syd

<p>David,</p>

<p>Addressing your last paragraph specifically - essentially I don't enjoy the look of digital - it lacks character and seems all too homogeneous for my money. This is why I still shoot film in 35mm, 6x7 and 4x5 ... the transparency is my archival original. I make use of it is the same way millions made use of it when Digital cameras did not exist - it is no more difficult now than it ever was before. I love film ... I love the look of film and the process of working with film; call me a Luddite.</p>

<p>Adjusting scanned film in post is no different than making adjustments to RAW files from a DSLR ... I just prefer film. I am making both high and low res scans of my 35mm work both for web publishing and also for gallery prints. It often amazes me how quickly people forget that vast quantities of the greatest images made in the 20th Century were all achieved with 35mm film cameras ... National Geographic made 35mm the standard for exceptional quality. I scan my film using a Coolscan V @ 4000dpi - the scanner has the exact same Dmax rating as Velvia ... so both film and scanner are optimally paired. If I want better than that or bigger then I get it done at the lab.</p>

<p>Nothing has changed ...</p>

<p> </p>

<p>This person has done a wonderful shoot out between Velvia, Astia, Provia, Digital and other neg films ... this was enough to tell me to just stick with V100F.</p>

<p>http://www.timparkin.co.uk/blog/velvia_astia_provia_pro160_digital</p>

<p>John,</p>

<p>This type of contrast was very unforgiving with scanning - not your run of the mill general limited dynamic range of tranny. I am talking specifically about the way the Kodak film was dealing with contrasty open daylight compared to that of Velvia ... perhaps it was me finding that the film did not scan very nicely with my set up ... I didn't have any such troubles with Velvia 100F.</p>

<p>Dave,</p>

<p>Not a bad suggestion actually ... I need to think about a film choice more as a platform that can deliver the best raw information for me to work with in post ... your suggestion is an excellent one and addresses all my concerns here. Part of me wants to give in to the temptation of wanting a film that already had some settings locked in ... like Velvia ... but I think this is a mistake because as you so eloquently pointed out, Astia will allow a far more complex balance of parameters for me to work with in ACR - after the fact!</p>

<p>I recall being underwhelmed in the past by Astia, the lack of punch etc was not to my liking ... but this was before the days of Photoshop ... I think in this day and age, Astia might well be the very thing I need!</p>

<p> </p>

John,

 

My last experience with Kodak was years ago with E100S and I found it very contrasty and prone to blowing highlights in open sun ... I was using VS back then as well and I found it quite tough to get along with the Kodak range at that time. The grain structure of the Kodak films was not especially pleasing for me either ... particularly in 35mm when compared to the fine grain of Velvia 100F.

 

The reason I am leaning to sticking with Velvia is that I like the pop and as you say, India and Nepal are worlds for colour photography. Having said that ... any film can be treated with the ACR sliders and given an addotional boost to taste in post. Which brings me back to my initial thinking ... perhaps I should just stick with Velvia 100F and just make adjustments in post.

<p>Just had a search on images using Elite Chrome ... not my usual choice for a Landscape colour palette ... I've been using Velvia for far to long to change now. I didn't really like the Elite Chrome for the landscape images I saw, but it looked beautiful for the people shots I found ... using long lenses - example here ----> http://photos.photosig.com/photos/47/17/971747-95491039d572a868.jpg - this is pretty neutral with a lick of warmth.</p>

<p>It seems that the palette for Elite Chrome favours the yellows as there seems to be a warm cast in that direction ... Velvia tends to be cooler generally and tends more toward blues in my experience. I would think I can adjust for the same colour balance in my people shots in ACR so ... interesting.</p>

<p>Si.</p>

<p>Hey Steve,<br>

Sounds like a fab trip mate ... do you have any uploaded samples of your work with the Elite Chrome I could see?</p>

<p>Best, Si.</p>

 

<p>G'day all,</p><p>I usually shoot Velvia 100F for my landscape work but will be traveling to India/Delhi and then trekking in Mustang Nepal for a month during October. I want to take maximum advantage of the opportunities to shoot people on this trip and feel that V100F might not be best option for skin. Having said that ... the skin tones of the Indians and Nepalese peoples are not like that of Westerners so I am wondering if I should bang away using the same film and treat everything in ACR after scanning, if it is needed? I would like to hear peoples thoughts on this.<br>

