Velvia 50 - A penny for your thoughts!

[carlos_rodriguez3]

<p>To the OP:</p>

<p>It is possible to replicate the look of Velvia, but it could be more complex than we think. Some posters on this thread have suggested you to shoot Velvia and a DSLR and compare both pictures. The problem with this approach has been also mentioned. There are too many variables.</p>

<p>Non-linear responses is not really the problem. The problem is the quantity of situations the Velvia could be used for. You may match a particular picture using a particular set of curves fro RGB, but the next picture will not have the same RGB curves. Depending on how you set your experiment, you could see a pattern of response to color. In this particular case (and only in this case) you could interpolate the curves.</p>

<p>But the problem continues, because this is not a problem that you solve by interpolating two points in a scale of color. The problem is a multipoint interpolation problem (sorry, if this doens translate right). In the real world this means interpolation between differnt kinds of pictures (darkness, colors). The precision of your model depends on the quality of your formulas (for curves) your correct interpolation and quantity of points of references. You can use finite and matrix mathamatics to solve this problem easily.</p>

<p>After you have your model, you need to apply to real life examples. And you amy need to perfect it. So we are talking about a serious engineering project.</p>

<p>I have not tested many Velvia emulators before, but what I have seen is just a simple curve RGB to apply to all pictures. And this clearly, will not work correctly. However you may find a righ recipe for an aproximation without using complex mathematics. Is possible, but it will not be precise.</p>

<p>Why emulate Velvia or Kodachorme? Well, one reason, at least for me is that Kodachrome doesnt exist anymore. Even if I purchased some rolls on Ebay it would be expensive to send to the only lab in the US that process it (from Mexico).</p>

<p>Anyway, I would be interested in any Kodachrome or Velvia emulations out there.</p>

<p> </p>

[carlos_rodriguez3]

<p>Something simpler I just thought:</p>

<p>One thing nobody cannt argue is that Velvia should be consistent from one part of the frame to the next. So if we fragment each color of the picture by 100 segments. Red, Blue, Green and Greyscale from 0 to 100.</p>

<p>In your tests, check the response of Velvia to each segment of the spectrum and you should find similar responses to the same exact segment of the spectrum in all the pictures. But you need to evaluate RGB and Greyscale separately. Use Excel to take note of every value you find and create the curves according to each color.</p>

<p>Use several pictures to test your curves and it may work. Non-linearity is again not a problem because we are not using curves, we are using statistical values. </p>

<p>I hope this helps</p>

 

[timothy_gray]

<p><strong>THE OTHER GUY</strong> yet again...<br>

Les,<br>

I meant 35mm digital, not film. I shoot film, plenty of it. I should have made that clear from the get go, my bad.</p>

[timothy_gray]

<p>Les,<br>

Your comments towards me were pretty harsh. You need to lighten up, bud. You appear to have some unresolved anger management issues. Maybe switch to decaf, eh?<br>

Tim</p>

[mauro_franic]

<p>These complications to imitate apply to most films. They are the reasons why people don't just shoot landscapes with Ektar, develop it at the drugstore and convert it to Velvia in PS. Or why people don't shoot portraits with Velvia and convert them to Portra in PS. Or shoot Provia and convert it Tri-x in PS.</p>

<p>Or should try to make Tri-x or Velvia out of a fix sensor DSLR....</p>

[stephen_schoof1]

<p>I shoot lots of Velvia 50 so I guess I might as well chime in finally ... I agree that if you like Velvia 50 you should just shoot it and help keep it alive, but when/if the day comes that it's cancelled it would sure be nice to have a digital approximation. I'd love a digital body that has settings for Velvia 50, or Kodachrome 25, or Tri-X, or whatever (especially if you could use the Velvia 50 settings at ISO 1600, for example). I have a hard time believing that such a thing is not possible, at least in terms of creating a digital file that would closely approximate a scan of the film. Most of the photographs I enjoy are book reproductions anyway, not original slides, and as much as I'd miss slides on a lightbox or projected, shooting reproduction-ready in-camera digital files that emulate any film flavor imaginable would sure make a digital world a lot more livable.</p>

<p>However the complexities already mentioned are pretty daunting, so in all sincerity I wish you best of luck with it.</p>

[jorgen_dalen]

<p>There's a lot of anger in this thread. Are egos hurt because of a (too) demanding question? The question is perfectly legitimate - how to recreate a desired effect in digital pictures.<br>

