Negative too dark. Reasons?

[user237428934]

The 2nd film I developed came out with the negatives being too black. So after scanning it was too bright and decreasing brightness of the scanned negative produced other problems. I think exposure was OK. Is this a problem of the development? How does a negative look like when it was developed too short or too long?

 

[Ezzie]

Underdeveloped or overexposed.

 

[Dwig]

...How does a negative look like when it was developed too short or too long?

Both underexposure and underdevelopment will produce generally thin looking negatives. Conversely, overexposure and overdevelopment will produce generally dense looking negatives. There is a difference in each pair

Both over and under development will make almost no change to the deep shadow detail. The thin shadow areas will be very close to normal in either case. Only the denser highlight areas change to a great degree. When the error is in exposure, all of the tones, both shadow and highlight, are altered in density.

To tell if your negs are most likely overdeveloped or overexposed you need to look at the thinner shadows areas. If they are overly dense an exposure error is almost certain. If they are near normal then its most likely a development error.