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I'm losing my freakin' mind

A

asabet

Guest
Then you need to add the curve I described earlier to your digital files -- that will blow the highlights similarly and block up the blacks similarly, and add contrast to everything inbetween similarly :)
I agree Jack - Kevin, I think the look you showed (incidentally, I like both the photo and the tonality of it, despite the blown highlights and blocked up shadows) is achievable with digital. However, the tonality of Joe Buissink's B&W work which you linked (thanks for that!) is something that I've not seen with digital.

This is a great thread. I had no idea about the gradient map tool. It is superfast, and I like the results!
 

Jack

Sr. Administrator
Staff member
This is a great thread. I had no idea about the gradient map tool. It is superfast, and I like the results!
It's also very easy to make it an action and then batch process a group of files :)
 

TRSmith

Subscriber Member
Today I went to a local photo shop and discovered that they will process and scan 35mm film! Largely because of this thread I have decided to take the plunge and have just now loaded a roll of Tmax into my Nikon F3 for the first time in about 20+ years. Holy cow! Wish me luck.

Tim
 

kevin

New member
Holy cow! Wish me luck.
And I bought some "real" (not C41) B&W film and I'm going to try processing and scanning it myself. Ah, the smell of fixer!

Good luck to both of us. :thumbs:
 

helenhill

Senior Member
Today I went to a local photo shop and discovered that they will process and scan 35mm film! Largely because of this thread I have decided to take the plunge and have just now loaded a roll of Tmax into my Nikon F3 for the first time in about 20+ years. Holy cow! Wish me luck.

Tim
WooooHoooo Tim!!
Three Cheers......
Can't wait to view your posts

Best to You
-Helen
 

TRSmith

Subscriber Member
Thanks Helen! Maybe if I really fall in love with film, I'll be able to resist the S2 when it comes out and spend my money on more important stuff. Like an old Rollieflex, or (gasp) a film M!
 

Jack

Sr. Administrator
Staff member
One more "trick" with the gradient map --- add a hue/sat adjustment layer between the gradient map layer and the image and adjust saturation to tune the final effect :)
 

robmac

Well-known member
Gradient Map does a nice job with great flexibility. I pick B&W (third from top left) from the gradient options, usually start with the smoothness at 33% and then clicking on the bottom RHS pointer to set it at 50%, play with the color slider on either side of 50% to get the initial mid point I'm looking for. The ability, as Jack states, to add a slight silver or platinum tone layer is also very nice.
 

Jan Brittenson

Senior Subscriber Member
If you want to try a RAW version, my suggested approach works in both LR/ACR and C1: First desaturate the image; then push contrast up to between 50 and 90%, (I start at 70%); now tweak brightness for midtone adjustments; then shadow and highlight sliders to taste for the shadow and highlight response; now back to contrast for final "paper grade" balance. Voilla, a pretty nifty B&W :)
The above is what I do for newsprint. In C1 after the tonal adjustments I go play with the color tool to tweak tonal balance. Most of the time a straight desaturation will look like it was shot with a red filter, sliding the center point on the color circle towards cyan fixes this. Also, when processing raws for B&W I use a fixed 5500K and ignore AWB values. I find this produces a better starting point for what the image 'really looks like' (so to speak). This also makes it easy to work with an entire folder in B&W.
 

MoJo

Registred Users
Hi:

This thread is fascinating to me, as i am always fiddling around with my conversions methods...... this was done with the Gorman action, then a Photokit Platinum toning applied. I think it was a tricky photo to print, as there wasn't a whole lot of mid-tones. I would like to know what you folks think, please!

thanks,

Josef
 

Jack

Sr. Administrator
Staff member
Hi:

This thread is fascinating to me, as i am always fiddling around with my conversions methods...... this was done with the Gorman action, then a Photokit Platinum toning applied. I think it was a tricky photo to print, as there wasn't a whole lot of mid-tones. I would like to know what you folks think, please!

thanks,

Josef
Hi Josef:

In general I like the image, it has great tone and good contrast, but I think the highlights look a bit too blown and the upper quarter-tone shadows are too "open" -- at least from a film replication standpoint. Maybe if you could reduce the overall brightness by about 1/2 stop it would cure both issues?


