Making a print from a color slide question.

[thomasly]

Hi All,

 

I'm still a beginner and I'm shooting Fuji Velvia & Provia mostly.

I use A&I film mailers and I'm satisfied with them so far.

I finally got back a slide that I want to have printed into 8x12,

so I go to a local photo store and "they tell me they will have to send

the slide elsewhere they can't print from the slide."

I thought the hard part was in the Developing not the enlarging part?

 

Is it that difficult to make a print from a color slide?

I'm confused, because they (the local store)make 4x7, 5x7, 8x10 prints from

film negatives and digital too.

 

Maybe someone can shed some light on this subject for me :)

 

Thanks,

Tom

[eric friedemann]

"Is it that difficult to make a print from a color slide?"

 

 

No, both of my store's Noritsu machines- one prints with a laser and one prints with teeny, tiny LED's- have film scanners that scan negatives or slides/transparencies up to 6x9 cm. and make up to 12-inch prints. The scanned images are printed on regular C paper that an optical machine would use to make prints from color negatives.

[randrew1]

Since the consumer film world is at least 98% color negative, some labs don't know what to do with slides. Any digital lab that can scan the slide can make the print (although if they rarely do it, you might want to look elsewhere). A&I can handle this as can a number of local labs. If you start calling labs in your area, you can find one that can make the prints.

[r.t. dowling]

Even Wal-Mart can do it. They won't take the time to make sure the colors match, but sometimes you get lucky and get a decent print on the first try.

[edgar_njari]

Machines like Frontier often blow up the contrast and clip highlights with print film and do the same thing with slide film only much worse.

So using a film like Velvia would be such a waste.

First of all they won't be able to scan it right, and their software will make it even worse.

To get any kind of acceptable prints from slide film even from dedicated scanners, you'd have to do some photoshop work to pull out some shadow detail, adjust for color casts etc.

Consider that their machines don't do that, and their scanners are much worse than dedicated ones.

So your prints will not look like your slides. More like bad slide dupes.

 

By all means, you should have the scans on your computer before you print them. If you absolutley can't get a decent scanning service, even bringing the minilab scans home before printing them will help.

[john_shriver]

Minilab film scanners are designed to do a decent (good enough for 4x6 print) job of scanning C-41 film fast. They don't need to be able to scan anything very dense to do that (low Dmax). So they are quite sad for scanning chromes of any sort (E-6 or K-14). They probably are also only optimized for the dye sets used in C-41 film.

 

Also, the adapter to hold a slide, as opposed to a strip of film, in a minilab scanner is an option most of them don't spend the money on.

[josphy]

You could send it back to A&I. Looks like they charge $10 for an 8x12 from a slide. There are lots of other mail order labs that could do it. www.bwc.net

[thomasly]

Thanks to All of you who responded & to help me get a

better understanding. I alway's appreciate everyone's advice & input.

 

 

Thanks !!

[robert_himmelright1]

just because they print from digital and film doesnt mean they can print from a slide. they might have an optical machine for film and a stand alone digital unit

[scott_eaton]

Exellent and factual responses on everybody's part.

[nullfinder]

<i>"Machines like Frontier often blow up the contrast and clip highlights with print film and do the same thing with slide film only much worse."</i>

<p>

yeah, that's one thing I could never really do right. I scanned from velvia i shot once and it made HORRIBLE enlargements/prints. The colours were off, highlights were smashed but the contrast wasn't there. I was all fired up about having my beautiful Velvia shots of the botanical gardens made into 8x12s, only to see the first 4x6 proof come out looking like I hand drew it myself and used Crayola to colour it in. Poor frontier.

 

Strangely enough, it was able to scan some Sensia I shot in Colorado a couple of years ago, remarkably well