Tips, hints, styles, recipes for B&W conversion C1 6.x pro
Hiya,
We don't seem to get many questions on the forum about techniques, tips or recipes on processing actual images. Most of the postings seem to be about Capture one itself, open CL drivers, bugs, crashes and un-supported raw files. I thought I'd ask a question about technique for a change...
I'm interested in trying to replicate the style of 'classic' B&W film, developing and paper combinations. I have C1 6.x Pro (for Windows) and am aware of the B&W tools, the colour editor, RGB curves and levels etc. available so am really looking for some tips, guidance, tutorials on how to combine these tools (and maybe share styles) to produce some really nice B&W conversions.
The results I get look a bit too much like digital colour images that have been converted to B&W (if you see what I mean) and that isn't quite what I'm after. B&W films and paper are all based on chemistry and its non linear (and imperfect) response to light/chemicals. I've been attempting to mimic these non-linear responses in C1 but am struggling to get the results I'm after as there are a huge number of permutations of adjustments that can be made and they all interact with each other to some extent.
Can anyone offer any guidance and share some tips?
Cheers
Spike
We don't seem to get many questions on the forum about techniques, tips or recipes on processing actual images. Most of the postings seem to be about Capture one itself, open CL drivers, bugs, crashes and un-supported raw files. I thought I'd ask a question about technique for a change...
I'm interested in trying to replicate the style of 'classic' B&W film, developing and paper combinations. I have C1 6.x Pro (for Windows) and am aware of the B&W tools, the colour editor, RGB curves and levels etc. available so am really looking for some tips, guidance, tutorials on how to combine these tools (and maybe share styles) to produce some really nice B&W conversions.
The results I get look a bit too much like digital colour images that have been converted to B&W (if you see what I mean) and that isn't quite what I'm after. B&W films and paper are all based on chemistry and its non linear (and imperfect) response to light/chemicals. I've been attempting to mimic these non-linear responses in C1 but am struggling to get the results I'm after as there are a huge number of permutations of adjustments that can be made and they all interact with each other to some extent.
Can anyone offer any guidance and share some tips?
Cheers
Spike
0
-
I think discussing techniques is a very good idea AFA enhancing this forum...I haven't experimented much with altering B/W, as I find the B/w profiles included are extremely accurate to my way of thinking, especially the panchromatic version.
If you use that as a starting point...what are you missing? I realize this is very subjective and depends on one's experience with film...so "what film was your choice" might be a better question..<g>....0 -
I don't really have a 'film' of choice as I've not really shot with B&W film. By the time I got into photography, as a kid, colour was the cheap film of choice and 'high street' developing of B&W had either disappeared or was rubbish. Of course, there were the specialist B&W labs, but they were a bit out of my price range and I didn't appreciate the benefits of B&W at the time.
When I see a B&W image from say the 1950s I see a tonal quality that I just love. I'm not into split toning or sepia pictures just B&W and it's this sort of effect I'm trying to achieve.
Here's a batch I did at the weekend
The skin tones don't look right. Now I may be starting from a difficult place as these are gig shots shot with no flash under very pure, coloured stage lights and this could be part of the problem. The change of the skin tone from the least exposed to the most looks 'wrong' to me in so much I'm not happy with the tone of the most exposed skin. The blacks have been deliberately 'compressed' to lose detail.
The camera is a Nikon D300, with 85mm f/1.4 lens (if that's of any interest to people). Now this camera reacts badly to pure reds, the red channel being blown very easily (early?) compared to the others. That could be part of the issue. I mainly do 'music' photography so the camera doesn't get to see much daylight, just pure coloured stage lights.
Cheers
Spike0
Post is closed for comments.
Comments
2 comments