ashah Posted December 3, 2003 Share Posted December 3, 2003 Hey y'all! I just got a roll back from Wal-Mart (don't laugh I cant afford other places yet:) and I requested that they do a matte finish on them. Well, all my pics came back with some sort of scratch on them. I believe it's on almost every picture througout the roll. I was trying to think of what I did that may have hurt it...I put the film in my purse(not in a container) until I got to Wal-Mart. I'm thinking it was Kodak 200 but I'm not positive. Any tips, answers, or ANYTHING would be greatly appreciated! I'm putting one of the pics on here....if you can tell...on his neck and on his colar there is a couple of spots and even more on his shirt and on the mirror part of his shirt. Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gareth_harper Posted December 3, 2003 Share Posted December 3, 2003 Two general causes of scratches are dirt in the camera or processing. I don't think I've ever scratched a film with my camera (fingers crossed) but nearly every negative film I've put through a minilab or budget service has resulted in minor to some of the most unbeliveable scratches. I've even had them scratched by pro labs. Strangely none of my slide films have ever been scratched, they are either processed paid films or developed at the pro lab. As for my own processing (my B&W films) other than dropping the film on the floor once I've never had a scratched film. At times I have no choice but to use the minilab knowing they will scratch em to death, all I can say is that ICE scanning software is amazing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fuck Posted December 3, 2003 Share Posted December 3, 2003 Dirt on either the rollers in the lab's machine or on your pressure plate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
christopher_bibbs Posted December 3, 2003 Share Posted December 3, 2003 I believe that's dust or gunk left from the wash, not scratches. There isn't a lot you can do to prevent dust if you don't develop yourself. Your best option is to either live with it, scan the negatives and fix them in Photoshop, or learn how to spot prints. That's what the doubles are for, right? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maury_cohen Posted December 3, 2003 Share Posted December 3, 2003 It's good to keep the cassette in its plastic capped container at all times. A little dirt can get stuck in the light trap of the cassette and some labs pull the whole roll back out of the cassette, giving the film yet another opportunity for scratches. Purses can copllect a lot of grit down at the bottom where cassettes tend to end up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
imaginator Posted December 3, 2003 Share Posted December 3, 2003 "I cant afford other places yet" That used to be my mentality... C-41 process is the same at all labs, but unfortunately quality control is not! Now that I have a film scanner, I can't believe all the crud that shows up... dirt, fibers, bubbles and scratches. Ironically, I recently had some negative film (print film) done at local minilab and they were the cleanest negs I've ever seen (also some I had done at a pro lab were good) I think I had the luck to show up the morning after machine maitenence and my film was first rolls processed. Anyway, it's a gamble, and the send out labs can be even worse, so my best advice is to find out when they service their machine and bring your film in accordingly (this is for the in-store machines) Otherwise consider a pro lab, or just keep using crap labs and pretend it will be OK just to find out years later much of your film is full or crud! I learned the hard way... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mark_uhde Posted December 4, 2003 Share Posted December 4, 2003 Wal-Mart actually maintains a surprisingly high standard around here. Their 2-day sendout service, is, in my experience, a much different story - which did you use? Wal-Mart's in house, or the send out? I'm curious... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
donald_hutton Posted December 4, 2003 Share Posted December 4, 2003 That just looks like dirt to me. Scratches are most often all the way down the film or part thereof, usually on the emulsion side (and that cannot be caused by a dirty pressure plate...). They show up in prints as a thin blue line. There is a lot of speculation as to where this occurs. In my experience, it's mostly on roller transport machines (only use a lab with a dip and dunk process...). However, if you get a decent little grain of dust wedged against the cartridge as it rewinds on the emulsion side, it can also do a pretty good job and there's very little you can do about it. Keep the inside of you camera clean. Keep your film cartridges in the little cannisters until you use them. Use a lab with a good processor, or do it yourself. I live in Michigan and while there are loads of good pro labs about, they are all closed on the weekend. A couple of times I have dropped slide film off at a local camera store who advertise their processing services very extensively - Woodward Camera in Birmingham. Every single time I have had slides processed by them, they have scratched the emulsion. The last time, when I was bringing this to the management's attention, they suggested that their roller transport machine was really quite likely to scratch just about anything that went through it.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ashah Posted December 5, 2003 Author Share Posted December 5, 2003 Hey thanks so much y'all! Y'all are so awesome. Oh to answer one of y'alls questions I used the Wal-Mart 2 day service. Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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