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Maybe it's just the scanners that improve everything - the metadata tells me it's a Fuji SP-3000, presumably that's where the magic takes place
I think it's a couple of things - the ability of scanners to pull detail from a neg, and the wider exposure latitude of modern film. You have to really try hard to mess up a shot now.
Also, unless you were lucky/skilled enough to use a darkroom, we have much greater creative control over images now with hybrid analogue/digital workflows. As long as there's enough on the neg for the scanner to read, you can do a lot with a photo in Lightroom or similar.
Ste_S
What level of automated "improvement" occurs in modern-day film processing?
Back in the 90's when I used to send my films off to Jessop (GB) or HL Markt (D) I'd expect about 20% failure rate . nowadays everything I send to Snaps photo services is bang-on.
I'm a bit more sober these days but even so, the majority is still sunny 16-guesswork on battered old cameras so I can't be that much improved over my 15 year digital hiatus (2000-15), particularly in view of my deteriorating eyesight...
I'm assuming that modern day machinery automatically pushes underexposed images to make them nice - is that likely or would you need to push the entire film?
Maybe it's just the scanners that improve everything - the metadata tells me it's a Fuji SP-3000, presumably that's where the magic takes place.... Anyway, I sent 5 films off last week and there's barely a shot that'd merit a condescending jessops sticker* across the middle of the print.
*can't quite remember what they said but they were little oval stickers that read something along the lines of "oh dear, we're a bit shit aren't we" and were stuck on over/under exposed or poorly focussed images