I like film...(open thread)

[Doc Henry]

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Thanks, Henry.

Here is one that I like quite a bit for its rich color palette, expression and overall urban vibe....

From last week

Again, Portra 400...

 

Superb Adam I agree and very nice color and contrast

You are an expert of "street photography" and NYC a pretty place to shoot

Thanks Adam

Best

Henry

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[Doc Henry]

Fuji Reala

M7 50 Summilux Asph

 

in the fields of our area

 

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Best

Henry

[Doc Henry]

and near a pond at sunset

 

KP 400

M7 50 Lux asph

 

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Best

Henry

[Sparkassenkunde]

Here is one that I like quite a bit for its rich color palette, expression and overall urban vibe....

From last week

Again, Portra 400...

 

Great colors again! I´m very interested in the workflow of your post processing, as it seems you get things done very constantly. If I am right, you did some heavier tweaks here, judged by the appearance of the shadows.

 

Here are two pics I made last year in a cathedral in Münster / Germany. Both Leica M4-P - Cron 35 - Kodak 200, first one was processed in SEP 2:

 

 

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[A miller]

Very nice, James. They clearly look like film and they are lovely. From my monitor at work the first seems like it may be a tiny bit overexposed. You might try tweaking it in order to introduce more midtones. The second has very nice contrast.

 

With regard to my most recent photo on which you commented, I will very unapologetically say that I edit all of my photos in Lightroom for the simple reason that the scanned files come flat (in my experience more akin to a RAW file from an MM).

 

I do not subscribe to the school of thought that files directly from the scanner are sacrosanct and have a purity that shouldn't be altered.

 

Having said this, my edits are normally focused on perfecting (according to my eye) the WB (according to how an analog print would render, which is different from how the scanner renders it unless you go crazy with the controls on the scaner and I am not a rocket scientist to be able to figure this out) and removing digital artifacts such as blue hues in the shadows. The scanner - left to its own devices in the normal auto settings - will invariably try to capture max detail in the shadows, even though these shadows were basically black to the naked eye in the actual scene. In this particular scene, the sun was barrelling down this street at a very low level, and was cutting down the street at an angle (leaving a large portion of the street in a deep shadow). The path of the sun was quite narrow, and there was in fact a lot of dark shadows. I may have crushed the shadows slightly relative to what the scanner extracted, but it is actually pretty close to how it looked in real life. Winter sunshine is interesting in this regard.

 

I pushed this film a stop and that produced some extra contrast. I was impressed by the colors from the scan. All I did was pump the contrast a little and the vibrancy correspondingly torqued up to this rich level. I rarely if ever directly increase the color saturation of the files (b/c it tends to knock the WB out of kilter).

 

I think the photo has an almost chrome look. And I like how her shoe is pointing up like a leprechaun and how the show matches almost exactly the hair of the woman to her right.

 

Horses for courses, but this kind of stuff turns me on

Edited January 5, 2015 by A miller

[philipus]

Having said this, my edits are normally focused on [...] removing digital artifacts such as blue hues in the shadows.

 

I experience this too with my my Coolscans (I have a V ED and a 9000), it's basically a feature, I believe, due to the light source. Have you found a good way to reduce this, Adam?

 

Whether it is necessary to reduce the noise depends in my experience on how the image will be used, at which size/resolution, digitally/printed etc. One thing I've found works on some images to a degree is to use Photoshop's desaturate noise function (I forget the name, it's in the Noise filter). But I am very interested in other ways to fix this.

 

Grain-peeping on these images at 2000dpi (the linked text under each) will show the result. I desaturated more on the second and third images since they were pushed one stop and, thus, had more noise in the shadows).

 

Well, what now? | Flickr

M4 Summicron 50 (11817) Superia 200

 

Contemplative smoking man with large moustache | Flickr

M4 35 Summilux Asph (11663) Portra 400 (EI800)

 

Beer-drinking pretty lady | Flickr

M4 35 Summilux Asph (11663) Portra 400 (EI800)

Edited January 5, 2015 by philipus

[Doc Henry]

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Adam, I just scan some photos of my last humanitarian and medical mission with the Coolscan in calibrated RGB position (original picture n°1)

I tried to pass on LR to see , using "Auto Tone" (thus leaving the software processed for me) .Apparently there is no change in the image, except for a slight overexposure (picture n°2 after LR ) ,

 

I brought back to 0 as this better reflects a bit gray and not sunny that day.(picture n°3)

 

This is a photo in example that I post to see just the beautiful color of Kodak Portra 400 that you like.

 

I rarely touch the "original" photo because I think the M7, lenses and film are already do the largest part of shooting work for me.

