Digitizing Color Transparencies -- What You Should Know

When I first learned my photography, I was using an Instamatic box camera with the cartridge film. I'd shoot a roll of film and then my Mom and Dad would take us to the photoshop where we'd get prints made. We not only had to pay for the developing of the film, but also the developing of the prints.

Sometimes, the photoshop would print photos that were hopeless. This might have been my fault because the film was incorrectly exposed or focused or was blurred. But many times, I had exposed it correctly, but an inexperienced technician at the photoshop would try to adjust the exposure to make it "normal". This usually happens only when you take out-of-the-ordinary shots that do not cover the usual range of colors and contrasts.

A usual picture--especially one that's recognizable to the average technician at a photolab--presents no problems for creating a print. The technician can adjust it accordingly to get the skin-tones right or to get something else that's easily recognizable to be right. This creates a photo that generally is what is intended.

However, photos such as night shots, or underwater shots, or snow shots--if there's nothing easily recognizable in the image--can result in a mess during the final development process. And as I got more and more experienced with my photography, I was having more problems with getting the correct development of my prints.

So, I learned how to develop my own film--black and white, color print (C-41 process), and color transparency (E-4/E-6 process). I also learned that transparency film was not forgiving. Unless you knew that you had underexposed or overexposed the film, you'd have to develop the film with the same times, temperatures, and procedures no matter what. The resulting slides were the resulting slides.

I quickly learned to "bracket my exposures" to ensure that I'd have a better change at capturing the images I was trying for. This worked well--because when the transparencies were developed by the lab or by myself, they resembled more closely the sight I had seen and had tried to capture.

This is why I decided early on in my photography experience to switch to transparency film--I could have the images captured the way I wanted them. (I still used print film for much of my family shots and for when I was working at the newspaper.)

Except for those who have converted to digital, this is why professional photographers use transparency film.

When transparencies are digitized through a scanning process (or even when prints are digitized by scanning, for that matter), a process similar to printing takes place. Again, if you have an experienced technician with an eye for color and art (as well as being able to see whether or not the image in the transparency has the intended color and contrast balance), you will be fine.

However, if you have inexperienced technicians, they may try to comply with the scanner software that tries to overcorrect for color/contrast balance in an attempt to make the picture "normal". So, we're back at the problem that existed with getting positive prints from negative film. The only difference, however, is that you now have a way to remedy this problem.

You can either scan the slides/transparencies yourself with a flatbed scanner with slide-adaptor or a dedicated transparency scanner (sort of time-consuming) or you can take them to a scanning company to have them done. To get around the problems mentioned above, make a note on a stick-um-note (on the slide frame, not the film itself--duh!), whether the color/contrast on the image on the transparency is what you want or if you'd like them to compensate for under- or over-exposure when they scan the image.

This advice may help you to alleviate your problems with getting the images you want when you digitize your photos.

The photo of the chef at the top of this page is all red with some tones of black. He was illuminated solely by the red heat lamps over the food serving area in an otherwise darkened dining area. It was a dramatic scene and this is the image I wanted to capture. No adjustment to make "normal" was necessary. I wanted all the RED.

The photo in the snow is just one of many I took on the slopes. I've taken other photos in similar circumstances (the Space Shuttle at White Sands Missile Range, for instance). The Space Shuttles come in only one color: WHITE. White Sands is (duh) WHITE. The clouds were WHITE.

These photos are akin to taking a picture of a polar bear drinking milk during a blizzard. A lot of WHITE, not much with other colors. I've had phototechnicians complain that these photos were horrendously "OVEREXPOSED". Well, yeah, if what I took a picture of had been green or brown, yes, they would be considered "overexposed"--but when most of the stuff in the image is white, "overexposed" is what your camera and software and an unexperienced phototechnician will complain about.

Night shots are usually recognized by phototechnicians as being "night-shots". However, they sometimes will still try to "normalize" the photo--by "lightening it up". Which creates a grainy, weirdly green or grey photo. If I want a black photo with just the lights of a building or cars showing, then that's what I want. Having a slide to point to and being able to say, "this is what the resulting image should look like" is very helpful in getting the right resulting image.

Again, the all-blue scuba-diving shot represents what I saw when I took the picture. However, ALL-BLUE is what the computer sees and what the phototechnician sees. If they are avid scuba-divers, they may process this image correctly, but if they have never dived and are not familiar with what's in the image, you might get an image that resembles the set from the Creature from the Black Lagoon rather than the turquoise waters of Hawaii or Guam.

So... to summarize here, always put a note on your "out-of-ordinary" slides when you are getting them digitized. Do you want them corrected? Or, is the image precisely what you want? Make sure you indicate this on the slide before you get it digitized. Then, your images will be more akin to what you were expecting.