Automatic Timing of Color Negatives

Timing of color negatives for release printing has proved to be a tedious, time-consuming, and expensive operation in motion-picture laboratories. Based on methods of exposure determination for printing amateur, still, color negatives, a simple and rapid method has been developed for automatic timing of color negatives. The integrated transmissions to red, green and blue light of the color negative are measured on a full-frame densitometer for a large number of scenes having a wide gamut of subject matter. These integrated transmissions are statistically correlated, scene by scene, to the printer lights that produced acceptable color prints from the color negatives. From these correlations the printer lights that will produce color-balanced prints may be predicted within certain limits from the full-frame, integrated, transmission measurements of an unknown negative. While the color balance of the first print produced by this method may not be considered optimum, the print is close enough to optimum that a skilled color timer can produce a color-balanced print on the second or third trial. Results of a trial at Ace Film Laboratories showed the method to be practical.

Print ISSN

0361-4573

Published

1956-04

Content type

Original Research

DOI

10.5594/J07352