You Can Stop Missing Kodachrome Now

[Guest malland]

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Seriously, Mac users can get close to the Kodachrome look by using Raw Photo Processor 64 (RR) as their raw processor.

 

I've written about the excellent images that the Ricoh GXR M-Module produces, about the files being generally better than those I've had from the M8 and M9 in terms of the clarity and transparency of the colours and in the white balance — I feel that generally GXR-M files require less post-processing as well. I process RAW files and for several years have been using Aperture. Last week, I started trying out RPP, shareware program available only for the Mac.

 

It's been a revelation because RPP does a much better job in raw development than Aperture or ACR: it simply produces better resolution and better color. Considering how good the GXR-M files are, it's worthwhile to optimize their quality by using RPP. I started using RPP at first to see how how much I was over- or under-exposing when I started "exposing to the right", but then saw that I could get better results with RPP than with Aperture. I've also seen comparisons with ACR, the raw developer used by Photoshop and Lightroom: the results with RPP are clearly better. Indeed, RPP gives very film-like results — you can stop missing Kodachrome.

 

If you decide to use RPP, one caveat is that you need to devote some time to learn it: when you first see a file opened in RPP, it looks awful because the program doesn't make any automatic corrections — read the RPP documentation and you'll see why.

 

The following five color pictures were all taken with the GXR-M and the Leica Elmarit-21 ASPH lens and developed in RPP, with slight adjustment in Aperture. I also processed all these pictured in Aperure and the results had less resolution and the colors were simply not as good. I'm also posting a B&W picture (taken with the Tele-Elmarit-90) that illustrates the type of photograph for which RPP's higher resolution is a great advantage. [Note: the last two pictures are in the next posting.]

 

 

[Please click on the link and press the "Older" arrow to see the five colour pictures:

Five Colour Pictures

 

Click here for the B&W picture

B&W Picture

 

 

 

—Mitch/Bangkok

Ricoh GXR M-Module

Edited October 25, 2011 by malland
Oversized images converted to links following discussion with Mitch

[Guest malland]

What can I say? I guess no one here misses Kodachrome.

 

—Mitch/Chiang Mai

Paris au rythme de Basquiat

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[wattsy]

I miss Kodachrome (a bit) but until I can load your raw processor into my MP I'm not particularly interested.

[bill]

Sadly, the key phrase for me here is "mac users".

 

Regards,

 

Bill

[andybarton]

IIRC, Mac users make up roughly half of the population on this forum, so there should be plenty of "takers".

 

I have downloaded the software and I couldn't get any of my shots to look like Kodachrome. The interface is a challenge, to say the least. As most people with M8/9s will be using their freebie Lightroom and others Aperture, the compunction to try yet another alternative just isn't there.

 

In my opinion, lots of people have moved on, or were never there in the first place. There are people out there today who really don't give a monkey's about film, even if it is Kodachrome.

 

People coming straight into digital obviously have no experience with film and the variety that medium can offer. While the SilverFX plug-ins give old film users an approximation of what they have lost, IMHO, this will be a dying industry, as more and more people have no idea of the difference between PanF and Tri-X, and really don't care very much either. When old farts like me have curled up our toes, our children will be happy with clean files and no character.

 

Just my opinion, of course.

Edited October 28, 2011 by andybarton

[earleygallery]

If enough people really wanted the Kodachrome look I guess we'd still have Kodachrome. At least as long as we still have Kodak! Sadly it was clearly part of their cost cutting strategy to keep their heads above water, maybe still profitable, but not enough.

 

Digital is digital. Why try to make it something it's not? It's like vegetarian food pretending to be meat!!

[bartok]

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IIRC, Mac users make up roughly half of the population on this forum, so there should be plenty of "takers".

 

I have downloaded the software and I couldn't get any of my shots to look like Kodachrome. The interface is a challenge, to say the least. As most people with M8/9s will be using their freebie Lightroom and others Aperture, the compunction to try yet another alternative just isn't there.

