On Aug 25, 2005, at 7:44 PM, Shel Belinkoff wrote:
... The problem with
using post processing techniques is that the results don't follow
the way
real B&W film behaves, so colors and tonality are conbverted
arbitrarily,
IOW, how you want them to look not necessarily the way B&W film would
record them. That, in and of itself, is not a bad thing, depending
on the
result you want. However, it requires that you become familiar with a
number of techniques so you can decide which will provide the
results you
desire.
...
Finally, from what I've seen using three different digi cameras,
even if
you're shooting in B&W mode, the filters don't seem to work quite
the same
as when shooting film.
I wouldn't say that "colors and tonality are converted
arbitrarily" ... rather, I spent a great deal of time learning how to
use Curves, HSV and Channel Mixer layers together, over the past
several years, so that I can get the spectral response and gamma
curve that precisely fits what I had in mind when I took the picture.
The issue is that different B&W film and developer combinations have
different spectral responses, gamma curves, etc. If what you are
looking to do is emulate a particular B&W film and do it as
automatically as possible, yes, plug-ins like the ones from
TheImagingFactory.com and digitalsilver, as well as others, have
mapped those spectral responses nicely in a black box implementation.
However, all they're doing, really, is manipulating the balance of
the channels, much like using the Channel Mixer or one of the several
ways of using HSV adjustment layers, Calculation layers, etc.
I tend to prefer to work the tonalities myself, rather than trust to
a plug-in, because I want to be able to achieve a particular set of
response curves and reproduce it with a wide variety of capture
settings reliably, and because I want to understand precisely what
the transformation performed was. I also don't like paying for
additional software to do the work that I can figure out for myself
in a short amount of experimentation time.
BTW: Since we're talking B&W here, I posted a half-rez version of one
of my recent People & Portrait series photos today for folks on my
other list. It was taken with the FA35/2 AL lens, and gives a better
feel for what a print from this image might look like compared to
what the web gallery photo normally shows. If you want to take a look
at it...
Standard gallery photo:
http://homepage.mac.com/ramarren/photo/PAW5/32.htm
Half-rez version:
http://homepage.mac.com/ramarren/photo/PAW5/large/32-half.jpg
Camera: Pentax *ist DS + FA35/2 AL
Exposure settings: ISO 200 @ f/2 @ 1/25 sec, Av mode
Godfrey
