Blocked up colour on my scans

[Ian Rance]

<p>May I ask your opinion of this photo. My lab did my develop and scan as usual but these bright red poppies look very odd to me (on my screen). They are just solid colour with no variance or texture. Does this look like the film struggling, the scanner struggling or perhaps my computer screen. The full photo is below.</p>

<p>I used Fuji Reala and my minilab's Noritsu scanner.</p>

<div></div>

[Ian Rance]

<p>And a crop</p><div></div>

[Ian Rance]

<p>Out of focus areas are worse.</p><div></div>

[Tim_Lookingbill]

<p>I got the same thing about 7 years ago shooting with Kodak HD 400 and processing and printing to my local one hour photo Noritsu minilab. These minilabs have a one size fits all color setting for their high end film scanners that doesn't take into account the entire color gamut of the film they're processing for silver halide print output.</p>

<p>I scanned the same negative the minilab botched the color on my Epson scanner and got much better results.</p>

[LenMarriott]

<p>Ian, Reala is a high saturation low contrast film. I've used it successfully for weddings but was disappointed in the results for any shot of red blooms. (see attached). Not saying you can't get great results from it but my experience in trying to get detail in red flowers has been a frustrating one too. As Tim alludes to it probably takes more care to get a good result than the lab is willing to take. If I'm not mistaken Kodak HD 400 was a high saturation film also. Not sure about it's contrast but I think it was high also. I now prefer Kodak Portra 160NC for blooms. Best, LM.</p><div></div>

[Tim_Lookingbill]

<p>This is how well they watch things on my local one hour photo Noritsu minilab...</p><div></div>

[Robin Smith]

<p>A common problem with reds. You need to reduce the luminance and/or the saturation of the reds. If you can reduce the overall exposure that would help the most. Basically the red channel is being overexposed. This happens very easily with my Canon 5DII sensor too. You have to be careful and watch the red channel. Most of the time it doesn't matter, but if the reds are prominent or important you need to take care.</p>

[plasma181]

<p>I have had very good luck with HD 400. I have a lab develop it, then scan it with my Nikon Coolscan LS-2000 film scanner. I can make the brightness and contrast anything I want. I have found that VueScan can bring out more detail than the NikonScan software that comes with the scanner. I can regularly get better results from the negatives than the lab. </p>