In general I do not use LR, for the reason that it does not change anything significantly from picture before treatment.

 

Picture n°1:

Original picture Tiff>Jpeg , before LR :

 

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Picture n°2:

after LR with increased exposure to 1.6 . This is the only change in "automatic tone" (LR tendency to overexpose all photos in general)

 

 

Picture n°3

(exposure back to 0)

 

 

Leica M7

Summilux 50 Asph

Kodak Portra 400

 

Your opinion ?

 

Best

Henry

Edited January 5, 2015 by Doc Henry

[Doc Henry]

I experience this too with my my Coolscans (I have a V ED and a 9000), it's basically a feature, I believe, due to the light source. Have you found a good way to reduce this, Adam?

 

Whether it is necessary to reduce the noise depends in my experience on how the image will be used, at which size/resolution, digitally/printed etc. One thing I've found works on some images to a degree is to use Photoshop's desaturate noise function (I forget the name, it's in the Noise filter). But I am very interested in other ways to fix this.

 

Grain-peeping on these images at 2000dpi (the linked text under each) will show the result. I desaturated more on the second and third images since they were pushed one stop and, thus, had more noise in the shadows).

 

 

M4 Summicron 50 (11817) Superia 200

 

 

M4 35 Summilux Asph (11663) Portra 400 (EI800)

 

 

Philipus, it's hard to me to correct interior photos in my opinion.

Have you tried to push to 800 Isos to see ? measured, for example with a light meter exposure if you have an M4

 

... but your pictures still retain their charm like that

Best

Henry

Edited January 5, 2015 by Doc Henry

[Sparkassenkunde]

Thank you, Adam, for your detailed answer. As you I am not that dogmatic, when it comes to post processing. I tweak the pictures until the results suit me. That way I will probably not ever be able to show the very characteristics of the film I used. Sometimes I do more noise reduction, sometimes I pronounce the structure (and grain) even more. After scanning I mostly alter the blacks and shadows to preserve all the details and then I look for the right exposure. The white balance after scanning is mostly right, so there is rarely anything to change. Afterwards I use the luminance tool (mostly up to 15) and after masking I apply some sharpening.

 

That I constantly overexpose may be the result of using a non-calibrated iMac. I should learn how to better read those histograms:)

 

What really impresses me, is that your pictures are always spot on. That shows your skills repeatedly!

[A miller]

I experience this too with my my Coolscans (I have a V ED and a 9000), it's basically a feature, I believe, due to the light source. Have you found a good way to reduce this, Adam?

 

Well, what now? | Flickr

M4 Summicron 50 (11817) Superia 200

 

Contemplative smoking man with large moustache | Flickr

M4 35 Summilux Asph (11663) Portra 400 (EI800)

 

Beer-drinking pretty lady | Flickr

M4 35 Summilux Asph (11663) Portra 400 (EI800)

 

HI Philip - Pardon the delay but I wanted to view your (and Henry's) images on my iMac at home so I could get an accurate interpretation.

 

Hue-elimination is one of the most painstaking parts of the editing process for me with film scans. There are two types. One is due to underexposure. The other is due to the application of the WB, as well as the rendering of film grain, by the scanner.

 

I find that hues due to underexposure are often bluish in color. The manner of dealing with this depends on how pervasive it is throughout the image.

 

If the hues are merely located in discrete areas within the image represented by dark shadows (which doesn't really warrant any shadow detail but in auto mode the scanner nevertheless tries to extract as much detail as it can from the negative), I will typically try three things.

 

1. Sometimes the blues can be extra-prominent if the WB is too cool right out of the scanner. I typically try to right click on a neutral color before scanning during the preview stage in order to achieve a color palette that, if anything, is on the warm side. This can always be completely reversed in PP, but what it will do is limit the blue hues to a certain extent.

2. If there are other blues in the scene, such as the sky or jeans, I will sometimes brush over the shadows (making sure not to use the auto-mask feature of the brush in order to cover all of the info in the brushed over area) and then desaturate the brushed area from any and all colors. This is how a shadow should be - dark gray. This can be quite tedious, but I find that it often works.

3. If there are no other blues in the scene, I will simply desaturate the blue colors entirely. This is a blunt tool that may be useful in limited situations.

 

If the bluish hues (and other multi-colored noise) are pervasive throughout the image, it is typically a sign that the image as been underexposed. So not the fault of the film or the scanner. From what I can tell from the (very cool) shots that you have posted, they look underexposed. In other words, if you had increased the exposure by, say, a stop (or perhaps even more), you would have more information in the dark tones, and thus, I believe, less noise. In cases like this, a more aggressive approach of desaturating blues and crushing the shadows is really required. To deal with the multi-colored noise, I find that the "color" slider in the NR tool of LR does a pretty good job. A little goes a long way. Having said all of this, I don't really notice any excessive amount of hues or color cast in your photos (except perhaps a tinge too much orange/yellow in the first). So I actually think that you have these files in about as good a shape as they can be.

