Kodachrome Project

[Jossie]

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I am puzzled, that the importance of colour management, i.e. use of an IT8-target, is not discussed extensively in this context. Here is a scan of my Kodachrome target with my DigitDia6000 displayed without colour management. It has a blue colour cast:

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If I apply the ICC-profile, the colour cast is gone, see next post.

Hermann-Josef

 

 

[Jossie]

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[Cronilux]

@Jossie there is no doubt that scanning and correctly profiling is a huge point. Unfortunately I don’t own a single kodachrome print. So the question is, has Kodachrome a blue cast or not, when printed?

[a.noctilux]

Blue cast is common in Kodachrome or other slides, when not projected.

As those slides were created for screen projection with common "halogen tungsten bulb" at about 3 000 K , so when not projected

those slides look "with some blue cast" with daylight or light table.

 

I know that long ago when I wanted some favorite Kodachrome printed on Cibachrome, the prints compared to original Kodachrome slide side by side.

When printed, the slide blue cast is always corrected for daylight view of the print ( about  5 000 K ) .

 

 

[Anthony Healy]

Firstly KODACHROME Film was a fine grained b&W emulsion that had dyes added to it in processing (Google K14 process) For that reason the cyan dye that was used was much more stable, and very different to the dyes used in film using coloured couplers. (dyes in the emulsion). Scanner's default settings were for all films using couplers dyes . Therefore when a Kodachrome slide was scanned at this profile the result had a blue cast. The Silverfast scanning software produced by  the German company LaserSoft provided three profile options when Scanning i.e. Negative, Slide and Kodachrome. Selecting the latter meant that it took into consideration  the difference between the coupler cyan dye and the special Kodachrome cyan dye.

[Jossie]

@Anthony Healy 

8 hours ago, Anthony Healy said:

Selecting the latter meant that it took into consideration  the difference between the coupler cyan dye and the special Kodachrome cyan dye.

To my experience this is not correct. The colours do not change, if I switch from "Positive" to "Kodachrome" in SilverFast and manually chose the same ICC-profile. The Kodachrome setting selects another ICC profile as the Positive setting, which is just for convenience. Most importantly, it affects the operation of the dust and scratch removal.

@a.noctilux The blue cast is due to the different response of the CCD detectors in the scanner compared to the human eye to the properties of the emulsion. There is almost no difference between the E6-emulsions. So an Ektachrome ICC-profile can quite well be used for a Fuji-slide. But with K14-material there is a huge difference, so an Ektachrome profile cannot be successfully used for a Kodachrome slide and vice versa.

Hermann-Josef

 

[Exodies]

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It seems to me that some photographers knew far more about the properties of film than any photographers know about digital sensors. Was there less trade secrecy, or was film around long enough for facts to leak? Perhaps I’m not reading the right web sites but digital sensors are completely opaque both in intention and implementation.

[a.noctilux]

I understood when I wanted to "replicate" my slides to "files", how difficult that can be to duplicate the emotions of slide projections.

I forgot that slides are "finished product" (to be projected as is with the projector on the market and must please customers).

With "files" we can do what we want with them and we can make them "finished products" to please us more or less at will.

So I gave up "replicate" my slides and just project them once in a while 😇.

 

But meanwhile, this thread is very interesting to:

- the "Kodachrome looks" changed over time since the first 10 ASA

- the Kodachrome look can be duplicate at will with digital files then

this can be change at will depending on the calibrated/or not user's digital workflow

- nothing common as Kodachrome II, X, 25, 64, 200 or first Kodachrome 10ASA

- Kodachrome(s) ARE the best slides (for me to be projected ) and can not be duplicate by any means

Edited July 10, 2019 by a.noctilux

[Jossie]

@Exodies 

2 hours ago, Exodies said:

digital sensors are completely opaque both in intention and implementation

I am an astronomer who had worked with digital detectors for 30 years. So it is difficult for me to help you without knowing what you mean by "intension" and "implementation". It is very important to understand the basic principles of colour management. Since without colour management it is not possible to get device independent colours. The basic difference is as follows:

Slides show their "true" colours (and here Kodachrome is unbeatable) if illuminated by sunlight and viewed by the human eye. If you scan a slide, it is illuminated by LED light, "viewed" by a digital detector (most likely a CCD) and then displayed on a monitor to be viewed by the human eye. The spectrum of an LED bundle (even if it "white") is quite different from sunlight. And the spectral sensitivity of the CCD is far different from the human eye and again the monitor does not emit sunlight ...

