The Dreaded 'NNNN'

In my search for a good lab here in NY City (C-41 prints) I came across a post back in Feb.08 that

suggested/recommended that if you find 'NNNN' consistently on the back of your prints it would be wise to find a

new lab. Having never heard of this NNNN thing, I immediately started checking my prints. Low and behold, and a

bit floored as well, I found that almost all of my prints from Duggal had this NNNN on them. I was always a little

unhappy with my pictures I had developed and printed there, but couldn't put my finger on why. I just figured that I'd

messed-up exposures on this roll, or that roll. Alkit (the 18th and Park location, since closed), on the other hand

and who I used 85% of the time, consistenly made pleasing prints - not because they were 'consumer' saturated

colors. When I checked the back of those prints I was hard pressed to find ANY with the NNNN on the back. Now I

don't know if this gentlemen in the Feb.08 post is the end-all when it comes to lab print knowledge, but being that I

know squat it seems like that code is sort of an indicator of either time spent getting it right or simply the time it

takes to press one button for an entire roll.

 

Now that Alkit has closed that location I've been searching for a lab in NYC, somewhat conveniet to Greenwich

Village that does GOOD C-41. If anyone has a suggestion please don't keep it a secret.

 

Thanks to the gentlemen of Feb.08 for this revelation.

 

David

"NNNN" means no adjustments were applied to the image file. This is exactly what you should get if you submit a properly adjusted image, done on a calibrated monitor. You should actually request it when you order your prints.

Yes, it's fine on a digital image, but when no image is printed out adjsted out of a whole roll of C-41, it shows that your lab is lazy or uneducated, or both.

I should've made it clear that I'm shooting film. And it's fairly common for me to shoot different subjects in different lighting at different times on one roll of 36. For example, I'll take a few quick shots of my child in Aperture Priority and put the camera down for a week; pick it up to shoot something else in full Manual, etc... So, to some degree I need someone at the lab that's paying attention - mainly to bail me out.

Well corrected or poorly corrected prints can have NNNNN on the back. Many machines make corrections from their included software and if the operator does no more manually, the back side will say NNNNN even though large corrections were made. It depends on the make, model and set-up parameters that determine if the machine will show its own corrections or not. How good your print looks to you is a combination of your color/density perspective, the lighting you view it in, the machine's software, the set-up tech's skill and personal color preferences, the changing chemistry as it is used and replenished as well as the operator's skill, attention and color/density preferences AND whether or not the processing entity does human corrections.

At our lab all digitial prints go through automatically and we have no way of adjusting them if we wanted to. Only on redos of an order or one from an old station can we adjust them. But we make it a point to customers they need to fix their photos before submitting them if they think their off. But we still do adjustments on films. Its a shame because a lot of digital orders really do need corrections, but they won't allow it with our labs. Too much time involved fixing them they say and that is important to their bottom line because labs are hurting so much, they can't staff them like they used to anymore. So it means let the machine print itself while we help customers. I don't like it, but its now a fact of life in our labs today. They'd have to pay an extra person to sit at the machine and that won't fly in their budget today.

I'll also add that we are a 1 Hour lab and not a custom lab, so to keep the price low for competitive reasons- they let the prints go on automatic.

Good info Scott. Where I live we only have one place that will develop film. It's not that places are disappearing, it's a small town and only had one or two places. What has started happening is at this drug store the machine always breaks. Fuji shows up, fixes it and it's down two hours later. This happens weekly.

 

Now they are saying Fuji doesn't have enough techs to keep them running but over in the next town they have a Ritz photo with the same machine. The guy there tells me the machines hardly break and he thinks the employees at the drug store are "messing" with it and breaking it on purpose to keep from having to develop film. A few months ago, when it was working daily they always did a lot of film. People still show up to drop it off only to be turned away with the "Machine Down" sign.

I'd agree with Scott in that the machine makes a best guess at exposure but the operator can then make fine

adjustments so that instead of NNNN you may see -2NN+3, which in this combination means -2 units of yellow, No

adj to Magenta, No adj to Cyan, +3 units of density. There are often further adjustment symbols but that gets

into colour saturation, sharpening etc.<br>

 

The other point is economics - on automatic a film can be scanned through and sent to print in around 20 seconds

but WITH the operator adjustments you could be looking at 3 or 4 minutes as each image is adjusted. Time = money.

What many companies fail to realise is that people are always prepared to pay for quality but instead they get

frightened that Jo's Snaps down the street are doing prints for 10p each so they cut their prices to match.

Pretty soon both companies go bust....<br>

 

Look for a company that doesn't do the cheapest prints, have a talk to them first, give them a couple of films

and see how you go. If you don't like the results, have another friendly chat - "Is it me or can you guys improve

on these?" Don't get angry, just ask for help or advice - maybe your exposures are crap and this really is thee

best they can do... A good lab will take your comments seriously and offer to have another look at them. If they

are unreasonable or rude go somewhere else. But you must expect to pay a bit more for good quality as good prints

always take longer to do and time = money.<br>

 

Happy photography! That's why I use <a href="http://www.the-darkroom.co.uk">The Darkroom UK Ltd</a>

All very interesting. I've been spending too much time looking at the front of my prints. Thanks to all for the info.

All it means is that there was no OPERATOR intervention to correct what the machine did to your images. It does NOT mean that it's what you shot at all. All of these machines make some corrections to images automatically and it takes an experienced operator and an unusual work flow to get around it for a pure output. You didn't get what you paid for at a custom lab if there were no corrections to the arbitrary and stupid decisions made by the machine.