I have shot a lot of velvia myself (the original 50 and the newer 100), now being a eos 5D user. I especially liked how green colors was rendered, unable to tell exactly what it was. One less desirable characteristics (for me) was magenta showing up, for instance in mid-day (gray) clouds. </p>

[danielleetaylor]

<p>My experience has been if you shoot RAW and have a film sample of the same scene then it's not too hard to duplicate the look. Nailing the white balance is the first and most important step. And by nailing the white balance I do not mean AWB or the "correct" WB, but the WB that mimics how the film saw the scene. Unfortunately this is not always 5600K like you would expect, and that has really puzzled me at times.</p>

<p>If you don't have a film sample of the same scene at the same time (i.e. same lighting) then you have to have a very good eye for the film you're trying to emulate if you're doing it by hand. You have to have some experience and a feel for how the scene would look on that particular film.</p>

<p>To be honest I'm not as interested in emulating color films and don't attempt it often. I love the freedom that digital RAW gives me to shape the color and tonality any way I want, so I don't feel a pressing need to try to perfectly emulate a particular film. That said, it's helpful to have some experience shooting different films so you have a broader idea of how a scene could look. Example: I see countless night shots that are perfectly white balanced. Those of us who used to shoot night scenes on film know that Tungsten balanced film yields a very blue look under the full moon, and is often preferable. You don't have to shoot the film, and in fact I don't think there are any Tungsten balanced slide films left. But if you never did shoot the film you get stuck in a mode of thinking you must have a "correct" WB rather than the one that is most pleasing.</p>

<p>When I try to emulate a film look, it's typically B&W. I have performed B&W conversions manually and using Silver Efex and Alien Skin Exposure. Both plugins do a very good job with their presets. Though you still have to tweak some scenes, they have plenty of tools to help you do that quickly.</p>

<p>Speaking of which, Alien Skin Exposure 3 has presets for the various Velvia films. I have not performed controlled tests to see how well they work. My initial impression was that they seem to work OK for some scenes if fed a neutral digital file. A couple other attempts didn't seem to look right, but again I did not have actual slides of the same scene to judge by. Some of their other color film presets work very well.</p>

<p>I did try Exposure 3 on some digital files from a location where I had some K64 slides to compare with. It wasn't even close. However, after playing with the WB I was able to pretty easily match the Kodachrome. That was one instance where the whole film WB thing left me puzzled. Kodachrome should be daylight balanced, but I couldn't get close to the K64 without first setting a WB of 4350K / +12 Tint in ACR. Go figure?</p>

<p>I have performed more controlled tests with the B&W presets and both plugins either nail it, or get you very close so that a few tweaks with their controls yields a perfect match. I have been very impressed with those plugins in B&W, especially printing to a 3880 in ABW mode.</p>

<p>I have a few rolls of Velvia 35mm laying around. Might be interesting to do some controlled tests against Exposure 3 and see what it takes to mimic the actual slides.</p>

[d_s40]

<p>I'm pleased to report that I have a Lightroom preset in alpha stage that does some very interesting and pleasing things with colours that may be of interest to digital shooters. It's managing to pop colours, increase contrast and, funnily enough, it's even turning skin tones red. If it isn't a golden bullet velvia setting, it certainly has the same kind of "psychological" effect as velvia. There is easily about 10 hours worth of work that's gone into it, and probably another 10 hours before I even think of turning it loose. The blue and green channels need a little more tweaking to taste. If anyone can suggest an upload site, I shall upload it this weekend.</p>

[mauro_franic]

<p>Daniel, there is a free trial of the Velvia plug in and I tried it for comparison. As you indicated, it is not useful to produce Velvia colors (same as all other plug ins I tested).</p><div></div>

[mauro_franic]

<p>I do not know of any way to produce Velvia colors from a DSLR (or any other film) without actually shooting it alongside and matching the colors. But then obviously it defeats the purpose of using the DSLR since you have a Velvia original.</p>

[d_s40]

<p>Yes, it is impossible to emulate velvia when it is used in conditions other than "daylight".<br>

As you can see, the alien skin exposure preset simply ramps up the red, green and blue saturation and applies an s curve.</p>

[mauro_franic]

<p>Yep. And even daylight may not be straight forward.</p>

[danielleetaylor]

<p>Mauro - I'm not convinced that's a valid test since Ektar is not what I would call a "neutral" film to begin with. And I have no idea how the scanner may have influenced the image. (You can't drop Ektar on a light table and compare the colors.)</p>

