Scanning intentionally overexposed negatives

Question

I have a question concerning the exposure settings when scanning negatives: Imagine I take a picture of mostly fog. Without manual correction, the camera would place the fog in zone V (middle grey) and to avoid this, the image is typically overexposed to some degree. I had this situation few weeks ago on a frosty and foggy day and to compensate for the „brightness“ of the fog I metered for the ground (tilting the camera down), placing it in zone V.

Now the images I got back from the lab are much darker than I wanted them to turn out and I would like to find out what went wrong. My main question is: does the scanner place the whole picture in zone V again, like the meter of the camera would do it? So no matter how much I overexpose, the picture is always placed in middle grey. Or are negatives typically scanned with one setting for a certain type of film to make sure bright images are bright and dark images are dark? (Or did I really underexpose this picture?)

I asked the lab and I got the answer that a human judges the brightness of each picture individually while scanning. But that would mean to get the look I want, the person judging the brightness needs to know how I intended the picture to look like. I was going for a bright and airy look.

Here is one example picture (taken with Canon AE-1 on Portra 400):

Which looks muddy to me. Does anyone know how I could fix this picture? And in what zone would you place the fog?

I am thankful for any help!

Answer 1

Does anyone know how I could fix this picture?

1. Increase gamma/exposure by a half stop (or however much you like).

2. Auto levels on a separate layer with color blending to correct the color cast. Some programs use temperature and tint to adjust white balance.

3. Any other levels/curves adjustments to taste. Some programs have shadows, midtones, highlights adjustments, which are just another way to work with curves.

... a human judges the brightness of each picture individually while scanning.

That's doubtful. More likely, a computer auto adjusts the images. Then a human quickly checks thumbnails for obvious errors. The image you have would be left alone because it looks like what it is, a foggy day.

To minimize operator effort, each image is probably auto adjusted independently of others. The same setting for an entire roll wouldn't work well because people don't expose every frame perfectly. You can ask the lab if they're willing to show you their scanning process. (I didn't pay close enough attention to this detail when my local lab showed me their process.)

Now the images I got back from the lab are much darker than I wanted them...

It's darker because the computer/operator can't read your mind. If you have special instructions for the lab, you need to provide them ahead of time. You might also need to pay for editing services.

The basic scans that labs provide are just a starting point for you to do your own editing. You can screen the lab scans for images to digitize and process yourself. If you have a reasonably good digital camera, you can use a slide copier.

See Using a 35mm Slide Copier with a Crop Sensor.

Answer 2

Without really knowing what you want out of the photo, opening it in Photoshop's Camera Raw & Hitting the Auto button will perk it up quite a bit. I've then pushed a little Vibrance, sharpened it slightly & used noise reduction to kill the worst of the noise [there's still a fair bit of 'jpeginess' in it, but I'm assuming that's not in your original.

After comments, white balanced using the paint colour on the building…

tbh, if I were to push the sky that far into the 'pinks', I'd be tempted to push the greens more, separately, & pull the reds a bit…

… but we're now well beyond the realms of 'quick fix' you could apply to multiple shots.

& just for fun - a "foggier" version ;)
Simply done by pushing Texture, Clarity, & Dehaze to the left, with a slight rebalance on the exposure curve.

Closeup of the 'jpeginess'

Answer 3

To render a specific artistic intent, there are three practical methods: scan yourself, pay someone enough to perform to your satisfaction, or get lucky.

The issue seems to be one of expectations. To me the scan looks technically correct and the image looks like what I imagine the scene to have been like.

Ordinarily, a scan is thought of as an intermediary image — more like a negative than a print. The ordinary purpose of a scan is capturing information. Ordinarily the scan is not a direct expression of artistic intent…often the work is less than half done when the scan is made. Because the scan is rarely good enough.

To put it another way, the way to get what we want as photographers is almost always more work and/or money. If we don’t like a particular result, it is our own fault.