Jump to content

Bad scan?


Recommended Posts

Recently received scans back from a roll of 120 I had developed and scanned at a lab in NJ. Thought I messed up and cropped the bottom of the photo when I took the shot. Turns out the negative tells the tale. Why is the scan cropped and the negative ok? 

3D634EA6-915C-4A10-8296-5B8429031569.jpeg

image.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, conrad_hoffman said:

Negative looks not to be square format and they seem to have set up for a square scan?

 

Not sure what you mean, I shot it on a Rolleiflex using 120 Kodak film. Not sure you can get much more square than that! lol 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Weird that the full width of the film is shown in the scan, as well as the very top of the frame, but about 5mm has been cropped from the bottom. What kind of scanner does that? 

The colour's a bit piss-poor as well, and what's posted isn't orthogonal. So we're obviously not seeing the scanned file, but a screenshot. 

Are you sure it's not the viewing software that's cropping the image? 

What are the pixel dimensions of the file? If they're the same in height and width then your viewer software is at fault. 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

The scan is cropped on the bottom and the left.  You can see that the feet are cut off on the bottom and that the guitar case is closer to the edge on the bottom left.  If the whole roll is like this, there may be some sort of alignment issue.  If it's just the one, I guess that could still be the case.  In either case, they should be able to get it right.  

 

By the way . . . What NJ lab was this?  I'm in South Jersey.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 2/3/2023 at 9:35 PM, ed_farmer said:

The scan is cropped on the bottom and the left.  You can see that the feet are cut off on the bottom and that the guitar case is closer to the edge on the bottom left.  If the whole roll is like this, there may be some sort of alignment issue.  If it's just the one, I guess that could still be the case.  In either case, they should be able to get it right.  

 

By the way . . . What NJ lab was this?  I'm in South Jersey.

It was Millburn Camera ASAP in Short Hills. Used to go to Bleeker digital in Manhattan, but I just don't get into the city as much as I used to. I went thorough the other rolls they developed and there are more than a few with the same issue. They offered to re scan so I’m happy with that. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's still weird that the frame is pretty near fully shown side-to-side, but only the bottom is cropped. 

The colour still looks bad - almost cross-processed. If this was fresh and properly stored film then I'd definitely find another lab. 

WRT posting the original file: It was probably rejected due to a size issue. You need to re-size pix down to a sub megabyte file in order to post them in line here. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 2/3/2023 at 12:49 PM, rodeo_joe1 said:

But that would show more of the 6x6 Rolleiflex frame, not less. With some of the adjacent frame(s) showing, top and bottom. 

You're assuming a portrait orientation where the vertical is the longer side.  If the scanner set for 6x7 landscape orientation would assume the width was the 7mm longer side, then it would cut off part the vertical section to provide the shorter 6mm.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, AlanKlein said:

You're assuming a portrait orientation where the vertical is the longer side.

There is only one orientation possible. The film must be positioned with its length running in the '7' direction, as it is in the camera. And in any case a 6x6cm frame will fully show in a rectangular 6x7cm carrier, no matter which way round it's fitted, because it's square

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

The image just posted is (in my browser) displayed as 828 wide x 793 tall. In the first positive version posted, I think there's a dark stripe at the top that has been included. They've cropped the bottom and anti-cropped the top: included some of the black gap between frames in the scan. I think that would be enough to throw out auto settings of colour densities, wouldn't it?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 2/5/2023 at 3:21 AM, rodeo_joe1 said:

It's still weird that the frame is pretty near fully shown side-to-side, but only the bottom is cropped. 

The colour still looks bad - almost cross-processed. If this was fresh and properly stored film then I'd definitely find another lab. 

WRT posting the original file: It was probably rejected due to a size issue. You need to re-size pix down to a sub megabyte file in order to post them in line here. 

 

Last I knew, it was recommended to get them below 1MB, but not enforced.

The previous system had some tendency to complain about the size, or that I was posting too often,

most though independent of what I actually did.

 

The message on the previous system said below 1GB. I never tested it close to that.

Someone commented about some of mine being too big, though.

I now have a one line command that will reduce to not more than 1024x1024, but it can

still be more than 1MB.

 

OK, on the link to attach a file, it says:

  • Max total size: 4.88 MB
  • Max file size: 4.88MB

 

Edited by glen_h
file size specification

-- glen

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It looks like with the D200, I am usually less than 4.88MB, but the D700 usually more.

A scan of a 120 negative could easily be more.

On a Linux system, I have the tcsh script:

 

#
foreach i ( $* )
set j=`echo $i | sed s/\\.JPG\$/s.JPG/ | sed s/\\.jpg\$/s.jpg/ | sed s/\\.jpeg\$/s.jpeg/`
echo $i
if( "$i" == "$j" ) echo equal
if( "$i" != "$j" ) convert $i -resize 1000x1000 -quality 100 $j
chmod 444 $j
touch -m $j
end

 

-- glen

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 2/5/2023 at 5:59 PM, Dustin McAmera said:

.... They've cropped the bottom and anti-cropped the top: included some of the black gap between frames in the scan. I think that would be enough to throw out auto settings of colour densities, wouldn't it?

The most obvious effect of including blank film in a scan is to throw the black-level off. So if an auto-colour or auto-levels adjustment is used, the black level is set to the mask density and you (generally) get over-light shadows with a strong colour cast. That doesn't appear to have happened here. The skin tones are too orange and the shadows have a slight blue-cyan bias, but are OK density-wise. 

It's just basically bad colour and with weak saturation. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I can't fix the crop, but removing the overall green cast and setting a grey point from the paving slabs was an improvement. downloaded2-rework.jpg.25cd4dc32a321add0d051deff1f92c54.jpgsubt

The skin tones still aren't great, but a subtle hue rotation of the red and yellow channels got them closer to acceptable IMO. Still too orange though.

I think probably the wrong film profile was chosen during scanning, but bad skin tones are also symptomatic of stale or badly-stored film.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 2/7/2023 at 7:36 AM, rodeo_joe1 said:

I can't fix the crop, but removing the overall green cast and setting a grey point from the paving slabs was an improvement. downloaded2-rework.jpg.25cd4dc32a321add0d051deff1f92c54.jpgsubt

The skin tones still aren't great, but a subtle hue rotation of the red and yellow channels got them closer to acceptable IMO. Still too orange though.

I think probably the wrong film profile was chosen during scanning, but bad skin tones are also symptomatic of stale or badly-stored film.

I have to find a new lab. I used to go to a lab in New York that was excellent, but since I don't work in the city anymore, its just not convenient to get there. Getting the negatives rescanned tomorrow, I'll post what comes up. The film was stored in the refrigerator prior to me taking the shots, so it's not a film storage issue. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...