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I'm losing my freakin' mind

kevin

New member
B&W conversion is killing me. I can't consistently get the tonality I love from my digital B&W. Sometimes it seems easy, others it's just immensely frustrating.

I recently shot a few rolls of BW400CN for a friend's wedding and was reminded of exactly what I'm missing: the easy tonality of B&W film.

I'm about to trade my R-D1 for an M6 at this point. Talk me off the ledge, please. Or not. :ROTFL:
 

TRSmith

Subscriber Member
Forgive my ignorance of your camera, but does it shoot RAW? Are you shooting RAW or jpeg? How are you processing the files? Photoshop? Some other software?

Film is certainly wonderful, but digital has its advantages too. Don't give up yet!
 

simonclivehughes

Active member
Kevin,

Are you talking about print output or the conversion? You might try Nik's Silver Efex Pro if it's the conversion process that's the issue. You have tremendous possibilities with the software and you can save your settings as presets for consistency. They have a trial you can download.

Cheers,
 

kevin

New member
Hi, my camera does shoot RAW and I did try Nik's Silver FX Pro already. It still doesn't look like film, IMO, though it's entirely possible I missed something. Their simulations of particular film stocks were rather a joke, I thought.
 

Jack

Sr. Administrator
Staff member
I feel your pain Kevin, film is nice, especially for B&W :)

The biggest difference I have found is in the response curves; digital is more linear than film and creates relatively abrupt transitions in both deep shadows and upper middle highlights. Try creating a curve with a longer toe in the lower quarter-tone; a steeper 2nd and 3rd quarter; then about half-way through the third and the full upper quarter, flatten out the curve for a longer highlight shoulder. IOW an "S" curve with a longer top than bottom...

Even in that, you will not replicate grain very easily as it is differential based on tonal area on film, and then there is the highlight halation that occurs in most B&W films that is tough (not impossible) to replicate in digital. For the halation effect you can make an action that uses the diffuse glow filter with light settings on an automatically generated highlight mask, which renders pleasantly well, but still "different" than film...
 

TRSmith

Subscriber Member
I've really grown to like the Nik Silver Efex pro plugin, but the presets are only starting points (the film types are interesting to look at but I almost never actually use them). Regardless of which method of conversion you use, there's a fair amount of trial and error and adjustment that needs to happen to get what I want. There's no perfect one-click solution that renders B&W the way I remember it from film.

IMHO, the least successful method is to simply desaturate, regardless of the software used. Prior to my reliance on Silver Efex Pro, I would often add a Black and White adjustment layer in photoshop, play with the sliders a bit, and then add another adjustment layer below that (and above the color layer) using the "Selective color" adjustment. By manipulating the various color sliders, especially the neutral and white sliders in that adjustment type, I could often get some nice results. It wasn't uncommon to also add a curves and/or levels adjustment layer to it as well.

So it's something of a process. I like to think of it as similar to the time I used to spend in the wet darkroom fine tuning development times and formulas to get the look I wanted from film.

I'm not sure that my methods reproduce a B&W file that's as good as, better than, or if in fact it's something entirely different. But I'm liking some of them very much and feel they certainly hold up in their own way to anything I was able to get out of 35mm film.
 

LJL

New member
Like Tim, I think the options available to you in Silver Efex Pro are only starting points. The really nice thing is that you can start with one of those points, or from a simple desaturation and work up whatever preferences you have for contrast, brightness, structure (grain), etc., and save those as your own preferred choice. In other words, with a good subject shot, you can create the same look you now get with film. It may take some time and tweaking and experimenting, but once you have what is essentially the same "chemistry" working, you should be able to apply however you wish to images.

There are going to be some differences in tonality, but that will be more controlled by what the digital camera is able to deliver. THAT part is both camera controlled and processor controlled. I found that I was getting way better conversions in some RAW converters like RAW Developer and even C1 than from ACR. Those become your starting points for further work with something like Silver Efex Pro, which requires you to work from a color image. I think the tonality control, in this case, comes from RAW conversion that preserves or delivers the most DR and stuff that your camera delivers to your files. Things may look a bit flat in color, at first, but those become very important for extracting the best B/W renderings, I find.

As far as I know, there is no magic bullet on the digital side to get things quite as easily as you may now get from some specific film choices, but I think if you take some time, experiment with things a bit on good RAW conversions, you should be able to get the look you want, and once you have that, it will be a lot easier going forward.

