab does E-6 on site in two hours). <p> Nigel: I'm very glad to hear that something may yet be done with these negs by taking them back for bleaching and fixing. Silver retention makes sense to me too. When I look at the negatives with the naked eye, they all have the same greenish glare on the bright portions, like a cross between a normal color neg and a silver-based B&W neg. That must be why ICE produced the same effect that occurs when you try to use it with a silver-based negative (blurring on the denser areas).

That green glare sounds like you've definitely identified it, and re-bleach and re-fix should take care of a lot of it. If the negs are already cut I wouldn't want to be the one to get to redo this, but I would be very thankful they weren't mounted slides! If I saw something like this here I hope to heck I would notice before mounting, because then you can either run the roll through the entire process or just the last few steps. (It's only happened to me once, I caught it when the film was still wet and rewound it on stainless reels to rerun the last four steps of the E-6 process with no frames lost.)

 

If they use a leader-card machine, they might be stumped on how to do this with cut strips. Fortunately, the final steps in the process are all room-light safe so they can be done in a tray. Because the emulsion has fully dried, I'd probably wet them down with clean water, bleach for double the normal time, and then fix, wash, and stabilize as normal. Drying them will take some care.

 

Van

I don't think it can be done on a LC machine if there are strips, because you'd have to put tape over at least one of the frames.. :(

Nigel is on the money with the prognosis and solution from your decsription. Your lab's

bleach was not up to specs when your film was run. It can be rebleached and refixed to

solve this.