Serious question...how to print (from film or digital file)

[AdamD]

Hi all.

First HUGE accomplishment for me. I shot my first eve roll of Ektar 100 film in my 35mm camera AND developed it yesterday. All but maybe three were really good. Super happy with a first shot. I was a bit of a basket case during the developing process as things were happening way to fast. Looking back....I was trying to do way too much. Next time will be better! Once I get a pretty good feel of shooting and developing on 35mm format, I'll make the step over to 4x5...can't wait to try that out.

Editing the color negatives is a real challenge, but I'm getting the hang of it and I'm certain I look back at these days and think they were crap as I keep learning, but for now....I have a few that I'd like to print.

Question is what is the best way to get a high quality print?

1. Do I give the color negative to a local lab and ask for a print
2. Do I use my digit file and print from any lab

I kinda think my focal lab will just scan it, do their own color correction and print it, so what's the point of giving them the negative UNLESS they will print directly from the negative. I'm not exactly sure how labs do this work anymore.

Is there a technical benefit to printing directly from the negative (old school)?

Basically, what should I do with my would-be prints?

Thanks!!

Adam

[Corran]

Scan and send out to lab of your choice. Who knows the proper color reproduction better than you? Unless you are working closely with a color lab constantly and they are attuned to your work, expectations, and needs, you'd have no idea what they'd arrive at.

Scanning does have inherent challenges, especially with color neg material, so you'll have to navigate that carefully. Plenty (too much, really) has been written about this process here and elsewhere online, so I won't even begin to discuss that here.

If you have the interest, will, and equipment, printing color in the darkroom is still possible. As a new practitioner of that myself, I can tell you that you might not get usable prints for a while. I spent an agonizing 3-4 hours last week wrestling with a color neg in the darkroom and never made a good print, but wasted a lot of materials. As for technical benefit, no - a lab is going to be printing to the same materials as you. The difference will be the intermediary steps and whether or not your digital file is of good quality. Outside of that, the quality of the final print will be more dependent on YOUR skills than on the process...just like anything else, really.

[rdenney]

If you can create a file from your scan, try taking it down to Costco and just have them print it as is with no enhancement. You'll find out something pretty quickly: The color your see on your monitor won't be like the color you see on the print. And that will be true even if you make your own prints.

The next step will be to get some sort of a color calibration setup for your computer monitor.

Then, there's a fork in the road: Do you want to make your own prints, or send them out? Making your own prints, if you have the ability to scan and adjust the images yourself, is just a matter of buying a printer and experimenting. Even if it makes smaller prints, you can learn how to get the color your want. And if you can make a reference print that looks the way you want it to look, then you can use a lab to make bigger prints. Just send that small reference print along with the file to the lab and tell them to match it.

(It used to be that processing came with prints, often called proofs for labs that catered to professionals. "Process and proof" was a standard service. Those prints used default color, and later computer-analyzed color, and were often pretty close to realistic, at least. If your lab who is processing the film can provide proofs, that may help you. These days, they will scan them and make prints digitally, but it's still easier to see what you have even with proofs that are oversaturated or whatever.)

As for me, I get color film processed by a lab, and scan the negatives myself. I use an old Nikon film scanner for the 120 film, and an old Epson flatbed (a V750) for large format. My main monitor is calibrated using an X-Rite Eye One Pro system (I think I got that right). In Photoshop, I adjust the image to look good on the screen, and then target a copy of the file for printing at a certain size, with sharpening and color adjustments specific to my old Epson 3800 printer. Photoshop will show a proof image using the printer color profile. I often cut out a piece of the image and print on smaller, less expensive paper to check my colors, and then make a big print (up to 16x20, so not really that big). At that point, what follows is the artistic part more than the technical part.

If I need a bigger print than that, or if someone was paying me to make a mural, I'd send the negative to a specialty lab to be laser-scanned, send it back to me for to made my adjustments, and then send the corrected image to them for printing on a large-format printer. If you have a calibrated setup, and so do they, then it will be close. The more you spend, the more effort will go into refining the product. But so far nobody has beat my door down for murals and my walls can't hold the prints I make now, so 16x20 has been just fine.

Rick "the details buried in the above could fill two books" Denney

[Oren Grad]

There are still a few labs that print color neg optically (i.e., the old-fashioned way). One that comes to mind is Blue Moon:

https://bluemooncamera.com/services

Rather than get entangled in a theoretical/philosophical argument about which approach is "better", why not order some prints that way, compare with the results you get by sending the scan files for either chromogenic or inkjet output (or both!), and decide for yourself whether the results from doing it the old fashioned way appeal to you?

[AdamD]

Awesome help guys. Thank you. I need to tread delicately here....this sounds like a whole new animal!!

I like the Costco idea. Maybe just Shutterfly or something....