Calvin and Ben (in goggles) playing in the splash pool at a swim meet.
Mamiya6 camera. 75mm lens. Film = Fuji Reala
A couple of observations about converting MF film to digital files:
If you used a good lab for film development you got back film with very little dirt or garbage on it.
If you stored your film in archival pages, inside archival covers, you probably won't have any problems with environmental contaminants affecting the dies. At least in the short term (25 years?).
If you work in a clean environment you'll get to spend less time cloning out dust spots.
You don't need a stand alone app or an Adobe plug-in to invert and color correct your images. Click on the black surround (film edge = see above, bottom of the frame....) with an eyedropper for shadows (set to zero) in "levels." Then use the mid-tone eyedropper in "levels" to set a mid-tone. Tone-wise everything should fall into place. Then it's just a matter of using your color controls to zero on on color. Start with your white balance settings and once you are set there go into your magenta/green hue settings and fine tune. Add contrast (you'll likely need it), tweak exposure and color more carefully and you are done. Don't let "perfect" rob you of the pleasure of playing with your film when "good enough" is just great.
I chose to work on this color negative today as an antidote to the cold, damp weather outside. I'm printing it out large (13x19 inches) and hanging it on my wall till the weather improves.
Glad I ditched work to make it to every swim meet. Priorities, priorities....
3 comments:
Hello...
I live in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Temperatures are higher than Austin's and humidity is higher than 80%. We don't get snow; what we get is accelerated color neg aging. They change color in weird ways. One or more color layers may fade, never by the same amount, there are spots that change to a completely different color than the layers and smaller spots of completely another color.
Then I found a set of negs from 1976 I had forgotten through several refrigerator changes. It went through ambient temperature only for the time necessary to be moved to the new refrigerator 's freezer. It was virtually intact. So my recommendation is, even if you live in a climate friendlier to color film, freeze them as soon as possible.
Cheers!
omg that is the best photo of B + friend! Soooo great! Re: negative archival I know nothing :-) I know that photos printed on photo paper last. My mother had a 1958 black and white photo which lasted until 2013 when i scanned it no problem!
After scanning some 50-years-old negs over the weekend, I was glad that I learned early on to wash my film completely after processing.
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