White marks on film scans?

[saraanastasia]

Hey everyone,

I'm just a beginner photographer, who shoots on a Canon AE1. I recently got a roll of agfa vista 400 developed, and when I got the scans back I noticed that a lot of the photos had these strange white marks on it. I haven't had this issue before. Was wondering if anyone could tell me what's causing the white marks? Is it a problem with the camera, the film, or processing?

I've added some photos for your reference. Thank you!

 

[Alan GT]

It's either dirt on the scanner or bad handling of the negative. The negative is inverted - dirt on the scanner or dark regions on the negative come out light on the final photo which is why they appear white here.

You will probably always get some minute dust specks even with the best scanning, but these cases are fairly easy to touch up yourself on a computer. But this is quite bad. Have a look at the negative if you have it (keep it in protective sleeve and only touch at the edges). If it doesn't have black spots in the corresponding places I would take it back and ask them to scan it again.

Alan

 

[Chikubi]

Looks like the film's emulsion was scraped and damaged during handling. You can confirm this by looking at the negatives directly and looking for the damage. Hopefully, you used a processor that returns the negatives back to you. If you don't see any damage on the negs (I think you will), you can have them rescanned. Otherwise, not much you can do except clone out the damaged spot in Photoshop or something similar.

If you start to see more of this kind of damage in your future rolls from the same processor, I would consider going to another lab.

It also is entirely possible that the film itself may have been damaged from the factory, so that's why I would wait and see if it happens again first before moving to a new lab. Sometimes companies put out a bad batch, or you just happen to be unlucky with a roll or two.