Took a roll of film through airport security and got the worst light leaks

Honestly I knew better but I was rushing through JFK last month and forgot to ask for a hand check. The whole roll came back with these crazy streaks of orange and purple across every single frame. Some of the shots actually look kinda cool like a bad Instagram filter but most are just ruined. Has anyone else messed up a roll that way or found a trick to save any of the images?

2 comments

2 Comments

rowanjenkins5d ago

Used to think the whole hand check thing was just paranoia for people with too much time on their hands lol. Then I ran a roll through TSA in Atlanta last spring and it came back with this weird wave pattern across the whole middle of every frame. Changed my mind real quick honestly. The orange and purple streaks you're describing sound exactly like what modern scanners do to film, especially if it was higher speed stuff. Only trick I've found that works okay is to pull the shadows back in editing and desaturate the color shift a bit, but you lose a lot of detail that way. Sometimes if you scan it as black and white you can salvage the composition at least, even if the colors are totally cooked. Best bet is just to accept it as a happy accident and move on, that's what I did with my ruined roll anyway.

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christopher675d ago

Man I completely disagree, I've flown with film dozens of times and never had an issue, half the people crying about scanner damage are probably just blaming bad exposure or development on TSA when their film was fine.