M9 cannot replace my M7

[BerndReini]

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Well, after I asked for help with a post about whether I should sell my M7 to help finance the M9, I picked up a few rolls of film that I thought would have been my last rolls of Ektar shot with the M7.

 

The thing is that there is one photograph that is so perfect by my aesthetics that I could not possibly give up on the medium. I know we have discussed this many times, but I will take the liberty of posting this film picture at this place with the argument that I have not taken a photograph in this kind of lighting with the M8 that even remotely resembles this look. The highlights are glowing like butter and the colors are so deeply saturated that it warms my heart.

 

I am very proficient with Photoshop and use the Alienskin Plugin, but please, if anyone has any tips on how I can achieve this look with my M8, in particular with regard to the highlights on skin tone not taking on a red hue, I would appreciate the input.

 

P.S.: This is a low-res scan done by my lab for $12 per roll including processing.

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[giordano]

It wouldn't have been a keeper for me, but de gustibus...

[Guest Essemmlee]

As the M9 is still vaporware I'd hang on to your M7 for a week or two yet.

 

I'd sack your print processor though - he's managed to soften this shot so that it's not sharp anywhere in the photo.

[St Clair]

Try exposing your photos on your M8 more towards the highlight end of the histogram, but not so far that it's blown. Meter the face of course on manual. I use this method a lot with my portrait work and find the M8 produces great skin tones similar to film.

 

I second the notion of sacking your developer.

 

Here's what i mean:

 

 

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[noah_addis]

With all due respect, I don't see anything here that you couldn't easily accomplish with the M8 or any other digital camera, if you wanted to.

 

Now there's nothing wrong with shooting film because you like it, or even because you enjoy the process of working with mechanical cameras. But there is no reason you can't get color like that with the M8. Though maybe I'm missing something special about the photograph since the scan is severely out of focus.

 

Can't speak of the M9 because as of now it doesn't officially exist.

 

I always expose manually on the M8, as other have suggested make sure not to underexpose too much, but also don't blow out highlights on a face. When I use the UVIR filters, set the camera accordingly and convert my files in C1, I find the color to be very accurate, and I also find it generally looks more like film than other digital cameras I've used.

 

Here's a very quick conversion from ACR (don't have C1 on my laptop) with no color correction. It may need a little color correction but it looks very much like film to me. (M8 with 21ASPH.)

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[BerndReini]

Thanks for your replies. Those are very beautiful photographs, but here's where they are different from this situation. St. Clair's portrait was taken in very soft, even light. Yes, in that situation, it is absolutely possible to achieve this glowing skin tone by overexposing by a stop to a stop and a half over key. I do this for fashion or headshots with very good results with the M8.

 

The second photograph is closer to the lighting situation in my photograph, and it may be just my web browser, but the color saturation in that photograph is nowhere near the film. Look at the reds in particular. When I dial up the saturation with the M8 past a certain point, things get ugly and blotchy. Again, I find it handles files better than almost any other digital camera I have used.

 

As for sacking my developer, not his fault, completely my bad. they are actually a very good and well-known lab. Try not to judge the focus, just the look of the image as far as color, contrast, highlights. The best way for me to describe the quality of color is to compare it to a Dye Transfer Print. Noah's photograph has a realistic quality to it, which I am used to from the M8. I do however like the dreamy quality, almost a combination of St. Clair's portrait and Noah's image.

[zimboom]

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Very nice everybody, but BerndReini your red is to saturate, no printer will render that king of red and also the yellow of the plastic bag also look to saturate, the rest is fantastic. Maybe a little adjustment in CS4 LAB color space, play with the (a) channel to bring down the saturation of the red. Hopefully it won’t alter the nice rich red colon.

[Jamie Roberts]

Bernd--

 

We've gone round this before, and I stopped replying after saying my piece

 

I'll happily help you try to acheive this look with digital--I know *exactly* what you mean by skin tones in the upper quartertone in bad light; I deal with it a lot (though in truth a lot of my job is modifying the light or creating better light--and that would hold true for film or digital, but a wedding aesthetic is very different from street shooting).