These differences are to be calibrated out by colour management.

 @a.noctilux

2 hours ago, a.noctilux said:

Kodachrome(s) ARE the best slides (for me to be projected ) and can not be duplicate by any means

I completely agree! The best scan displayed on an excellent, wide gamut monitor will not be as brilliant as the original Kodachrome slide. I am disappointed by that fact over and over again. But such is life!

Hermann-Josef

[a.noctilux]

 

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This lovely scene can represent for me "K25 look" include emotions 😉

Leica M5, Summilux-M 75mm, outside Louvre, Paris

Kodachrome 25 scanned "at best" with Nikon Coolscan V ED , in 2008

the K25 dated some decades ago,

and the M5 has no 75 framelines which explains the soso framing

(cutting some parents's limbs , sorry)

[a.noctilux]

Then the other "K25 look" which has nothing in common

with the former post

( or maybe the lovely flesh tone ? )

 

 

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Noctilux 1/50 on Kodachrome 25,

quite long time ago, probably with M5

[Anthony Healy]

I scan my Kodachrome slides to turn them into books, diaries of trips I have been on. The idea is to have the emotional feel of the printed image that I get from the projected image. The result has to be a compromise because a projected image will have a larger gamut of tones than a printed image.Attached are some digitised image used to make the books and I feel they convey what I feel when looking at the projected slide, I also use Photoshop to clean up the image and make any changes necessary to achieve the end result. Something you could never do with a 35mm slide. Most of these were shot on an R3 around 1984 -1990. I have just found out I cannot load the other two examples.

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[Anthony Healy]

Jossie Well you would be familiar with David Malin's technique using film to create those magnificent images of nebulae and space.

[Anthony Healy]

I'm trying to attached the other 3 images.

 

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[Jossie]

@Anthony Healy

6 hours ago, Anthony Healy said:

Well you would be familiar with David Malin's technique using film to create those magnificent images of nebulae and space.

Yes, this is what is called unsharp masking in the image processing software. I rarely use it since it only gives the illusion of sharper images.

Which scanner did you use and which scan software for the above images? Did you use an ICC-profile or did you adjust the colours in PhotoShop?

Hermann-Josef

[Anthony Healy]

Most were done with a Microtek ArtixScan 4000tf using Lasersoft software set to "Kodachrome" profile. Most Photoshop corrections were for Brightness of a selected area. Kodachrome's short tonal range was a real problem when you had black and white major portions in the picture. HDR is a great addition to digital imagery.

[Jossie]

@Anthony Healy

1 hour ago, Anthony Healy said:

Lasersoft software set to "Kodachrome" profile

This means, as noted above, that the ICC-profile set up with the CMS in Kodachrome-mode is used. Was this the profile supplied by LaserSoft? If so, the colours are not perfect. You might want to take a look at this comparison with profiles generated by other (free) software. I get the best profiles with Argyll (which is internally used by CoCa).

1 hour ago, Anthony Healy said:

Kodachrome's short tonal range was a real problem when you had black and white major portions in the picture.

Yes, the brightness range covered with slide emulsions is considerably less than that with colour negatives. In this situation also the dust and scratch removal iSRD has severe problems. If you set it to "auto" corrections are done all over the place, sometimes producing artefacts. If you reduce the detection, the corrections in bright portions of the image deteriorates.

Hermann-Josef

[a.noctilux]

 

"Old" Kodachrome 25 or 64 scanned recently

with bold colors with different Leica M lenses on M4/M5/Mx

train jaune "Canari" when it was "open deck" some decades ago

 

 

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Purely coincidental,

with this train accident, some days ago

 

[a.noctilux]

 

Colors of same subject can vary when lighting changed

with same roll of Kodachrome which tells a lot how

difficult to imitate it's look

 

 

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Hallo,

Look here: Interesting Leica gear

[a.noctilux]

At last same train

on Kodachrome, same Leica M setup

winter light (february 1985)

 

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