I recently had a roll of 35mm color print film developed and had prints made. It turned out that on most of the prints on this roll that I saw a very, very thin single magenta line running the width of the prints near the top. I also noted a similar single yellow and cyan line each a few millimeters apart and above the magenta line and all parallel to each other, also running the width of the print.
I took the prints back to the printer and they claim they were unable to re-print these negatives without the lines, but that were able to print line-free prints on others’ negatives. They also claimed to have cleaned and tuned up the print machine but to no avail.
I have shot literally a thousand of rolls of 35mm color print film in my lifetime and have never encountered this before. The negatives, to a naked eye, look fine. What could have caused these parallel colored lines on the prints?
I’d try looking at the negatives with a loupe. In the old days, this kind of scratching would indicate maybe a piece of sand or crud in the camera or film canister scratching the emulsion.
But if you’re seeing a magenta, yellow, and cyan line on the prints and they’re using a digital process, then that sounds like a scanning or printing error. You could maybe test this by getting a test print done somewhere else (maybe one of those print it yourself machines).
No, actually all the pictures are of different subjects. About half of the prints have these magenta, yellow and cyan parallel lines. I thought for sure it was somewhere in the printing process but they said it was the film.
Take the negatives to another lab, and say nothing about having had any problems with them. If the prints from the second lab come back with the same lines, then the first lab was telling you the truth. If the second lab prints them without any lines, bring both sets back to the first lab and ask about a refund.
Could you possibly scan one of the prints so we could see the problem?
I definitely should have mentioned this in the OP, but I did complain to the corp 800 number and they very graciously refunded my money and let me keep the prints (triples).
I never thought about taking the negs to another lab–great idea–thanks.