 

The red-magenta saturation problem is a "known problem" with LR / ACR. Colour sucks IMO on those programs. You need C1 IMO and you probably need a custom profile to get what you want in preparation for print.

 

Then you need to print to a Lambda or another similar high-quality high colour fidelity source that actually uses a quasi-wet / chemical process to get prints.

 

I think if you do that, and prep the shot in terms of toe and shoulder (always remembering you have a wee bit less DR than colour film and a lot less than BW for exposure purposes), then you can get the same final effect, since for print you're compressing a ton of that DR anyway.

 

So PM me if you like; I'm happy to help, but it takes too long through the forum.

[scaryink]

Bernd

 

I absolutely agree with you. The computer monitor is so much lower in resolution that it cannot in any way resolve the micro details that an actual printed image produces. When too much information is available on the screen it craps out and renders it as pixelated noise. I scan all my large format film using a Creo Eversmart. The images look absolutely horrible on a screen. The cheapest digicam looks far superior. Until I lower the resolution and the screen can resolve the data.

 

In the print is another matter however. I am obsessed with chromira prints and use VIP photo lab for printing as of late. They have great prices and service btw but are limited to the 30". The 50 inch Chromira is a monster but I havent yet printed a 50" + yet.

 

Film looks far better in actual print period. Digital looks better on the screen.

 

I really enjoy your work and you are a craftsman. The bs about your image being out of focus is typical digital speak. Sometiimes its critical to have high sharpness but more often than not it matters very very little. Its the content people!!

 

If some want to spend time in post adding fake noise and manipulating colors - be may guest. I call it fools simply gold. It may glitter but it is not the real thing.

 

Better run for cover Bernd as the hounds will soon be chasing you. Ill start running as well.

[Jamie Roberts]

{snipped}

 

If you want to spend to adding fake noise and manipulating colors - be may guest. I call it fools gold.

 

Call it whatever you want, but manipulating colors is part of color correction, and is part of a fine print workflow for film or digital. Manipulating contrast is also a key point that we do with analog and digital. Adding noise or controlling noise has always been part of a sharpening workflow, too. I was trained to do do these things on film, with developer and processing time.

 

And with film, a lot of color correction (but hardly all of it) is taken care of for you; unfortunately, with digital, you are your own film-base creator and lab.

 

But hey--don't do it if you don't want to You can do what you like, and those of us who shoot both film and digital aren't out to get anyone (and you know I like your work, too). But the pretense some film users have about its inherent "nature"--and the manipulation that does go on there, unseen or not--borders on the ridiculous.

[scaryink]

"Try exposing your photos on your M8 more towards the highlight end of the histogram, but not so far that it's blown. Meter the face of course on manual. I use this method a lot with my portrait work and find the M8 produces great skin tones similar to film.

 

I second the notion of sacking your developer.

 

Here's what i mean:"

 

Very nice image and I think you do some quality work. No one would mistake this for film however. Its all digital - and thats not a bad thing. Its just different. Like oils and acrylics.

[BerndReini]

Jamie, thanks for your reply. I know I sound like a broken record, but I have been agonizing over selling the M7 and getting this film back just started the whole thing up again. Honestly, I hate the inconvenience of film, so I really want to be able to get rid of it, but not at the expense of image quality.

 

Your answer actually reminded me about the ACR red problem, which I had forgotten about. What happened was that I went through my files late last night and I use Lightroom to organize my work, which of course then gave me the stupid red shift during highlight recovery. I use C1 Pro for selects but hadn't gotten to that yet, because I usually only print once a month. So thank you for replying. I will work on some things on the weekend and PM you with a drumscan and an M8 file that are selects and I'll tell you what the problem area was in that particular print.

