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Made DSLR look like film in Adobe Camera RAW-Critiques welcome.


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<p>Got a wild hair from a previous topic asking for software that can emulate Kodachrome. It was the impetus that forced me to try out ACR 4.6's color tools in ways I hadn't before. Once I got into it, I couldn't stop tweaking because it was like sculpting color similar to my painting days many years ago.</p>

<p>Thought I'ld post my results and see what you veteran film guys and digital imaging enthusiasts thought. Am I close or way off? If close could you tell what type of film each image emulates. I derived the look from examining the color palettes (mainly split toning color temp appearance) of several Kodachrome sites new and old as well as letting my intuition feel my way toward the final goal according to what I remember from prints I got back from the lab years ago.</p>

<p>Some come across unintentionally looking like HDR, but all were rendered in ACR 4.6 primarily tweaking Color Temp, HSL, Split Toning and Shadow Tint sliders along with contrast and other tonal adjusts to emulate the dynamic range of slide film in general. </p>

<p>Welcome comments and thanks for your time.</p><div>00Saa6-111939684.thumb.jpg.72ffd3400395b598539fe0f589001097.jpg</div>

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<p>I seem to be having some trouble posting several images in this thread. I have a total of seven different images I want to post in this thread and the forum notice keeps telling me to not post to the same thread or something of that nature. </p>

<p>I'll give it another try. Here's another image:</p><div>00SaaM-111941584.jpg.2c8f43e201901730f9d5e9439ec173cc.jpg</div>

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<p>As far as I'm concerned that sort of program is used to enhance the colors. You've done just that. Which film it emulates is rather irrelevant, and I'm not entirely sure if it does so accurately. What does it matter to you? All that matters is that you (and/or other people) like the look of the picture. I like the more saturated look, and this program does a nice job.</p>
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<p>Nicholas,</p>

<p>Agreed, but this subject gets asked a lot and I've always wanted to give it a try and pass it by some seasoned experts here.</p>

<p>What's funny about this and quite enlightening is how dull looking the majority of my raw images that are edited to my tastes according to how I remember the scene compared to these images which were strictly copied by eye from several film samples.</p>

<p>And surprisingly it was quite easy and fast to get their using ACR's tools. I like the results but they just seem to look odd to me. Maybe because I've been so used to the way digital renders color.</p>

<p> </p><div>00Saaw-111945584.thumb.jpg.3d02f118839fc7e21fe3036695ec9e40.jpg</div>

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<p>I'm no film expert, especially not familiar with the higher end films you were mentioning (although my dad shot exclusively K64 as we kids were growing up), but I much prefer the more saturated colors (the after shots) to the stock ACR versions. I've been finding that every darn photo I want to "publish" needs work from the RAW file as LR sees it originally.</p>

<p>Cheers on experimenting, I'd say forge ahead and keep refining, it looks very good thus far!</p>

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<p>Nice looks. I agree that I prefer the slightly more saturated look, and it's what I'm often pushing towards.<br>

I'm not certain that it matters whether it emulates film. At least to me, it more closely approximates what I see - so pumping it up brings it more inline with what I saw when I pressed the shutter.</p>

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<p>Thanks for the encouraging responses.</p>

<p>Both the ACR default and the edited versions look nothing like the original scene. Pretty sure of it since I'm minutes away from where these were taken except for the two "tree" shots, so my memory is pretty good regarding accuracy.</p>

<p>I've seen sample images from other sites that claim to emulate a variety of film stocks with their featured software and none look even close to actual film images posted on the web which were old snapshots, the look I was going for as shown in this link:</p>

<p>http://sites.google.com/site/earlykodachromeimages/Home</p>

<p>I'm sure a modern pro shot captured on 4x5 film and scanned at a high end lab facility wouldn't exhibit the odd color crossovers and funky hue/saturation shifts.</p>

<p>All in all it was a very invigorating learning experience not only in testing my editing skills but also finding out how messing with color this way can induce an unexpected emotional response that kept me going with each tweak. I noticed the mood and my feelings and attitude toward the image would immediately change once I pasted the copied saved settings exported to an xmp file in ACR onto other images. It was like entering a dream like world. </p>

<p>There's someone else on the web who sells action scripts that give a very beautiful, professional, clean looking "pop" style cross processed look, but that look has been done to death already. When I stumbled upon this little editing venture, I realized the potential of imbuing one's own unique look to an image I wasn't aware of before just with subtle tweaks.</p>