 

One other thing I try to do is focus on what should be the true blacks in my photos. They are often NOT true blacks b/c the scanner will invariably throw a slight color cast over the image as part of the WB. I often will use the blacks as a barometer of whether I have the WB correct (i.e., I'll play with the blue-yellow and green-red sliders until the blacks become true black). This doesn't always work, and sometimes I resort to brushing over the areas that should be true blacks and desaturating ALL colors in order to force the blacks to be blacks!

 

Of course, I'm not suggesting that the foregoing workflow is the right answer to the question that you have posed. I'm merely sharing what I typically do.

 

 

All the best,

 

Adam

Edited January 6, 2015 by A miller

[A miller]

Adam, I just scan some photos of my last humanitarian and medical mission with the Coolscan in calibrated RGB position (original picture n°1)

I tried to pass on LR to see , using "Auto Tone" (thus leaving the software processed for me) .Apparently there is no change in the image, except for a slight overexposure (picture n°2 after LR ) ,

 

I brought back to 0 as this better reflects a bit gray and not sunny that day.(picture n°3)

 

This is a photo in example that I post to see just the beautiful color of Kodak Portra 400 that you like.

 

I rarely touch the "original" photo because I think the M7, lenses and film are already do the largest part of shooting work for me.

In general I do not use LR, for the reason that it does not change anything significantly from picture before treatment

 

Picture n°1:

Original picture Tiff>Jpeg , before LR :

 

[ATTACH]477976[/ATTACH]

 

Picture n°2:

after LR with increased exposure to 1.6 . This is the only change in "automatic tone" (LR tendency to overexpose all photos in general)

 

[ATTACH]477979[/ATTACH]

 

Picture n°3

(exposure back to 0)

 

[ATTACH]477985[/ATTACH]

 

Leica M7

Summilux 50 Asph

Kodak Portra 400

 

Your opinion ?

 

Best

Henry

 

Hi Henry - Lovely photo! I don't really see a meaningful difference in the three versions that you have posted except for the brightness in the floor of the second version is excessive. In all of these versions, there is not meaningful range of midtones, at least according to my histogram. The sky is extremely bright and then there are dark areas and shadows in the main part of the image. What I would seek to do is bring down the highlights and open up the shadows. At max dpi on your scanner, you should have the latitude to do this in a way that introduces more midtones (especially in the branches and leaves in the trees) in the image yet still provide a vibrant picture. I might then increase the contrast just slightly.

 

I only had a very small file to play around with, and I only spent a minute with it, but here is the direction that I would go in order to bring the image in balance.

 

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Note that these same adjustment can be made to some extent in the "dodging and burning" process of analog printing.

 

Best, Adam

[Doc Henry]

Hi Henry - Lovely photo! I don't really see a meaningful difference in the three versions that you have posted except for the brightness in the floor of the second version is excessive. In all of these versions, there is not meaningful range of midtones, at least according to my histogram. The sky is extremely bright and then there are dark areas and shadows in the main part of the image. What I would seek to do is bring down the highlights and open up the shadows. At max dpi on your scanner, you should have the latitude to do this in a way that introduces more midtones (especially in the branches and leaves in the trees) in the image yet still provide a vibrant picture. I might then increase the contrast just slightly.

 

I only had a very small file to play around with, and I only spent a minute with it, but here is the direction that I would go in order to bring the image in balance.

 

[ATTACH]478047[/ATTACH]

Note that these same adjustment can be made to some extent in the "dodging and burning" process of analog printing.

 

Best, Adam

Adam thank you for spending time to study these photos, I noticed your advice

for contrast and midtones.I'll try to correct just to see

Yes it is true that what was printing may be different from the image from the scanner

Regards

Henry

[Doc Henry]

I always loved the relaxing and quiet side of pagodas perhaps more favorable to a meditation and solitude

sometimes necessary to every human being. The great space with green plants found there contributes

to this atmosphere

 

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Fuji Superia Reala

M7 50 Lux AA

I have not corrected this picture

 

Best

Henry

I did not notice, but I like the three clouds above

[Doc Henry]

.... a photo session in a quiet and beautiful place

 

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Kodak Portra 400 (a great film)

M7 50 Summilux Asph

 

Best

Henry

[Doc Henry]

Flowers are beautiful in these countries and Kodak Portra renders very well the color of this beautiful nature !

