Yellow marks in blues

Heya I need some help to id what the cause of this is. I suspect it’s from the negative not being completely flat. Some negatives can have this yellow faint colour appear in the blues of an image, most notably in skies. I seem to get weirder colours with blues compared to the rest. Why I think it’s cause the film isn’t completely flat is because other negatives in the roll are completely fine. This will often be the start or end of a 3 frame strip but when the film has been cut to only 2 frames it seems there’s not enough to push it all the way through and keep it flat without it coming out the other side. Have others had this issue with this holder?

I scan with

  • GFX 50S
  • Pentax 645 macro
  • Valoi 120 holder
  • Raleno Light Table

I mask off all stray light with black cardboard.







You can test your theory/suspicion by putting the negative on the backlight, without film holder. Use a piece of glass to flatten the negative. Then scan and check the outcome. If the streaks are still there, the cause lies somewhere else.

Can you see the streaks on unaltered RAWs or exported files that you convert by flipping the tone curves manually?

You could also turn the negatives through 180º and see if the position of the strange blemish alters. Are you positive that no extraneous light from within the room can reflect off the top surface of the negative, are they shiny side up?

Will try this. I can see streaks when i convert manually

Yep they are shiny side up. There’s a a glass shower screen nearby in the bathroom so maybe light from the light table is reflecting onto that?

Hmm, the streaks look like forward and backward slashes. Does this change when you rotate or flip the negative? Can you also put a black cloth over the setup in order to eliminate stray light. Also take care that you don’t have any lights from a smartwatch (etc.) reaching the negative or lens.

Sorry for delay. Here’s the same negative one facing upwards and one flipped over

The first scan is put into the holder as shown in this photo of the negative

It seems there was a mark on the lens which i;ve cleaned which is that faint light line on the right and left. The other thing is the flipped over negative has a stronger yellow cast.


If it helps here’s also the raws Negatives - Google Drive

Thanks again for both your help on this

Had a look at the two files and the yellow blotch come up differently.

The flipped image has lost most of the streak … which leads mo to conclude that the yellow mark was caused by stray light, something that can happen easily, e.g. reflected from an arm reaching out to the lens or camera.

Note that I converted the images in a different app and manually in order to confirm that Lr/NLP have nothing to do with the issue, except to make it visible, that is.

My recommendation: Rescan the offenders making sure that you work in a dark room and with nothing that can shed stray light onto the negative. Darken the room and mask off all unwanted light.

Have you perhaps got a blank unexposed frame you could scan? That might help to identify the source. Could the light be reflecting back off part of your setup perhaps?