[frasier]

Jamie:

I read this thread with great interest since I sometimes run into the same problems by getting the "right" colors with my M8. I understand from reading your posts, that you have a very deep knowledge about color - I read the forum almost every day even though I do not post a lot - and I am wondering if you can recommend some good reading about this topic in pp. I got the book from Dan Margulis "The Classic Guide to Color Correction" (in German: Photoshop Farbkorrektur) and I find it very worthy reading it. Actually I am currently reading it the second time right now and I am sure I am still missing a lot of the concepts he is introducing. What do you think of him? You also told Bernd, that he might need a custom profil for C1. Can you do it yourself or do you need any service provider for this? Is there a workflow I can follow to make my own profiles for certain kind of pictures? I never saw any information about this topic in any of my books yet. Sorry if I am asking to much questions all at once but I think this might be interesting for other forum members as well ...

Best Regards, Jochen

 

PS: I find the International User Forum much more interesting than the German one, because you can learn a lot more reading the posts of so many knowledable enthusiasts here. By the way ... I am very happy, that Mark is still with us in the forum

[BerndReini]

OK, I've decided to share these with everyone. Here are two photographs that are part of my portfolio. So this is not about which medium is better - these photographs are two different mediums and part of my favorites, so I want them to be as good as they possibly can. One is a drum scan, the other was processed in C1 Pro and worked on forever in Photoshop, not to change it or alter it, but to maximize its dynamic range and contrast. The problem area was the right ladies arm and shadow side of her face wanting to slip into unnatural yellow/ reddish tones. The exposure is what it is, and if I may say so, about optimal for shadow and highlight retention. My only concern are the skin tones. This photograph has been exhibited and printed in a magazine, so it is fine, but the skin tone could always be better, and I have spent a lot of time on it, reconverting it from the initial DNG, creating a new version etc.

 

I hope I won't be banned to the image forum because this is really a serious issue and a direct comparison, and again, nobody needs to comment on which is better. I am just trying to make a decision on what my workflow should be.

 

P.S.: I use ProPhoto as my color space when I convert in C1Pro.

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[Jamie Roberts]

{snipped}

 

Your answer actually reminded me about the ACR red problem, which I had forgotten about. What happened was that I went through my files late last night and I use Lightroom to organize my work, which of course then gave me the stupid red shift during highlight recovery. I use C1 Pro for selects but hadn't gotten to that yet, because I usually only print once a month. So thank you for replying. I will work on some things on the weekend and PM you with a drumscan and an M8 file that are selects and I'll tell you what the problem area was in that particular print.

 

Hey Bernd--no problem at all, and I hope I can help you out.

 

I see you posted two JPEGs to the forum. Do you have the RAW files for the M8 shot?

 

What exactly are you trying to achieve? Just a lessening of the "digital sunburn" effect in the shadows on the skin? (that's a very common artifact and drives me nuts myself!). Or are you looking for more film-like tonality across the skin?

 

One more question: when I think of skin tone, I usually mean the mix of yellow, magenta and cyan in skin; so are you talking pure colour or "texture" / tonality here?

 

Thanks! And if you have stuff to PM later that's great too.

[BerndReini]

Jamie, yes, you nailed it. The cyan/magenta/yellow mix is exactly what I am talking about. Texture, I'm not so worried about. You know exactly what I'm talking about, especially on her arm and face (the girl on the right). Btw. I am not knocking the skin tones of the M8. In situations like St. Clair's photo, it is really nice. Let's face it, my lighting scenario's are a tour-de-force for any camera.

[Jamie Roberts]

{snipped} I got the book from Dan Margulis "The Classic Guide to Color Correction" (in German: Photoshop Farbkorrektur) and I find it very worthy reading it. Actually I am currently reading it the second time right now and I am sure I am still missing a lot of the concepts he is introducing. What do you think of him? You also told Bernd, that he might need a custom profil for C1. Can you do it yourself or do you need any service provider for this? Is there a workflow I can follow to make my own profiles for certain kind of pictures? I never saw any information about this topic in any of my books yet. {snipped}

 

Hi Jochen,

 

I think Margulis is right on the money. You always have to read his books more than once to even understand, a lot of the time, what he's getting at. But they should be required reading even just to understand colour correction and print prep.