I am only taking one camera back so swapping between films for Landscape vs People/general is a pain ... so</p><p># - Would I be safe shooting everything with 100F and then just fix in ACR post? Or ...</p><p># - Should I use two different films for the different subject matter and live with the pain? Or ...</p><p># - Should I shoot a different slide film to cover both people and landscapes, apart from 100F - if yes then which would you recommend?</p><p>I realize that with the Digital darkroom, I can add any saturation for a less saturated film in post but ... that would also apply to shooting people and adjusting colour and saturation for skin tones. Any suggestions?</p><p>Best, Simon.</p><p> </p>

<p>Ray,</p>

<p>As I stated in my previous... the lens is not threaded to allow direct attachment of filters. I'm looking at the Lee system currently to try for a work around with their push on filter system.</p>

<p>I have a 17mm wide angle lens that has no thread for filter attachment - the lens hood that comes with this lens allows you to screw a filter into it, but they are very hard to find and I am out of luck finding one right now. The lens diameter is 65mm, so I know I can attach the Universal ring from Cokin, but I want to know if the front of the Universal ring is threaded to allow screwing in circular filters ... not just attach the P style filters?</p>

<p>Thanks ...</p>

<p>Well I'm actually playing around with the brushes and proximity match and this is working better than anything else I have tried so far ... I think this may be the way forward after all.</p>

<p>Patrick,</p>

<p>I can't post anything right now ... what is happening is simple as described above ... the usual dark corners at the top right and left of a vertical night shot from the use of a 24mm lens. All I want to do is blend out the dark corners to show a normal colour gradation without altering the overall exposure values of what I have now.</p>

<p>Mike,</p>

<p>I haven't mate, no ... I am very new to PS so have not yet got up to speed with using layers ... can you suggest a quick strategy I might be able to follow?</p>

<p>I know the first thing off every-bodies lips will be use Lens Correction ... nope, it won't work for this particular situation. Here it is then ... I have a moonlit night shot in vertical with a critical object near the top left of the frame ... the moon to be exact. The top right and left corners of this vertical image fade into a very dark vignette and if I use Lens Correction in PS5 unfortunately it starts to affect the exposure range of the image which I don't want to alter. The moon falls just beneath the vignetting on the top left hand side so any liberal use of the Lens Correction sliders also affects the exposure of the moon in this area which is already at the higher end of the brightness range. So ... what to do?</p>

<p>I want to be able to blend the area's of the darkness so that they show no dramatic shift in gradation of colour, and alleviate the overly dark gradation of the vignetting ... any suggestions?</p>

<p> </p>

<p>____ The problem with web display is that not everyone uses a calibrated monitor, or a color-managed program for that display. ____</p>

<p>Yes, but further to that issue, doesn't monitor calibration also have as much to do with the values of brightness and contrast as colour? My problem here is in understanding how you get around the workflow for working images for web vs printing when the values of brightness and contrast are potentially so different on my monitor compared to what others are viewing online?</p>

<p>My question is simply ... if you calibrate your monitor and then edit your images in Photoshop and they look correct on your own monitor for web publishing ... what happens when you are dealing with a majority of the general public who are viewing your images at vastly different brightness and contrast settings? How does one compensate for this if you are a professional who uses their website as a means to selling their work or showing it in the best light? To me, my images might look great on the web because I have worked them after calibration of my monitor, but to Joe Smith they might be washed out or full of dark shadows because they are not using a calibrated system. What to do then?</p>

<p>I don't really get it ... it's not a question of colour space for me but rather one of brightness and contrast as much colour also.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Greetings all,</p>

<p>I am still very new to digital darkroom work and my question pertains to calibration of the home monitor. I understand that when we speak of Calibration we are generally doing this for the purpose of matching output for printing at home or for matching when sending work to external printers. Where does all of this intersect - if at all - with viewing for the web? Given that we have no control over how others have their own monitors set up - calibrated or no - how do we then go about calibrating our system for the best general viewing of our images online?<br>

<br /> # - Do you keep different monitor calibration settings ... one for printing and one for normal web viewing?</p>