My .02 only,
 

MoJo

Registred Users
thanks so much Jack for your comment. It seems that my prints come out bit denser on the papers i print on, ilford gold fiber silk, and the harmon gloss fb al, so when i wind up turning these files into web jpegs, they seem a bit more open and light. Maybe i need to devise a curve to apply for web reproduction?
 

MoJo

Registred Users
Ok, I tried to match my actual print....(it is a digital file, btw, canon 5d).

Is this better?
 

Jack

Sr. Administrator
Staff member
thanks so much Jack for your comment. It seems that my prints come out bit denser on the papers i print on, ilford gold fiber silk, and the harmon gloss fb al, so when i wind up turning these files into web jpegs, they seem a bit more open and light. Maybe i need to devise a curve to apply for web reproduction?
Well for sure both papers have a larger gamut than sRGB for web so maybe... However I print my B&W's on Harman using my color profile and so get pretty much WYSIWYG output and jpeg conversions...
 

Ben Rubinstein

Active member
I've been using the Gradient Map method for years since Marc told me about it some time back in 2005. I add a little extra, a Local Contrast Enhancement (USM 20/50/0 at 60% opacity) and the results are really nice for wedding work.

For my landscape stuff I usually use the Gradient map with a B&W Filter layer on top and adjust opacity/mask to taste while playing with the B&W filter settings.

I don't have a B&W film background particularly (I used to manage a colour lab but that's a whole different story, I know exactly what NPS/H should look like!) so when I'm processing I just go for the emotion I'm trying to convey and screw matching it to film.

The shoulder is somthing I still miss though as a wedding photographer, with the new Local Adjustment Brushes in ACR/LR, you can pretty much replicate it, at least unless you try and analyze the effect. What I mean is that you can have the face perfectly exposed and still hold back the dress smoothly in a kind of 'shoulder curve' type way without having to mess around in PS with layers and other time wasting stuff!
 

TRSmith

Subscriber Member
I'm not sure I can articulate my first reaction to this discussion, I may be over my head but I'll give it a try. I know that it's important to have a grasp of the technical aspects of things like response curves, dynamic ranges, etc. But one of the most important factors contributing to the success of a capture (to me anyway) is a real sense for the light. That little tingle of recognition that comes when looking at a print in which the subtlety of the afternoon sun (for example) contributes something to an image that is just as important as the subject itself.

I often find myself being trapped by the exercise of trying to make every value in an image fall perfectly into place only to lose the subtlety of the light that may have attracted me to the scene in the first place. Maybe only the person taking the photo who was actually there at the time of the shot is in a position to judge if the light feels true.

For instance, in Mojo's example, I can't tell if it's morning or evening, Fall, Summer, hot or cold. Which makes it hard to comment on what needs to change or how to change it. Maybe what I'm trying to say is that perfect fidelity in terms of dynamic range can take away from certain images as much as it adds. Some interpretation and rule bending can enhance the impact of a photo.

In the example, the strong light raking across the ground between the truck and the fat lady looks weak and my mind wants it to be stronger. There are ways to make that happen, but they would likely move things into "improper" ranges. But doing so might actually enhance the quirky juxtaposition of the dog and the fat lady poster.

[whew, that was hard.... thanks for your patience];)
 

Jack

Sr. Administrator
Staff member
I often find myself being trapped by the exercise of trying to make every value in an image fall perfectly into place only to lose the subtlety of the light that may have attracted me to the scene in the first place. Maybe only the person taking the photo who was actually there at the time of the shot is in a position to judge if the light feels true.
Excellent point, and something we discuss on our workshops during editing: a "perfect" histogram does not mean you have a perfect image ;)

However re film, what I'm referring to is the way the film responds to quantity of light, specifically in the upper and lower quarter-tones (shoulder and toe). It is not linear as compared to digital, and hence with film, the mid quarters usually also steeper (show higher contrast) than digital. Hence when shooting film, we need to make a more conscious effort to capture the important light at the proper point in the middle two quarters, or "zone" if you prefer. We can do that in digital too, and should, but at the same time, the toe and shoulder need to be appropriately dealt with to benefit the image, and that's where good post-processing technique comes in. (An added difficulty in B&W film is the response curve doesn't hold co-curvilinear for the different color channels -- it varies with color and exposure -- making emulating B&W emulsions from digital captures doubly difficult.)


Cheers,
 
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