Prints from film v prints from digital images

I am curious as to why photo lab colour prints - even machine prints
- from an entire 35 film can look 'spot on' - no need for post
processing as is necessary with most images from a digital camera. How
do photo labs printing machines achieve this?

Denis Boisclair
Cheshire, UK.

wrote:
I am curious as to why photo lab colour prints - even machine prints
- from an entire 35 film can look 'spot on' - no need for post
processing as is necessary with most images from a digital camera.
How do photo labs printing machines achieve this?

Ever see film images shot under florescent light?
They look green (unless they have the right filter, or film specific to that
light).

Or orange under tungsten?

It happens with film too.

The other aspect is... Digital images are almost universally viewed
full-screen...which is FAR greater enlargement than most film shots are ever
viewed at.

Film shots are most commonly viewed at 4x6...and just about any camera's
rendition will look relatively sharp at that size, compared with a
full-screen-size shot...either digital or film.

In article ezyif.10246$dv.8706@fed1read02, "Mark²" mjmorgan(lowest
even number says...
wrote:
I am curious as to why photo lab colour prints - even machine prints
- from an entire 35 film can look 'spot on' - no need for post
processing as is necessary with most images from a digital camera.
How do photo labs printing machines achieve this?

Ever see film images shot under florescent light?
They look green (unless they have the right filter, or film specific to that
light).

Or orange under tungsten?

It happens with film too.

The other aspect is... Digital images are almost universally viewed
full-screen...which is FAR greater enlargement than most film shots are ever
viewed at.

Film shots are most commonly viewed at 4x6...and just about any camera's
rendition will look relatively sharp at that size, compared with a
full-screen-size shot...either digital or film.

What rubbish.

A soft image looks soft no matter what size you print it at, even 6x4.
Besides, all images processed at labs these days are digital - in the
case of film it is scanned first and then printed. Any decent lab would
do a colour correction for you if you had shot daylight film under
flourescent lighting.

The most likely reason for film looking spot on is because it hasn't
been fiddled with by anyone other than the lab. Most people who send
their digital images to the lab for printing have been working in a
different colour space, or have a poorly calibrated monitor. What looks
good on their screen looks crap on the lab's screen.
--
DD
www.dallasdahms.com
Central Scrutinizer

Surly if a lab scans film and prints it they are reducing quaility
because the image being projected onto the paper is 3rd party, my guess
at the reason why they scan is because it makes quality prints easier,
while getting the best results in a darkroom take hard work?

wrote:

I am curious as to why photo lab colour prints - even machine prints
- from an entire 35 film can look 'spot on' - no need for post
processing as is necessary with most images from a digital camera. How
do photo labs printing machines achieve this?

Denis Boisclair
Cheshire, UK.


Digitally.

The negative is scanned in the machine, the image is reversed &
projected on a calibrated monitor. That guy sitting down there at the
end of the machine is looking at the monitor and adjusting the color
balance for each print. This adjustment is then used by the machine to
make the actual print.

I have never seen anything even remotely like that in over thirty years of
shooting color negative films processed in every conceivable setting.
The horribly low quality of most commercial photofinishing still helps to
fuel digital camera sales.

bmoag wrote:
I have never seen anything even remotely like that in over thirty years of
shooting color negative films processed in every conceivable setting.
The horribly low quality of most commercial photofinishing still helps to
fuel digital camera sales.



I don't think so. Most of those digital camera users are still going to
get "horribly low quality" mini-lab prints or prints from the all-in-one
scanner/printer de jure.

Digital camera sales are driven by the internet; the ability to attach
the latest snapshots of the new baby to an e-mail to granma.

And don't discount the ability to see instantly that you actually got a
picture of the new baby, not some horribly botched, head chopped off,
finger over the lens, out of focus, vaguely baby shaped blob on heat
damaged film 'cause the camera got left in the glove box when you got
home from vacation last July. The average American family had a 35mm P&S
auto-camera and when the film was processed, there was a different
Christmas tree on each end of the roll.

Now they shoot, pull the memory card out & have the pictures up on the
family web-page while mama's still cleaning up the wrapping paper and
bows Christmas morning.

That's what's fueling digital camera sales!

no_name wrote:
bmoag wrote:
I have never seen anything even remotely like that in over thirty years of
shooting color negative films processed in every conceivable setting.
The horribly low quality of most commercial photofinishing still helps to
fuel digital camera sales.



