Correcting Developing Errors

[nonot]

Hi,

Excuse me if this duplicates an older post from someone else, but I had no luck searching for tips on this here.

I don't use photoshop for post production ever really... for that matter I never really do post on any photo I take. Generally I'm pretty happy with my results in the darkroom however I pretty much botched three rolls of tmax 3200 recently by underdeveloping. I was wondering if anyone had any tips as to salvaging these photos in PS? Here are two samples from the roll that got it the worst. You can see that there's plenty of detail there in my friend's face and clothing...

Any help is appreciated.

 

[Tim Gray]

Increase the contrast. Using curves in Photoshop will help you localize the adjustments to certain tonal values.

The second photo looks pretty contrasty already, so increasing contrast (or lengthening development) might not be the best bet. Are you sure they are really undeveloped? How did you botch things? It might help if we knew what you did...

 

[nonot]

Tim, thanks for offering the help here.

Usually I shoot this at 800-1600 and develop in Rodinol at 1+50 for about 14-16 min respectively, but these rolls I shot at 3200 and developed for 9 min THINKING I mixed up 1+25... so I definitely underdeveloped the rolls. Not sure what I was thinking exactly... one of those brain farts.

I've been playing around with them and I've got some pretty good results just in curves. I don't want to make them look fake by adding clipping masks etc.. I'd be happy with a middle of the road solution.

 

[Tim Gray]

Ahh ok. Definitely under developed. Haha. Yeah you can get surprisingly good results just adjusting underdeveloped photos in Photoshop.