 

In my opinion, lots of people have moved on, or were never there in the first place. There are people out there today who really don't give a monkey's about film, even if it is Kodachrome.

 

People coming straight into digital obviously have no experience with film and the variety that medium can offer. While the SilverFX plug-ins give old film users an approximation of what they have lost, IMHO, this will be a dying industry, as more and more people have no idea of the difference between PanF and Tri-X, and really don't care very much either. When old farts like me have curled up our toes, our children will be happy with clean files and no character.

 

Just my opinion, of course.

 

Completely agree. I'm a long time film user, although now mostly using digital. In the case of any commercial work, almost nobody wants work shot on film now - as this trend has progressed fewer editors and art directors have any concept of the difference and if you did convince them to use pictures from film, with its unique properties, it would likely only be as a short term 'trend'; pretty soon it will be passe and they'll revert to insisting on digital.

 

I have SilverFX and it has proved useful, but I've not used it anywhere near as much as I thought I would.

 

If I want the film look then that's what I still prefer to use.

[CalArts 99]

I have downloaded the software and I couldn't get any of my shots to look like Kodachrome. The interface is a challenge, to say the least. As most people with M8/9s will be using their freebie Lightroom and others Aperture, the compunction to try yet another alternative just isn't there.

 

 

I agree. The software is really not ready for prime time and the interface and the work flow is counter intuitive. I've gone this route before, picking out esoteric software that had promise but in the end was impossible to use on a daily basis. In addition, nobody else used them and so there could be no sharing and no real learning/teaching going on. I'm not saying they aren't good, but just not worth the effort to learn and use on a daily basis. If the results were that much more dramatic I would say it's worth it. But they aren't. It makes more sense to work at developing your skills in either ACR or Apple or Phase One, along with PS editing skills. These are universal programs. Put your time and effort into really learning them and you won't miss Kodachrome either.

[Guest malland]

There are several issues here.

 

@Bill, I believe it's easy to run a Mac OS X simulator on a Wondows machine under which you can run Mac programs. although I don't know which ones to recommend, but it is easy enough to find out. I have a friend who does it the other way, running Windows on a Mac portable just because he likes the hardware, and seems to pay no discernible performance penalty, which means that operating system simulators have come a long way. Though I understand that you may not want to get into all this just to try out a raw developer.

 

 

@Andy, RPP has a steep learning curve because it works so differently from Aperture and Lightroom, but I think the effort, even just in terms the increased resolution over other raw developers is worth it. In the manual there is a description of the work flow, but it takes a bit of study of the software to make sense of it. What I've been doing is the following:

 

1. Set the B&W balance if there is neutral gray in the picture (Command-click on the neutral area);

2. Select the KR64 color film curve;

3. Select the exposure using Compressed Exposure;

4. Set the Black Point (try 0.3 or 0.6); and

5. Set the Saturation (try 30-50).

 

I'm not sure, but maybe step 3 should come before step 2. Step if is not always necessary, but in some cases is essential.

 

Remember, RPP is only a raw develop and you may want or need to do colot correction or contrast changes in Aperture, Lghtroom or Photoshop. There is an option in the File Menu called "Optimize for post-procesing on Save", which saves a files with slightly less contrast to give 5% headroom for further processing in image editing software. BTW, I found the following list for the meaning of the film presets:

 

A25 B&W = Agfa APX 25

P50 B&W = Kodak Vision2 50D

Duo = Technicolor 2-Strip

P160NC = Kodak Portra 160NC

A100F = Fujichrome Astia 100F

K64 = Kodachrome 64

V50 = Fujichrome Velvia 50

TC4 = Technicolor System4 Dye Transfer (Technicolor 3-Strip)

LF = Kodak Ektar 25

 

As I said, the thing is to persevere, and you can get a real payoff. Learning darkroom development and printing required much more of an effort.