LJ
 
A

asabet

Guest
I can relate to you Kevin. When I go a while without looking at B&W film photography, I think I'm doing okay processing digital to B&W. Then I see some film prints, and I am reminded what I was going for in the first place.

The best results I have gotten are with Alien Skin Exposure. However, I still can't emulate the look of B&W film. It's funny that you mention BW400CN, because I keep reading that C41 B&W film is digital-looking in terms of response curves. I've been using Ilford XP2, again for the convenience of C41, and I still see better results than I get with digital.
 

fotografz

Well-known member
I often have to convert hundreds of images to B&W, and have tried just about everything.

Film still looks better without even trying.

However, the best techcnique to get me close when working with digital is to process the RAW file with as broad a tonal scale as possible and save them out as a 16 bit RGB tiff ... then use the Gradent Map B&W in Photoshop.

Try it. It may surprise you.
 

robmac

Well-known member
I tend to find that to get the best B&W rendition, the technique varies by photo - the color and tonal of the subject(s) and background, the inherent contrast, etc., etc.

For some CS3's B&W adjustment and tweaking with filters (or creating your own such as orange) does it. For others it's the Gorman method or using Gradient Map (a very nice and quick B&W conversion) or Channel mixing.

I try and get as proficient with each and various tinting layer techniques as possible - working with actions so I can try the different techniques quickly if my first choice just doesn't bring out the best in the photo.
 

helenhill

Senior Member
Well Kevin
I'm in a similar situation
I still luv digital for the quick & easy fix and sometimes its Phenomenal But
when I see & shoot Film I'm transformed...its a Drug

Right now i'm just shooting film

& thinking about getting either the GX100 (cheap) or the up & coming DP2
just to have a small compact in my pocket
(unfortunately I sold my Grd 1 & 2)

Cheers -Helen
 
K

karrphoto

Guest
I haven't tried Nik's software, but I do love.. Alien Skin Exposure 2. Somehow they did figure out how to emulate some good emulsions.. hopefully one day they'll come out with an expansion pack!
 
N

nei1

Guest
Digital is different.Grain cannot be painted on..Why pay for an m8 if you want film grain,(inexplicable).Digital is beautiful,film is beautiful.______ Digital is different.

(large number of expletives removed)
 

Guy Mancuso

Administrator, Instructor
I often have to convert hundreds of images to B&W, and have tried just about everything.

Film still looks better without even trying.

However, the best techcnique to get me close when working with digital is to process the RAW file with as broad a tonal scale as possible and save them out as a 16 bit RGB tiff ... then use the Gradent Map B&W in Photoshop.

Try it. It may surprise you.
Works pretty good Marc

Watch this normal color number one
Number 2 is the gradient map
Number 3 is selecting B&W in the adjustments and hitting auto.

The gradient map seems to give a broader tonal range
 

Jack

Sr. Administrator
Staff member
There are also some very nifty tricks to converting to B&W during raw, and with C1 you can assign this as a dedicated "recipe" thus generating multiple output versions on the fly... (Of course C1 has some nice built-in B&W profiles too!)

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 :)
 

kevin

New member
Hi Marc, long time no see. :D It's funny how people working separately will often reach the same conclusion....I've noticed that if I make my digital file look good in color, then a simple click of the gradient map is all it takes to make a nice-looking "standard" B&W image.

I do feel slightly less crazy after doing a bit more research this weekend. I've been trying to consolidate my workflow and make a decision to shoot either film or digital, but it appears that the best answer might be to shoot both. I have yet to see any photographer on the web who can get digital files to consistently look exactly like B&W film; sometimes I can't tell the difference, but other times, ouch, my eyes! :bugeyes: :D

I visited Joe Buissink's site over the weekend and marveled over his B&W images. I was ready to plunk down cash to buy his processing actions, but it turns out he's still shooting B&W film here in 2008. Check it out and tell me these aren't the nicest B&W images you've seen in awhile: http://www.joebuissink.com/

And, FWIW, here is what caused me all this stress to begin with: I agreed to shoot a friends wedding at the last minute this summer and the only gear I had ready to go was a film body. This is a low-res JPEG scan of Kodak BW400CN with minimal PS work:



Resolution be damned, that's the look I like. :)
 

Guy Mancuso

Administrator, Instructor
Well just for kicks I processed it again in C1 and selected B&W panchromatic from the styles menu. This also looks real nice
 

Jack

Sr. Administrator
Staff member
Resolution be damned, that's the look I like. :)
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 :)
 
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