 

I also like his book dedicated to LAB correction, called The Canyon Conundrum, which is truly innovative. If you shoot landscapes (I don't much) it would seem to me to be an essential guide, but even if you don't, you can do some things in LAB that are very difficult in RGB.

 

Anyway, there's one more I like, though many people would find it basic, called "Skin" by Lee Varis, and it's one of the few discussions of skin tones and light I've seen at a basic level (and he even discusses cultural assumptions about skin tones, which is very interesting). His "Beyond Skin" DVDs are also great step-by-step "movie" instructions for getting good overall skin tones from any file--scanned film or digital.

 

As for a custom input profile, in C1, you can do this yourself with the color editor. Essentially, you can shoot a color checker and go from there.

 

But for me, to get a file that will eventually preserve the tonality of film (which is, I think, something to strive for, since there's a lot of history of developing film to look right portraying people, for example) you need to do these things:

 

 

• develop a working file from RAW (sometimes files if the DR is high). My preference is for a low-contrast shoulder in the upper quartertones and a boost in shadows, just to maintain as much detail as possible. IOW, sacrificing contrast (compression) for tonality and colour, and setting the upper white point and black point (unless I'm doing a merge for higher DR).
  
• use that low-contrast file to create a print file depending on what's being printed and how, and adding back contrast and final color correction (media dependent). This is where we get to a film-like tonality, not from the RAW converter.
  

So for me it's always a two stage process: like negative processing (RAW) and printing and enlarging (PS).

 

One of the best M8 profiles for red and C1 was done by a forum member here named Hans, but it's been so long ago I can't remember exactly I'll have to go searching. I also have a couple of "non-filtered" M8 profiles available, the high saturation "chrome" profile is a fantasy profile but if you like high saturation and contrast it's interesting to play with:

 

http://www.james-roberts-photography.com/M8/m8_profiles.zip

[zimboom]

First sorry for my writing, I’m not fluent English and I don’t participate to much, but this is my field and I need to express it! Here’s my 2¢;

I think Frasier as an interesting comment about Dan Margulis "The Classic Guide to Color Correction", doing colors correction in CS4 or 3 in LAB color space it would be easy to fix these occasional skin tone problem. In the (a) channel you only adjusted red and green tone with curve, in ( channel bleu and yellow tone, in (L) channel your only adjusting the luminosity. Always save back your work in RGB or CMYK, for your output purpose. In your first image I would play whit the (a) curve and in the 2dn image I would adjust the ( curve to fix that bleu cast. But again if you’re not familiar with LAB color space don’t hesitate to read Dan Margulis book, he’ll teach you a totally different ways to fix color.

I came from a sheet feed CMYK printing background, I would spent my day’s doing color correction for a living, and some people would send us some dreadful stuff sometime, your image are fantastic compare to what I’ve seen before nothing to be concern about. I use C1 to for my workflow, but some pictures require this little help from good old Dan Margulis!

He’s a legend in color correction as to HCB was with street photography!

Bernard

[Jamie Roberts]

Jamie, yes, you nailed it. The cyan/magenta/yellow mix is exactly what I am talking about. Texture, I'm not so worried about. You know exactly what I'm talking about, especially on her arm and face (the girl on the right). Btw. I am not knocking the skin tones of the M8. In situations like St. Clair's photo, it is really nice. Let's face it, my lighting scenario's are a tour-de-force for any camera.

 

Hey Bernd--

 

Well, the first thing about that picture is it looks worse in my browser because it's in aRGB

 

But gotcha--it's not just the profile doing this. I'll look into what I can do with the JPEG; but as I said, if you have a RAW file that would help, since you can apply the right contrast there without killing colour the way you will in 8bit space.

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[BerndReini]

Jamie, I'll send you the image tonight when I get to my drives. As you can imagine, I have used the hue and saturation layer extensively and brushed in different areas. It's not offensive the way it is now, but you know what I'm talking about. Don't even bother using the JPEG, it's definitely more subtle than that.