<p>You would need to start with a very neutral file, preferably RAW. The closest thing in film would probably be a portrait film. White balance may be a big issue and 5600K may not actually create a match. I would guess that white balance is a big part of the issue in your quick comparison. When I tried matching K64 the K64 had radically different colors versus digital for the same scene under nearly identical light, kind of like your samples above. At first I had no idea how to get the colors close and the plugin didn't help at all. Neither did any of the standard PS controls. Then I went back to the RAW file and started playing with the WB slider, and the colors fell right into place. A few contrast and saturation tweaks and it was a match. You can't exactly grab a WB slider for either film in your comparison, and Exposure 3 can't do anything about that either.</p>

[tim gray]

<p>Playing around with curves in LAB can quickly correct the majority of the color differences seen above. I'm talking about the magenta-ish Ektar and the gold-ish Velvia.</p>

<p>I have no idea which of the two is more 'accurate' to the original scene. Maybe the magenta or gold dominance in one of the scans (respectively) is closer to the original scene, maybe not.</p>

[mauro_franic]

<p>I will try to run a side by side with a DSLR although it is clear that plug ins do not know the time of day, season, direction of light or have mapped the individual responses that Velvia should create in this scenarios. They are marketing scams to me. Color match obviously didn't have a problem.</p>

[mauro_franic]

<p>Daniel, here you go, studio shots failed trials as well.</p><div></div>

[mauro_franic]

<p>Both color and black and white are horrific and have no relation at all with the film they claim to emulate.</p>

[mauro_franic]

<p>Did you ever develop those Velvia rolls from your trip? Any of those you may have a DSLR shot for comparison?</p>

[charles_ma]

<p>I am not sure if anyone uses the film type preset in Silkypix and was wondering your view on it. I won't say that the result out of Silkypix is anything like Velvia, but if you are after really saturated colors and good color separation, it seem to be able to deliver. For example, I believe this one was processed in Silkypix (not sure if film preset is used or not though):</p>

<p>http://www.pbase.com/henrylw/image/129648522</p>

<p>I am mainly a film shooter (just have a digital P&S) and Velvia is one of my favorite films for low light or cloudy, rainy days. I think the pic I referred to here would be dramatically different from the Velvia shot of the same scene and the color seems to be a little over-saturated for my taste. However, what I am interested in is that Silkypix seems to be able to have a good color separation, which I feel is one of the advantages of Velvia. With proper setting, maybe Silkypix could produce photos where subtle colors could be properly separated and be saturated but still relatively realistic. If this is the case, maybe software like Silkypix could be worth a try and could be a backup plan for me when Velvia becomes harder to get or when the situation is not suitable for Velvia (e.g. high contrast scene).</p>

<p>I know that it maybe a little off the topic but I am curious how people here think about Silkypix. Thanks. </p>

[d_s40]

<p>Here are some results from my last incarnation of my setting. I quite like it. The first is a typical flower shot, with foliage.</p><div></div>

[d_s40]

<p>Another flower with exactly the same preset.</p><div></div>

[d_s40]

<p>Is it a direct match for velvia? No, but it is influenced by it, and I'm extremely happy with the results. It works in a very different way compared to velvia presets for ps plugins. It is my interpretation of hue, saturation and luminance based on LR's camera standard calibration for the d700.</p>

[larrydressler]

<p>I can't belive this thread is still alive. Want to do one next on making Plus-X in Rodinol full stand for an hour at E.I. 125 a Digital mode?</p>

<p><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1353/5106016031_f5730b7204_z.jpg" alt="" width="409" height="640" /></p>

<p> Read the Message and just go on.</p>

[d_s40]

<p>Haha, well that's the funny thing about colour, perception and memory. I'm almost trying to emulate a feeling and not a static colour reference. I will be the first to agree with people in that emulating velvia, shot for shot is a night impossible task due to the chemical reaction that occurs at exposure that is near on impossible to emulate with a digital file.<br>

The closest we can get is if somebody with enough patience and perserverence, sat down and shot a scene, a colour chart and took notes on white balance, etc etc, and basically developed a program to say.. Ok, here is the white balance, here is a table of colour edits and this is how the photo will react. The time, money and investment required would be near on insane. I don;t know anybody that would bankroll a project like that. What would be neat is, if experienced film users collaborated in creating an open source reference for these edits and add to the body of knowledge. ;)</p>