 

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Kodak Portra 400

I like the bokeh with grain in background, not possible with digital

I have not corrected too

M7 - 90 MacroElmar

(without macro adapter)

 

Best

Henry

[Doc Henry]

Thanks Stuart and Widukind for looking

 

It feels good to be in this quiet and relaxing place

 

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Kodak Portra 400

M7 50 Summilux Asph

 

Best

henry

[Doc Henry]

....

 

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Kodak Portra 400

M7 50 LA

 

Henry

[Doc Henry]

.... just to see the nice green color of rice fields far as the horizon , with Kodak Portra 400 (shoot from our car)

at right a farmer at work !

 

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M7 50 LA

Kodak Portra 400

 

Best

Henry

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Hallo,

Look here: Interesting Leica gear

[Doc Henry]

Buffaloes are widely used by farmers for the work of rice fields

it is more environmentally and more suitable for the rice fields with water

 

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Kodak Portra 400

M7 50 LA

 

Best

Henry

[philipus]

Philipus, it's hard to me to correct interior photos in my opinion.

Have you tried to push to 800 Isos to see ? measured, for example with a light meter exposure if you have an M4

 

... but your pictures still retain their charm like that

Best

Henry

 

Thanks Henry. The last two images are actually Portra pushed one stop. It was very dark in the bar. I am sure the moustachioed man was shot at 1/8th which really is the limit of my handholdability.

 

If the bluish hues (and other multi-colored noise) are pervasive throughout the image, it is typically a sign that the image as been underexposed. So not the fault of the film or the scanner. From what I can tell from the (very cool) shots that you have posted, they look underexposed. In other words, if you had increased the exposure by, say, a stop (or perhaps even more), you would have more information in the dark tones, and thus, I believe, less noise. In cases like this, a more aggressive approach of desaturating blues and crushing the shadows is really required. To deal with the multi-colored noise, I find that the "color" slider in the NR tool of LR does a pretty good job. A little goes a long way. Having said all of this, I don't really notice any excessive amount of hues or color cast in your photos (except perhaps a tinge too much orange/yellow in the first). So I actually think that you have these files in about as good a shape as they can be.

 

One other thing I try to do is focus on what should be the true blacks in my photos. They are often NOT true blacks b/c the scanner will invariably throw a slight color cast over the image as part of the WB. I often will use the blacks as a barometer of whether I have the WB correct (i.e., I'll play with the blue-yellow and green-red sliders until the blacks become true black). This doesn't always work, and sometimes I resort to brushing over the areas that should be true blacks and desaturating ALL colors in order to force the blacks to be blacks!

 

Of course, I'm not suggesting that the foregoing workflow is the right answer to the question that you have posed. I'm merely sharing what I typically do.

 

 

All the best,

 

Adam

 

Thank you Adam for taking the time to write so extensively on something - grain anti-aliasing - that I have been wondering about for a while. I posted about it quite a while back and got very good suggestions, but more thoughts are always very welcome. The idea of brushing over parts is something I hadn't thought of before, and I also like your idea of tweaking the white balance early in the process. Good ideas which I will certainly try.

 

As you note, the images are all quite underexposed but I had to limit myself in terms of shutterspeed, accept what would come out and deal with it in post. A properly exposed negative/positive is really a requirement for a good scan. It seems to me that while C41 have a very generous exposure latitude there is a "sweet spot" in terms of the "histogram" for any given image which will result in a better image (perhaps a very poor explanation). I find the metering system of the M (except the M7) somewhat blunt in this respect - it is the one area where I really miss my EOS 1N's metering, but the overall ease of use of the M system makes up for this drawback.

 

It becomes more tricky when one pushes the film. Here's a frame from a Fuji Superia 400 pushed two stops to EI1600. It was shot with at f/1.4 because it was a very dim room.

 

The first image is with ColorPerfect's Highlight-Clip and Shadow-Clip simply zeroed and with colour balance adjustment to my liking. It shows the grain anti-aliasing quite clearly.

 

The only difference in the second image is that I have used the black point eyedropper in one of the darkest areas of the image. This countered the exaggerated grain overall but made it stronger on the white of the chef's jacket.

 

In the third image, which I just add for fun, I have used unsharp mask "invertedly" by setting the Amount % to a low number (12) and Radius to a high number (100) with threshold at 1. This gives a slight contrast boost which I find is very pleasant without going all-out crazy like Clarity easily does.

 

More work could certainly be done on the image, for instance to lighten it carefully in places, while keeping the colour noise subdued, and working with the colours but this was just a quick test. It is evidently a pretty extreme photo. Superia is a nice film but at EI1600 it reaches its limit (or, well, my post-processing skills are exhausted).

 

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Best

Philip