Sepia tone

[Paul Fierberg]

Just shot a roll of Kodak BW400CN in my Yashica Electro 35 GSN with a yellow filter... Prints came back with a slight sepia tone to them is this normal or was something wrong in the processing department? Must say though I like the effect it is rather pleasing.Oh yes I did have the ASA set at 200.

 

[peterm1]

I agree that it can look OK if the prints come out sepia. But if you do not like it, and did not ask for it, take the negatives back and ask for them to be reprinted. The prints SHOULD come out black and white with no toning (unless you ask for it- some labs used to offer this, perhaps it was just easier for them.)

But this sort of outcome is common with XP2 and BW400CN and my film lab tells me that it comes from not setting up the color channels properly for that film type. As a matter pf fact I have even had XP2 shots come back with blue tones when I have taken them to someone who did not know what they were doing. (I do not fully understand the details so maybe someone can enlighten me. But I think its due to the film substrate having its own color cast. If this is not allowed for properly in printing you get odd color cast in the result when you print. (As far as I know, it has nothing to do with the ASA rating you shot the film at - I always shoot XP2 or BW400CN at 200 ASA myself as I think it looks better - kind of smoother than when shot at 400 while 100 which also gives a nice result is a bit slow.)

My old film lab charged a couple of bucks extra per roll to print the prints on black and white paper rather than color paper. This also helped eliminate this problem and gave true black and white tones.

EDIT: Actually here is a good discussion of the issue.

http://photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=006xtU

 

[Paul Fierberg]

Interesting..Thanks
Paul F.

 

[lZr]

I never print from the neg. First, I scan them, set the tones, save to disk the size I want and print in the Lab standing close to the operator