Basics in film processing - Help!

It's certainly possible to get good results with plastic reels if one is careful about cleaning and learns the loading procedure. The advantage of steel is that it doesn't require such careful cleaning (a short wash does the job perfectly) and, with practice, it's faster IMO. It does require practice, as does plastic.

I'm currently using Nikor and Kindermann reels in 35mm and 120 that I purchased in 1968. Steel is long-lasting. This may seem irrelevant, but I'd prefer to invest in items that will last into the future, for someone else after I'm long gone. Therefore I buy as little plastic as I can manage. Different strokes, right?

Pedro, I like your parsley-preparation photo! Once you get your film processing under control, relax and make more photos!
 
titrisol said:
Pedro, it seems to me your results are pretty good.
It always help to learn to PRINT as well, judging negatives by themselves takes a lot of experience and scanning is not always the best way to judge them.

Keep advancing, you are on the right direction.

Boa sorte!
Click to expand...

I know ... i'll start to learn how to print as soon as i get a new home ... maybe in the mid of 2006. Right now i have no space for an enlarger.
 
djon said:
It's certainly possible to get good results with plastic reels if one is careful about cleaning and learns the loading procedure. The advantage of steel is that it doesn't require such careful cleaning (a short wash does the job perfectly) and, with practice, it's faster IMO. It does require practice, as does plastic.

I'm currently using Nikor and Kindermann reels in 35mm and 120 that I purchased in 1968. Steel is long-lasting. This may seem irrelevant, but I'd prefer to invest in items that will last into the future, for someone else after I'm long gone. Therefore I buy as little plastic as I can manage. Different strokes, right?

Pedro, I like your parsley-preparation photo! Once you get your film processing under control, relax and make more photos!
Click to expand...

:) Ok i'll do that!
Tks
 
Just another quick ... maybe stupid ... question: I nerver agitate during the stop, fixing and wetting of the film. Do i need to?
 
YES
Stop (acid) for 1 minute or so slight agitation
Fixer agitate evry 30 secs or so
Wetting agent: agitate slightly
 
You don't need a stop bath. It adds complexity, which means it adds risk, and it serves no purpose with slow-working developers like Rodianal. Just use a couple of changes of water to get rid of the developer, then fix. If you were using something that developed in 3 minutes, rather than 10, stop would become useful.
 
Well, you should do at least a bit of agitation in the fix; with wetting agen NO agitation (this would cause foam, which is hard to get off the negatives).

About scanning - I don't know what program you use (I have PhotoShop Elements 2.0), but to get at least acceptable results, there is no magic to it.
Do as little adjustment as possible with the scanning software, and most of it with PhotoShop (or whatever you are using).

Here's what I do: scan the neg (often it is better to scan even a black and white negative as a color positive, and revert & turn it into greyscale in PS, though sometimes a straight B&W scan also works); then, in PhotoShop, choose the levels controls (I'm not sure whether that's really the right word in English PS, I use the German version), where you can see a histogram (curve) of the brightness values in your picture; there are three sliders - fora basic setting adjust the left (shadows) and right (highlights) one so that they match the endpoints of the curve; you may play around a bit with the middle one, but don't overdo it.
Then scale your picture down for webdisplay or printing - for web-display, 72 dpi resolution is sufficient (monitors can't show more anyway), with a size of about 800x600 pixels (that size will show the full picture even on older monitors), for printing you should use 300 dpi, and the size in cm that you want your print to be.
Only after sizing the print down, you should try to get back the sharpness you have lost in the scanning process - got to Filters - Unsharp Mask, and play around a bit with that start from about 50 to 70 % strength, about 0.8 to 1.5 pixels radius, and about 8 to 15 steps level (again, don't know whether these are the exact terms in English PS). Do a bit of Undo - Redo to see what changes in those numbers do to the picture - try to get the picture a bit sharper, but without it looking artificial/digital, or at worst, having white lines around objects.
Then save the picture with .jpeg compressin set to the 'maximum quality' level - and you are done!

Roman
 
Not sure if this has been mentioned here before, but Ilford maintains a fantastic PDF detailing the basic, plain-Jane development process:

http://www.ilford.com/html/us_english/pdf/Film Hobbyist.PDF

I haven't followed these instructions myself yet, but after a more than five-year absence from developing film, I'm planning to follow these instructions to reorient myself to the process, and they seem pretty similar to how I was originally taught how to develop film..
 
Well, ok, i've learned a lot:
- I'm giving to much time to the fixer, is enough between 2 and 3 times the time it takes the solution to clean a strip of film;
- I must clean all the plastic to avoid stains;
- I must agitate during the stop and fixing, and maybe i dont need an "acetic" stop bath...
- I must let the film "rest" in the water during the cleaning;
- After scanning i must do some "make over" using photoshop (tks Roman for the tips how to do it);
- I must experiment a lot since this is not an exact science, and everyone has its own agitation method :)
- And i must go and print some photos :) :)

Tks all!
 
Is there a way to post a word document with illustrations? I have one that I put together for a class about agitation.
 
Poptart said:
Is there a way to post a word document with illustrations? I have one that I put together for a class about agitation.
Click to expand...

Well ... you can always change the .doc to .jpg and hope that no one gets mad :)
 
Poptart said:
Is there a way to post a word document with illustrations? I have one that I put together for a class about agitation.
Click to expand...

If you have webspace, you probably could just post the word doc, or if you can create a pdf out of it, no problem -- you can use openoffice program to do so, or, if you like, just email me the word doc and I can take care of it for you at work (we have acrobat full version there, I can convert stuff to pdf). If pdf's cannot be posted here, they can be converted to jpg's then. Aren't computers fun? :rolleyes:
 
pedro.m.reis said:
Here an example of the "stains" i get sometimes.
Click to expand...
I'm having a hard time seeing the image, its so small. Can you scan at a higher res. Was it a neg scan? Scan it like 720 DPI and then resize to about 600Pixels.
 
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