Re: filmscanners: Splotchy?

[Arthur Entlich <artistic@ampsc.com>]

Richard Starr wrote:

>  I have a wonderful image scanned on my brain-dead Nikon 3510AF, where the
> shadow areas are all blotchy with redish spots.  The print is a section of an
> available light shot on 800 negative material (I think Agfa, it's Mystic 
>Photo's
> house brand 800.)  If memory serves, in color negs, underexposed areas tend to
> show larger grain.   But this is obnoxious.
> 

If you can isolate the overall area easily with the lasso or magic wand 
tools, you might wish to use the the Image> Adjust> Selective color, 
select the reds (the menu will default there anyway) and tone down the 
reds to make them blend better by removing magenta and yellow and 
increasing cyan and black.  Make sure preview is checked in the 
Selective Color menu box.  Don't ask me what the difference between 
absolute and relative menu items, try both.

> Question is, what can I do about it?  I've tried blur in Photoshop, but it's 
>not
> satisfactory.
> 
> Meanwhile, there was a strange thing happening in the blue areas of the image
> and others on that roll, that looked like little flakes of blue die had 
>leached
> from the emulsion.  Easy to spot out, but I've never seen this before.  Bad
> film? Bad processing?

This is most often caused by iron contamination in the processing 
chemistry or water supply.  It can also be caused by bubbles sticking to 
the film during processing.  More likely the former than the later.

Art