[GeneV]

Just a little quick comparison, that does not really do the subject justice because of the reductions, but above is a Walgreens scan and below my Coolscan 9000 result. What you can't see is that the Walgreen's scan is more than 50% of the original size, and that the sky on the Walgreens scan is full of garbage. Both received the same treatment in photoshop. I would tweak either scan a bit more in color, but that would not show the comparison. Reduction and resharpening are also equalizers.

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Last edited by GeneV; 07-23-2010 at 06:33 AM.

[Nesster]

Yes, the minilab scans tend to block up shadow and burn highlights, and over sharpen sometimes shockingly so, and they give you low quality jpegs to add to the injury.

[GeneV]

Yes, the minilab scans tend to block up shadow and burn highlights, and over sharpen sometimes shockingly so, and they give you low quality jpegs to add to the injury.

Yes, but reducing in PS sometimes results in images that look oversharpened. From looking at the 4,000 ppi version of the bottom one, there was nothing wrong with the processing.

I'm wondering how Javier's great street shots would look with another scanner. OTOH, the high contrast might be adding "grit" to the scene.

[Nesster]

Yes, but reducing in PS sometimes results in images that look oversharpened. From looking at the 4,000 ppi version of the bottom one, there was nothing wrong with the processing.

I'm wondering how Javier's great street shots would look with another scanner. OTOH, the high contrast might be adding "grit" to the scene.

Ah but the bottom one was the coolscan - there's nothing wrong with the processing. I was describing the Wallgreens version on top.

I often have to mess with the minilab scans - dup the pic and blend it back in 'multiply' to get some density, adjust the high/low/mid points, and sometimes tweak the contrast to less.

Javier's photos in the early days (Target processing I think I remember) suffered from bad sharpening halos. Once they put that in, the scan's useless unless you happen to like the halo effect

[GeneV]

Ah but the bottom one was the coolscan - there's nothing wrong with the processing. I was describing the Wallgreens version on top.

I got that, Jussi. The Coolscan below shows that there was nothing wrong with Walgreens processing, only the scanning. I was thinking that if we are seeing Walgreens scans from Javier or others, we are not seeing the photographer's best work.

[easytiger]

Girl, Lamma Island, Hong Kong

Ilford Delta 400

[remoteman]

Haven't been here in ages, just started progressing through the latest 100 or so pages, loving the stuff so far. Just thought i'd post a shot that i shot on a whim whilst walking through London a month or so ago. I love it hah. I may post some more from my european adventure in the next few days.

Kodak Gold 200, ME with a 50mm f1.7. Dev'd and scanned by some random swiss photolab.

[jgredline]

Javier's photos in the early days (Target processing I think I remember) suffered from bad sharpening halos. Once they put that in, the scan's useless unless you happen to like the halo effect

Yes, this is true. Now that ''I'' taught them how to set the scanner to neutral, no more problems.
I have decided that I will simply do my own scanning from now on, even if it takes me along time to do it. I believe that 90% of the problems are the scans from these labs. I have been scanning random negs this past week and my own ghetto scans are much, much better.

[jgredline]

Haven't been here in ages, just started progressing through the latest 100 or so pages, loving the stuff so far. Just thought i'd post a shot that i shot on a whim whilst walking through London a month or so ago. I love it hah. I may post some more from my european adventure in the next few days.

Kodak Gold 200, ME with a 50mm f1.7. Dev'd and scanned by some random swiss photolab.

Awesome street shot!

[Nesster]

Ferrania 400, SMC Takumar 28/3.5, ES-II

this one's my own Epson 4490 scan. What I gain in tone range etc vs. CVS or Dwayne's I seem to lose in sharpneness...

[jgredline]

What are they doing in this photo? Looks pretty fun.

Thanks for sharing the downtown LA series. The last time I was there was over 10 years ago ...

Thanks Frank. Best I can tell is that they where clowning around

[jgredline]

A few random street shots. Processed and scanned by target as is with all settings set to neutral and more 99 cents film.

[Votesh]

Processing options are pretty slim around here. No Costcos around to try out, so drugstores are pretty much the only option.

The first few times I went to the drugstores around here there were no problems at all. The last few times though, nothing's gone right. The people at CVS can't figure out how to put photos on a CD without printing a set of prints too, which I think is the reason the negatives are coming back scratched. They handle them too much trying to get everything to work.

I don't mind the wait for Dwayne's. Most of the time I wait until I have 5 or more rolls finished before I get them developed so waiting another week is no big deal.

I've been experimenting using a slide copier/bellows to digitize negatives, and it works pretty well, but getting the colors right after reversing everything has proven tricky. When I get some more time I'll work out the setting for each film typr and save them for future ease. Or maybe I'll just get a scanner.

Walgreens varies from store to store, but I've only had minimal issues. Costco is better. Dwaynes takes a while, but they are superb. I have trouble waiting.

The Walgreens' scans I have gotten, on the other hand, were not up to the processing. You can't necessarily tell if there is a film problem from the scan. For one thing, the scans I received were at about 1,000 ppi with jpegs at about 3:1 compression, so a full fram scan was about 600k in size. When I scan, I start with a TIFF about 100 times that size (which I archive), from which I make a jpeg of about 15-17mb.

[Votesh]

Here's one of my slide copier/bellows digitized negatives.
Either the negative was dirty or there are scratches on it from the aforementioned CVS problems. Also, I didn't have the bellows from the slide copier attached to the lens so there was some leaking light that messed up the edges. That said, for this only being the second time I've attempted the process, I'm pretty happy with the results. Now I know what to work on next time.
Slides digitized this way end up looking quite good, and it is really easy/quick.


LX+FA 31mm Ltd.+Fuji Pro 800Z
Digitized using K-7+Auto Bellows+F 35-70mm+Slide Copier+Gimp

[Votesh]

Here's a shot from a roll processed at CVS(I think) that came out alright.


LX+Leica Summicron-R 90mm+Superia 1600