<p>Photography is hard enough acquiring this type of uniqueness you can call your own. I mean look at the unique visual styles seen in images by illustrators like Howard Pyle, Norman Rockwell and Charles Bragg to name a few. There's not a lot of photographers that I've seen that can inject that level of individual style mainly because it's photography, not illustration.</p>

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<p>Greg,</p>

<p>The images were exposed for ETTR=Expose to the Right and tone corrected, but the correction wasn't just a slider adjust to contrast and exposure and saturation.</p>

<p>Below are the two first images posted here retaining the original tonal edits but zeroing all HSL, Split Tone and Shadow Tint sliders, setting Color Temp to As Shot and applying +20 Saturation in the ACR's main panel. I think there's a noticeable difference.</p>

<p> </p><div>00Sagr-111977784.thumb.jpg.9776130f8c6f3bd34ed4459da4986810.jpg</div>

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<p>Tim, im not sure you emulate anything..you just put some time and effort developping correctly with your new knowledge the way you where suppose to do it before. I mean, as another previous member said; As far as I'm concerned that sort of program is used to enhance the colors. You've done just that. Which film it emulates is rather irrelevant..i kind of agree with that.</p>

<p>film emulation for me or camera style is when you can pin point the exact look by saying " oh its a holga!" or "oh look the cross processing!"</p>

<p>What i see here is a well developped image, and you finnaly understand and see the possibility, and for that bravo : )</p>

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<p>You get the picture! I could post and post taht kind of simulation...but when a shot is just beautifull without bells and whistle, for me its more a good development than a film simulation.</p>

<p>*by the way, all here have been done in Photoshop from action i create years ago..they are yours for free for the past 3years i think..just get my email and ask for them. I got some preset also in Ligthroom that are pretty close.</p>

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<p>Tim, you've done some nice processing work. As to whether or not it emulates film, I'm not certain. In some cases it may, in most cases I'd say no. For example, the Lomo effect from Patrick is meant to make us think "Lomo," but it looks more like a Lomo filter than it does with any Holga or Diane that I have.</p>

<p>Finally, there is far more to replicating a film image that color adjustments. There is the issue of correct grain relationship for independent contrast level, color layer, exposure, and output size. As well, film response in the toe and shoulder reacts differently than a digital file processed in ACR. You can't get the digital file to work like film....because it isn't film. You can get close, but on print there will be differences that knowledgeable film users recognize.</p>

<p>A perfect example is using Nik's Silver Efex for converting to B&W and adding grain. It is by far, the best program available to simulate B&W film. The problem is that a DSLR will "see" the scene differently in many ways than film...be it in dynamic range, resolution, latitude, mid range tonality, etc, etc. Depending upon the output from the raw converter....and depending upon the raw converter used, Silver Efex is going to look different. That's not to say it isn't good. I use it all the time in wedding work where I haven't used real B&W film for the image. </p>

<p>Best of luck with the experiments.</p>

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<p>I appreciate your efforts and the results are interesting, but:</p>

<p>The tonal relationships still look like digital to me, Kodachrome renders the tones in more of a gradual fashion rather than truncating them as seen here. <br /> But honestly, Kodachrome is still brilliant in current form and the processing is excellent and easy to be had, so why is digital now trying to emulate a film with such rich heritage and unique properties? No matter how close you think digital is to looking like a specific film, it will never be, so let digital be what it is I say.<br /> And for what it is worth, here is some of my Kodachrome, the real stuff that is...</p>

<p>http://www.flickr.com/photos/23585735@N06/sets/72157612226326832/</p>

<p>http://www.flickr.com/photos/23585735@N06/sets/72157613088832861/</p>

<b>URL signature deleted, not allowed by photo.net</b>

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<blockquote>

<p><em>What you are showing us is that the Pentax has lousy color right out of the camera.</em></p>

</blockquote>

<p>I dont agree. What Tim show us is he didtn know how to correctly process images before, and he know learn that no raw converter will do the job for him. User of NX2 and DPP get good result out the camera using those software becuse those raw converter adjust the setting for the user, ACR, Apperture and Ligthroom show you a linear raw to start with and let you do the whole thing to suit your need. Its super easy to create preset once that will automaticaly adjust your image everytime.<strong><br /> </strong></p>

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