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Posted by mikeb on November 15, 2002 at 09:41:54:
In Reply to: Processing question posted by Jonathan Dawes on November 15, 2002 at 02:45:34:
:
Well.............,
Here we go, I love the referance to Boots the chemists there, I am an ex-Brit now living in Florida and have not heard that name in yesrs! As to your problems getting prints "as you like them". Unfortunatly for you you are the exception to the rule. Most people nowadays look for high contrsst and sateration in thier prints believing
that to be a good print! I ,like ,you don't like it but that is the yardstick 99% of our cusomers prefer. If we lower the contrast and saturation we get complaints about thier prints looking "washed out". Any business has to give the majority of thier customers what they want to stay in business. As to the "old days" the prints you approved of were made using early ideas of "true color" and the materials used were a lot less "hot" which is a trade term for the effect you see with modern films and paper. Most people base thier judgement of "good" pictures on examples of commercial photography mainly magazines. If it's sharp, contrasty and over saturated that is "good" ! As your question of how dirrerant is the film stock now to a few years back, yes, they have changed a lot ! It started when Fuji arrived with its "hot" balence and continues to this day! People liked the look
and switched to Fuji. Other manufactures had to follow to keep market share. So to wrap up this
long boring explaination of the subject, You and I
are "old farts" to most they say "give me color,lots of color, I don't care what color it is" !!! Remember to old sixties song "Please not take my Kodachrome away!"
Regards Mikeb
: I've got a bunch of films that I want to process, but before I put them in I want to be sure about getting good results. I'm a bit concerned because recently whenever I put films in they come out with way too much contrast, and generally the lighting doesn't look right. 10 years ago we used to have a proper photo lab locally that did really great work, but then they started contracting out their processing. Since then I can't even use *them* for guaranteed good results.
: I've tried using places like Boots (in the UK) that send the films to a central processing lab, rather than a 1 hour machine to get better results, but to no avail. I've been using decent(ish) Kodak Gold 100 film, and like I say I used to get great prints in years gone by from this. Has the developing/printing process changed in that time?
: I have seen a few adverts for processing done by scanning the negative, then using a laser-print direct to the photo paper. Is this the cause of the problem, or do I just need to keep searching for a better lab? Would a standard processing give better results, or is the new technology actually better (rather than just faster/cheaper)
: Many thanks.
: Jon
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