 

 

@James, the point is not film emulation — I only used this title, somewhat ironically, to attract attention to the thread. The point is that RPP produces, in my view, the best resolution and color of any raw processor that I know of. When processing RAW files I don't aim for a "film look", but always try the get the file to a look that I like. The film presets in RPP are done with the same philosophy as those in Silver Efex — starting point for the type of look that you may want..

 

 

@bartok and andy, I don't agree that "our children will be happy with clean files and no character". That is saying in effect that the best of photographers will be happy with plastic-looking picture. It's away a tiny minority of photographers that were interested in, or capable of, producing what we would call call "good photograph". That will not change, but that tiny majority will represent a much greater number of people because digital has facilitated doing what was not that easy in the darkroom. Indeed, this increasing "democratization" of photography has been a part of the medium's history from, say, glass plates, to digital.

 

 

@CalArts99, I think you're missing the point: yes, RPP seems esoteric, but it's only a raw developer, which requires only a few steps, all of which can be saved as a preset, or a set of presets, applied in one step. Indeed, one can easily apply these presets in batch mode, as described in the manual. Because RPP is only a raw developer, it's function is only to produce the best basic file that you can get, the way you apply a developer to a negative, and all further processing, such a color correction, gradation, dodging and burning is done in Photoshop. Lightroom or Aperture, or whatever image editor you use — and it is the image editors that are much more complicated to use and to which your argument applies much better.

 

—Mitch/Chiang Mai

Ricoh GXR M-Module

[CalArts 99]

 

@CalArts99, I think you're missing the point: yes, RPP seems esoteric, but it's only a raw developer, which requires only a few steps, all of which can be saved as a preset, or a set of presets, applied in one step. Indeed, one can easily apply these presets in batch mode, as described in the manual. Because RPP is only a raw developer, it's function is only to produce the best basic file that you can get, the way you apply a developer to a negative, and all further processing, such a color correction, gradation, dodging and burning is done in Photoshop. Lightroom or Aperture, or whatever image editor you use — and it is the image editors that are much more complicated to use and to which your argument applies much better.

 

Just for the record I have Aperture, LR, and Phase One. But I only use them as raw developers and nothing else. I have them all because certain files sometimes work differently in each convertor, and so I go back and forth. So I don't think I'm missing the point.

 

I use Photo Mechanic as an image browser and to ingest files, and Media Pro as my master catalog. All my editing is done in Photoshop. I tried RPP but I felt it was too convoluted to use. And I basically didn't want to take the time to get good at a software program that may not even exist in the next few years.

 

That said, I did not see anything from any file that proved RPP was truly superior. If is that much better, I couldn't see it both on monitor and in print. And if it is that much better it should be taking the world by storm.

 

I'll try it again and do more comparisons. But the problem is spending the time to do so, and deciding if it's really worth the effort. But I will give it another try one of these days.

[Guest malland]

...I did not see anything from any file that proved RPP was truly superior. If is that much better, I couldn't see it both on monitor and in print. And if it is that much better it should be taking the world by storm...

When I first looked at RPP, I didn't see anything special about it either. It was only after I figured out how to use that I thought it was spectacular in terms of both resolution and color.

 

—Mitch/Chiang Mai

Ricoh GXR M-Module

[doublep]

Mitch - thanks to you, I am gradually learning to use RPP (also with the GXR M-Module). Steep learning curve, but I understand what you say - I have been seeing some great results on some photos.

 

The old master by tokyoshooter, on Flickr

[stunsworth]

@Bill, I believe it's easy to run a Mac OS X simulator on a Wondows machine under which you can run Mac programs. although I don't know which ones to recommend, but it is easy enough to find out. I have a friend who does it the other way, running Windows on a Mac portable just because he likes the hardware, and seems to pay no discernible performance penalty, which means that operating system simulators have come a long way

 

Installing OSX on a PC seems to be possible, but it also seems to require a lot of messing around - and the purchase of OSX. Some details here...

