Rescuing badly-developed film

[eastwestdivide]

Way back when, Ilford brought out XP1, a black-and-white film which had to be developed using the colour process (C41?). The inevitable happened, and one of mine was developed with normal B&W chemicals, resulting in a big argument with Boots, a letter to Ilford, who looked at the negs and said "wrong chemicals", and a bunch of grey and grey photos, even after they tried to re-print manually adjusting for the dodgy developing.

 

Well, a good 20 years later, I dug out the negatives, scanned them in, and had a play with Photoshop.

 

Here's a straight scan of their best effort at printing:

 

In Photoshop, I found you could get a reasonable result by applying 100% adjustment in the Shadows dialog box, saving and doing it again another 25% or so:

 

I've also cleaned up a few spots too, but I've done very little else there apart from save for web.

 

So if anyone had the same experience, it is possible to rescue something from the wreckage.

 

The shot is from the M2 Medway viaduct by the way, not a hot air balloon.

[bertiedog]

Not an unknown experience, although usually the results were better when put through b/w processing, what has happened is that it was put through at too high a process temperature which flattened the contrast range. Most labs in those days used very crude B/w white processing, nothing sophisticated at all, and XP was actually all right in B/w developer at 60c .

Even dear old Kodachrome slide could be processed in B/W chemicals......and was by accident on occasions.

 

Stephen.

[eastwestdivide]

Not an unknown experience, although usually the results were better when put through b/w processing, what has happened is that it was put through at too high a process temperature which flattened the contrast range. Most labs in those days used very crude B/w white processing, nothing sophisticated at all, and XP was actually all right in B/w developer at 60c .

Even dear old Kodachrome slide could be processed in B/W chemicals......and was by accident on occasions.

 

Stephen.

Thanks, I've got no idea of the ins and outs of the various chemical processes. Don't have the correspondence with Ilford now, but it would have been interesting to see if that was their verdict back then. The whole XP1 idea could have been good for high street processing of B&W, as C41 could be done in the shop, but other films had to be sent away. Pity the counter staff didn't spot the difference, though to be fair the envelopes just had a box to tick for black and white.

[Chris Nevard]

You've done a good job there with your rescue B) Any more?

 

With conventional B&W processing of XP1 the film became a fixed 400 iso film. Its key selling point I recall was the variable ISO when used in a local colour mini lab (which gave reasonableish alas often dirty results, especially if printing with a condenser enlarger). I must admit to not liking it much when did my own processing (a right faf with the higher processing temp and easily scratched), favouring FP4 when shooting 35mm or Tri-X when shooting medium format.

 

Earlier in the year just out of curiosity I did run a roll of the newer XP2 through the local lab, the results were actually OK and were easy to scan allowing me to use the old kit (Nikon FM) and marry it will digital tech.

[eastwestdivide]

You've done a good job there with your rescue B) Any more?

 

Well nothing of any great artistic merit, but a couple of interesting things.

 

Martin Earles cement/lime works, beside the Strood-Maidstone line, completely white, would make a good weathering project:

 

And a 73 at Rochester pulling an SR van (presumably a barrier vehicle), one car of a 4-EPB with the doors boarded up, and the rest of a 4-EPB. Didn't scrub up so well in Photoshop this one.

[iak]

Have you the original negs???

Scan them and have a go, you'll get more image info off of the neg than the print hopefully.

[eastwestdivide]

Have you the original negs???

Scan them and have a go, you'll get more image info off of the neg than the print hopefully.

They were scanned from the negs (apart from the very grey one which I scanned off the print for comparison.

You're dead right though - on properly-developed films where the pic was quite contrasty, high street printing did the best it could, but scanning the negative and adjusting in Photoshop brings up detail you never knew was there.

[marc smith]

Have you the original negs???

Scan them and have a go, you'll get more image info off of the neg than the print hopefully.

 

If you can scan the negs as "RAW" format, rather than JPEG or TIFF,

then I'd do that......

 

It's amazing how much "correction" you can then apply.

My Nikon scanner will do NEF files - they're not quite as flexible as NEFs from a digital SLR,

but I have been very pleased with the results from even the darkest of my old slides,

and those with some very odd colour casts....

 

Marc

[eastwestdivide]

If you can scan the negs as "RAW" format, rather than JPEG or TIFF,

then I'd do that......

Although I'd never scan direct to JPEG, is that strictly true for TIFF vs RAW? I understood RAW was the camera sensor data format (not applicable to negatives), while TIFF is a lossless bitmap format.

Or can you get the raw sensor data from scanners too? Whole new can of worms.

[marc smith]

Although I'd never scan direct to JPEG, is that strictly true for TIFF vs RAW? I understood RAW was the camera sensor data format (not applicable to negatives), while TIFF is a lossless bitmap format.

Or can you get the raw sensor data from scanners too? Whole new can of worms.

 

You can get RAW data from (some) scanners too......

There isn't as much data as a from-camera RAW file, but there is still more adjustment available to you.

 

TIFF files are lossless, as are RAW files,

but with RAW, you have a more flexible curve adjustment available - it sometimes amazes me what shadow details can be recovered.

 

Also, as colour balance is just a metadata tag in a RAW file,

colour adjustment is more flexible. A RAW file is really 3 independantly adjustable B&W channels,

so it is easier to get a "correct" colour balance from something that isn't quite right.

A TIFF however, is an RGB image, which can be separated into the three channels (a subtle, but important difference...)

 

I've scanned some slides + negs which have displayed some really odd colour casts -

including "crossed curves" and "development problems", but with RAW format, it's easier to correct.

 

TIFF files are almost always larger than RAW - which is due to the nature of the format.

You could always scan RAW, then convert to TIFF if you wish,

but I'd rather the RAW file anyday - Keep Photoshops' XMP sidecar file with it + you can return to the

As-shot, or as-scanned file at anytime, and adjust from scratch - no loss...

 

Give it a go....

Marc

[eastwestdivide]

You can get RAW data from (some) scanners too......

...

Give it a go....

Marc

Cheers, you learn something every day.

(and today it was useful, too!)