I don't think so. Most of those digital camera users are still going to
get "horribly low quality" mini-lab prints or prints from the all-in-one
scanner/printer de jure.
Most mini-lab prints suck big time. If I do want a film image printed
it gets scanned by me and the colors set by me, that way I know what I
am going to get. I get much better prints this way. But scanning is a
pain and so this is a push toward digital.

Digital camera sales are driven by the internet; the ability to attach
the latest snapshots of the new baby to an e-mail to granma.

And don't discount the ability to see instantly that you actually got a
picture of the new baby, not some horribly botched, head chopped off,
finger over the lens, out of focus, vaguely baby shaped blob on heat
damaged film 'cause the camera got left in the glove box when you got
home from vacation last July. The average American family had a 35mm P&S
auto-camera and when the film was processed, there was a different
Christmas tree on each end of the roll.

Now they shoot, pull the memory card out & have the pictures up on the
family web-page while mama's still cleaning up the wrapping paper and
bows Christmas morning.

That's what's fueling digital camera sales!

You make good points and clearly much of this is what is fueling
digital camera sales. Buy bmoag said that quality was helping fuel the
sales of digital cameras, not that it was the only factor.

The list of why one might wish to shoot digital rather then film is
very long and all of it is pushing people away from film and towards
digital.

Ever last person that I know that was shooting film SLRs is now
shooting digital, and nothing but digital. These were not people with
cheap P&S cameras, these are people who shot film SLRs for decades, and
not one of them does any more.

I have also noticed that people need higher quality photos now that
they are shooting digital. The same people who were shooting ISO 400
film and making 3 x 5 inch prints are now making 8 x 10 prints.

I put a lot of images up on the web for friends and family to look at,
but this generally is not what makes them want to get a digital camera.
It is when I show them 8 x 12 prints that are better then what they
have seen from a 35mm camera. I know there are people who will claim
that with their lab they can get great looking prints from film, this
makes no difference to someone who's lab makes crappy prints from
35mm negatives.

The quality of the photos is not the only reason people have moved to
digital and it might not even be the main reason but it is definitely
one of the reasons for the move.

Scott

"Scott W" wrote in message
oups.com...


The list of why one might wish to shoot digital rather then film is
very long and all of it is pushing people away from film and towards
digital.

Ever last person that I know that was shooting film SLRs is now
shooting digital, and nothing but digital. These were not people with
cheap P&S cameras, these are people who shot film SLRs for decades, and
not one of them does any more.


Amateur photography is clearly abandoning film. But it appears that
film-based photography is moving toward a high-end niche market. Zeiss Ikon
is coming out with a line of excellent lenses, Leica is still hanging in
there, and Nikon and Canon are emphasizing their digital gear over their
older analog technology.

And, while this is subjective on my part, there is a certain "sameness"
about digital photographs that makes them uninspiring at times. There was
an article a few months ago in the NY Times that noted that most
professional photographers were using the same 3 or 4 lenses, and a few
photographers that bucked the trend were creating stunning images on film,
using classic film lenses. Many of us already own a collection of splendid
lenses from our film days--and these lenses don't perform the same on
digital cameras, if they can even be mounted at all.

There is no question that news photography and any requirement that requires
speedy processing is now in the digital domain. Same for more pedestrian
uses, like insurance claim photos, home inventory photos, identification
headshots for things like employee badges, time-lapse photography,
scientific experiment photo documentation, etc. But there is still a range
of subjects, like landscape, architectural, fashion and fine art
photography--where there are no tight deadlines that must be met--where film
does not hold out a prospect of being an inferior choice.

Just as there is a certain "film" quality to movies shot on film versus
television programs shot on videotape, there is something about digital
photos that suggests that they are "different." Film is not going to die
off--you just won't be able to drop off a roll of 35mm for one-hour
processing at the local pharmacy or supermarket.

Jeremy wrote:
Amateur photography is clearly abandoning film. But it appears that

film-based photography is moving toward a high-end niche market. Zeiss Ikon
is coming out with a line of excellent lenses, Leica is still hanging in
there, and Nikon and Canon are emphasizing their digital gear over their
older analog technology.

It would appear that this is not the case. Whenever I have seen
numbers professional film sales have been falling faster then consumer
film sales. According to the Canadian Imaging Trade Association in 2004
professional slide film sales dropped by 28% and negative professional
negative film sales dropped by 32%. I use Canadian number since that
is what I have, but I would guess it relects the over all trend.

BTW Consumer film sales drop 25% in 2004.

http://www.photoxels.com/pr-cita-digital.html

Scott