 

Install OS X on Your Hackintosh PC, No Hacking Required

 

How to Install Mac OS X on a PC (Without Using a Mac)

 

Doing it the other way round - running Windows on a Mac - is very easy. You can either use Bootcamp which is free, or emulation software such as VMware Fusion.

[Guest malland]

Thanks, Steve. I had no idea that it was much more complicated emulating Mac OS X under Windows, rather than the other way round.

 

—Mitch/Chiang Mai

Ricoh GXR M-Module

[cidereye]

Installing OSX on a PC seems to be possible, but it also seems to require a lot of messing around - and the purchase of OSX. Some details here...

 

Install OS X on Your Hackintosh PC, No Hacking Required

 

How to Install Mac OS X on a PC (Without Using a Mac)

 

Doing it the other way round - running Windows on a Mac - is very easy. You can either use Bootcamp which is free, or emulation software such as VMware Fusion.

 

It can also be done on a PC using VMware Workstation too Steve, I've been thinking about doing this for a while but not yet got around to trying it out. RPP might just spur me on though I think.

 

Vmware - OSx86

 

VMware Workstation: Run Multiple OS Including Linux & Windows7, on Virtual Machines

[plasticman]

Mitch - not wanting to put a damper on your enthusiasm, but I tried this software a while back, and compared it with my preferred converter - Iridient Digital Raw Developer - and I'm afraid my original preference was confirmed by the comparison. Give RawDev a try - the results are stunning without the bewildering ui.

[Guest malland]

Mitch - not wanting to put a damper on your enthusiasm, but I tried this software a while back, and compared it with my preferred converter - Iridient Digital Raw Developer - and I'm afraid my original preference was confirmed by the comparison. Give RawDev a try - the results are stunning without the bewildering ui.

No problem, but I've also tried the Irident program extensively and found that it gives neither the resolution nor the superior color rendition of RPP. As they say YMMV.

 

—Mitch/Chiang Mai

Ricoh GXR M-Module

[wildlightphoto]

What can I say? I guess no one here misses Kodachrome.

 

I have a DMR. I don't miss Kodachrome at all.

[Guest malland]

I have a DMR. I don't miss Kodachrome at all.

Doug, exactly my point: when you find a certain digital solution that works for you, you can stop missing Kodachrome.

 

I've just put together a series of photographs called Days and Nights in the Forest. The title comes from the masterpiece of the same name by the great Bengali film maker, Satyajit Ray, about which his biographer, Andrew Robinson, in Satyajit Ray: The inner Eye writes: "The theme of Days and Nights might be said to be the way in which urban living cuts us off from each other and from our true environment and blunts our moral sense, though it is never stated as openly as this". You can see the series by clicking here.

 

This series currently had 26 photographs some of which I may eventually cut and and I may add others. I am aiming for about 60 photographs, if that doesn't make the series too boring. All 26 pictures were taken with the GXR, of which 18 were with the M-Module — all with the Elmarit-21 ASPH lens except one that was taken with the Zeiss 4/18mm.

 

—Mitch/Chiang Mai

Days and Nights in the Forest

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[250swb]

Doug, exactly my point: when you find a certain digital solution that works for you, you can stop missing Kodachrome.

 

So true.

 

An interesting thread, but to stop people running out to buy a Mac can I just mention that Color Efex Pro has a film preset for Kodachrome and can be run on Windows as a Photoshop plugin. The interesting thing about the presets in Color Efex is you can see where the sliders go as you choose different presets, and before you know it you see the secrets that make Kodachrome Kodachrome (say the word with a slushy romanticism in your voice). I'm sure this would be the same for the software mentioned above. But it busts the idea that Kodachrome colour is unique to Kodachrome, since in any case Kodachrome would change character depending on lens characteristic's and exposure, leaving a pretty broad and easy target to aim at in software emulation.

 

Steve