Film development and files

[tony740607]

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Hi,

Being new to film and still waiting for my M6 re-issue I would like some advice. My thinking is to develop the film at some good lab (living in Sweden) and then get the negatives back and digital files. I would like to save the files in Lightroom and adjust if needed. I would like to make some prints. I will be shooting mainly B&W. And my intention is to only use an iPad Pro for this workflow.
Any comments, advice or better recommendations regarding workflow with film? How are you doing? (I have a Q as well where I already have an established workflow).

Thanks!

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[lexffm]

Hi, request from the lab TIFF-files if you want to adjust in LR. JPEG don‘t give you many options.

[Sandokan]

Develop at home - maintaining 20C is easy. Get the Epson scanner or another type. 

There is a place in Spain that is reasonably priced. I think carmencita

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=spain+film+develop+black+and+white&t=brave&ia=web

[LocalHero1953]

Developing B&W at home is easy, cheap and satisfactory.

I scan my own negatives, B&W and colour. I scan using my SL2-S, a Sigma 70mm macro lens and the Valoi Easy35 device, which makes things quick and simple. Others scan using a suitable flat bed scanner or a dedicated 35mm negative scanner; both these devices usually use software that does the inversion (B&W or colour) for you.

In Lightroom I invert the scanned B&W negative, export them as TIFS and then re-import (to 'bake in' the reversed tone curve). I then edit as normal.

Colour scanning is more or less the same process, but it takes another few steps to adjust the colour (because normal colour negatives are orange). There is software to do this for you. I prefer my own editing which I have turned into a simple batch process routine in Lightroom.

[LocalHero1953]

38 minutes ago, Sandokan said:

Develop at home - maintaining 20C is easy. Get the Epson scanner or another type. 

There is a place in Spain that is reasonably priced. I think carmencita

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=spain+film+develop+black+and+white&t=brave&ia=web

Tony lives in Sweden, not Spain!

[osaf]

In general the workflow sound good.

If you look for a lab and scan service, ask for tiff-files and a reasonable resolution. Some labs (esprecially economic priced drug stores) provide jpeg and low resolution only. If you shoot b/w regularly think about self development at home: A Jobo box, some spares and chemicals costs less than 100€ - amortized after ~10-12 films. For scanning you have different options as already mentioned by others users. If you have a good lab around the corner you can ask them to scan only.

[Martin B]

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Cannot talk about Sweden and photo service there, but in the US it has become a challenge to get negatives developed, send back, and get scans in high resolution all together from one lab for a decent fare. Most develop and scan but it has become rare to get the original negatives, too. Most labs charge an extra for high res scans - and often it is just a bit larger JPG file instead of a TIFF file. I sometimes wished, Costco kept their photo area with film development - always got my negatives back in less than an hour and scans in a good resolution just by requesting it to the personnel. 

I second that the best option is to develop and scan film at home especially when using more film. If home development is not an option due to limited space or young children for example, I recommend thinking about getting a monochrome digital camera instead. I bought my used MM 246 two years ago, and I am amazed how good and film-like its photos look. It is never exactly the same as film, but I became tired of paying higher and higher prices for film stock and issues with airport scanners when traveling. I am still using film but probably 70% less than two years ago.   

[bags27]

Absolutely, go down the bottomless rabbit hole of home developing B&W. Try a zillion developers with variables of time, temperature and agitation. Drive yourself nuts trying to make the perfect scan and standardizing your workflow. I speak as a certified member of that loony bin.

But above all with film, remember: expose for the shadows. Everything else is just details.

[Bliz]

On 6/1/2025 at 7:34 AM, tony740607 said:

Any comments, advice or better recommendations regarding workflow with film? How are you doing?

I self develop, scan 35mm with a Nikon DSLR and edit b&w on lightroom mobile on a ipad air, especially for a b&w workflow it is perfectly adequate.

Developing b&w at home is fairly simple, you just need a changing bag, a paterson tank and 2 or 3 airtight bottles for the chems. Scanning is more of a hassle but I'm happy with the easy35 system from Valoi, is much faster and simpler than other solutions, albeit less flexible. So far my preferred developer for most stuff is XTOL for a few reasons (cheap, fine grain, less toxic than most other devs, easy to work with).

I still plan to get an enlarger to print what i like though, I'm not into inkjet printing digital scans.

Edited July 17 by Bliz

[Bliz]

On 6/1/2025 at 10:00 AM, LocalHero1953 said:

Colour scanning is more or less the same process, but it takes another few steps to adjust the colour (because normal colour negatives are orange). There is software to do this for you. I prefer my own editing which I have turned into a simple batch process routine in Lightroom.

Having started to self dev color at home very recently, I still have some difficulty getting "color correct" inversions manually without using something like negative lab pro. I find color casts common in my manual inversions and they change from one frame to another quite heavily depending on the light, a few times i put the raw into negative lab pro and went "uh so this is what it was supposed to look like" 

Edited July 17 by Bliz

[LocalHero1953]

9 minutes ago, Bliz said:

Having started to self dev color at home very recently, I still have some difficulty getting "color correct" inversions manually without using something like negative lab pro. I find color casts common in my manual inversions and they change from one frame to another quite heavily depending on the light, a few times i put the raw into negative lab pro and went "uh so this is what it was supposed to look like" 

If you want to try doing more yourself, see this guide. 

[colonel]

I only shoot C41. Develop by sending to a lab which send me back a dropbox link to highres JPGs next day.

The whole thing is low hassle and good results

I get the negs sent back and used to scan photos myself I particularly liked. Can't be bothered anymore, just takes too long

Edited August 14 by colonel