<p># - If so, does that mean that you have two different versions of your images to suit optimum calibration settings? One version of an image Photoshop ready for the web to allow for the most general purpose online viewing, and one for printing set up with that in mind? Or am I missing something?</p>

<p>How do you solve the problem of the two different media requiring different treatment of your images and cater to both effectively? As an example - if I were to calibrate my monitor for printing there is no guarantee that others will have the same viewing of my images online as what I have at home ... how do you then calibrate for both web and printing and how does one solve the issue of needing different work flows for the same image depending on print or web?</p>

<p>Thanks, Simon.</p>

<p>I'm still shooting film ... 100% Velvia, scanning it and loving it. No test required for that ...</p>

<p>Joe,</p>

<p>You've gone over my head a bit with some of the tech stuff above ... I'm getting there slowly with this Digital Darkroom learning curve however so bear with me. One thing I should state outright is that my monitor is not profiled and it is just an office junker I have been using at home ... any minute now I'll be buying the NEC and will profile that correctly ...I will also try and profile my scanner as well. So how this Moire is looking on this screen is kind of a nice baseline for the absolute worst case scenario of people viewing the image ... in a way this is good.</p>

<p>Questions ... what is Nyquist?</p>

<p>Ok ... well it seems that even after I tried using Gaussian blur before Sinc resizing, while the result was marginally better than the addition of GB after the resize as in my first attempt ... even with the Sinc resize method, the moment I added a standard amount of default sharpening in PS, the Moire pattern appeared again. Now ... I haven't played with more subtle sharpening yet but I'll do that now with unsharp mask and see how much I can get away with before the Moire pattern returns to the area of the stairs. So as long as Sinc is used and then some GB applied, the Moire seems to be kept at bay.</p>

<p>Joe & Tom,</p>

<p>A huge thank you to the both of you for all your advice and help in this. I have managed to improve the result dramatically by using GIMP as suggested by Joe earlier - I selected the Sinc size option from the menu - selected 17% for resize and 300dpi for resolution and saved from TIFF to Jpg. When I reopened the file in Paintshop Pro I would say that the Moire is about 95% absent from the scene and with a little Gaussian blur on it I should think this solved the problem and makes the image quite acceptable for web viewing.</p>

<p>I just then applied about .50 of Gaussian blur to the steps and this renders the scene about 99% clean from Moire ... but I am going to try and apply the Gaussian Blur again to the scene BEFORE down rez with Gimp and see if that is even better again. I am wondering is this will allow resharpening of the stairs in post, without a return of the Moire patterns.</p>

<p>Best, Simon</p>

<p>Joe,</p>

<p>On my monitor, your original version of the steps is better than the last two you have shown ... in the last two I can still see some faint Moire but in the first one posted it is pretty near perfect. What did you do with the first one? Can you help me with work flow for this also? I should do all my adjustments to the image in RAW and CS5 anf then when it gets to resizing use GIMP for the final resize yeah?</p>

<p>Joe,</p>

<p>Thanks for the summary ... I have just bought Photoshop CS5 - does CS5 or PS have these resizing filters and algorithms inherent to the program or do I need to download them as a distinct external prog or plug in for PS? I don't know what GIMP is either though I assume it is a specific program?</p>

<p>Thanks for your advice and help here!</p>

<p>Hey Joe,</p>

<p>Thanks for sharing this ... I still have not figured out how to fix the problem and yes I did use bicubic to size down ... there are always various options in the drop down and being new to the digital darkroom, I'm not always sure which is the best option for which situation? What is a sinc filter ... I have not seen it in my Paintshop menu, where do I find it?</p>

<p>Best, Simon.</p>

<p>I too am one of those scanning their slide film and negs and long may it continue ... I've got the scanner, no point not shooting film when I'm still as happy as a clam in brine with this medium. Long live the Luddites ...</p>

<p>Best ...</p>

<p>Well after some further research it seems that Moire is not uncommon and that it is a strobing effect caused at different zoom levels of digital images where geometric patterns within an image begin to somehow match the exact same patterns in the viewing platform ... monitors etc ... this can also be made worse or better depending on the size and res of the image. Apparently there are programs which tackle Moire patterns like Neat Image ... so I'm about to download a free trial version and give it a burl.</p>