There is some real truth to what he says, but his technical grasp is
poor. I have sent the same film to Kodak 'Picture Processing' through a
drug store and for Kodak "Royal" processing through a photography store.
The first gave wildly oversaturated results, 'cartoon colors' and the
later gave normal results. Scanning works just the same with both rolls.
It's not a problem in the film development, but in the printing. It's
also not a direct function of price, although it tends to be correlated,
but of the target customer. Clearly the average snap shot shooter likes
exaggerated colors and contrast, "snap", and processors in competition
for that lion's share of the photo processing business understand that
the (biggest) customer is always right.
There are certainly differences in the saturation and contrast of
different neg. films, but you need to compare them with the same
processing/printing to know what that difference is. Scanning with any
color/balance correction turned off will also show the differences.
Moose
Jim L'Hommedieu wrote:
In my own pictures from 2001, I noticed that the Fuji 1600 film (Fujicolor 1600 I think)
has hyped saturation. What I call "cartoon color", where caucasians take on
the cast of a sienna basketball.
<snip>
He said, "What makes the difference is the processing. If you get cheap processing,
the color goes wrong."
<Long pause on my side of the counter. I decided to try again.>
"What I'm interested in is finding a film that doesn't have the exaggerated color.
Does Fuji Superia 800 X-TRA have normal saturation or exaggerated saturation?"
Amazingly, he said back, "What makes the difference is the processing. If you get cheap processing, the color goes wrong. The films are all pretty good now."
For clarity, I asked, "Are you saying if I have the processing done at the wrong
place, they may overdevelop it, giving me hyped saturation?"
"Yeah," he said.
I walked away muttering. Obviously I'm gonna pull out my .pdf from the Pop Photo site and find out for myself.
This may be misleading if you use different processors for different films.
I wonder why he didn't answer the question I asked.
I mean, if a customer buys Press 1600 and asks an "advanced ameteur question", why would
a sales guy give him the "absolute beginner answer"? I think he
was trying to 'upsell' me on his own processing.
Possibly so. I also suspect that he is poorly informed.
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