And finally, a new preset. In fact there will be a couple of presets in the next few weeks. Primarily to save me time. A release of a preset I already have done take very little time, whereas the longer posts I have been writing take a considerable amount of time. Right now I got some pretty special projects I need to pay attention to, so I need to ease up a bit on writing to focus on these tasks at hand. Of which completing the guide to Cold Storage 2 is at the top of my list. Yep, I finally got another batch of Film Presets ready to sell, but I need to make sure the guidebook had all the tips needed to get the most out of the presets.

And then there are a few more thing coming up that I will fill you in on as time gets closer. Something big is coming, but I can’t say more than that except don’t switch to Aperture!

On the note of other projects, LifeInDigitalFilm has teamed up again with X-Equals; this time providing a collection of presets to give your creativity a kick in the pants. X-Equals and LifeInDigitalFilm are proud to release our newest product, Creative Production Presets Vol. 1. This collection brings together many of the creative presets that have been provided through X-Equals, designed both by Brandon and myself. With more than 75 presets you should have plenty to experiment with to help you unlock your creativity. At $14.99 this collection is a bargain compared to many similar creative preset collections with the added bonus to LIDF reader, a selection of film emulations including some unreleased. Hop over to X-Equals and check it out and consider supporting both X-Equals and LifeInDigitalFilm by making that purchase.

Now onto the matter at hand. We got a unique preset today that you would never see in the real world, due to technical difficulties. You never see Kodachrome treated with bleach bypass development. First, only Dwayne’s of Parsons, KS still develops the stuff so special processing is hard to come by. Second, the K-14 process is unique and I am unsure if it is even possible to perform a bleach bypass on the film. Finally, there is already some residual silver present in most Kodachrome slides, and if completely lef tin, the silver may make the image too dense.

However, I can emulate the probable appearance of a Bleach Bypassed Kodachrome. Obviously this is a stretch, but the world of digital allows us some liberties with reality, right? The Kodachrome Bleach Bypass preset has a tone curve and other setting reminiscent of my other bleach bypass endeavors while stealing the basic color from my Kodachrome 25 preset. I had to adjust the color on the Kodachrome 25 settings to allow for reasonable skin tones for the bleach bypass look, but aside from that it is still fairly faithful.

This is designed to be a fun, creative preset whilst staying in line with the film focus of LifeInDigitalFilm. The concept is firmly rooted in the traditional photographic world in theory if not in practice.

Have fun, and if you are interested in my more creative presets, not limited by the confines of traditional photography, check out my preset work over at X-Equals.

Until Later,

Michael

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Today I bring you another emulation of Fuji Velvia 100. The original version is available only in the Cold Storage Collection Vol. 1, but today’s version is quite different. This roll of Velvia I sot over the summer was over exposed slightly, exposed at a relative ISO of 80. I was just seeing what would happen, experimenting like I do a lot. I was rather happy with the results, toning down the saturation of the film a bit, even though the roll had a lot of highlight blow-out. This Velvia preset still pops the saturation quite a bit, but plays much nicer with skin tones. Be careful with bokeh though, at there is a high propensity for halos when using on images with heavy bokeh.

Luckily emulations do not suffer from highlight blowout like slide film does, so my emulation of this particular roll is a touch nicer than actually shooting Velvia at 80. I hope you enjoy it. Its different.

So, come back soon and see what else I have in store. 2 more free preset releases and the new Cold Storage Collection drops, so stay tuned. And for everyone who keeps dropping by for scanning tips, that series should launch this week, with the basics of scanning. You may want to grab yourself a copy of Hamrick’s VueScan if you plan on following along with my tutorials.

Don’t forget to drop by X-Equals on Thursdays to catch my weekly article over there as well!

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Its another Monday and I got another preset for you. This time I present, for your approval, my interpretation of Kodak High Definition 400, the fine consumer film Kodak produced earlier this decade. When I got back into film photography, I came across a glut of this film and shot over 80 rolls. Needless to say the look of this particular film is rather close to my heart. It is by no means a great film, but it was a solid film. The grain was excellent for a 400 speed film and I got lots of great images with it. It is a film I miss.

Now if you are reading this post today, Monday the 14th, you really need to click this image and sign up to receive the X-Equals+Digest. It will be sent out to subscribers in the next day, so sign up now so you don’t miss out.

Brandon and I have been working hard to build up some great content for you in this forthcoming issue. Twice a month we bring you great links from the web you may have missed, tips and techniques for Lightroom and Photoshop, answer reader questions and bring you a new preset every issue, designed by myself. It is a great resource for photographers of all levels and is absolutely free! Sign up today and don’t miss an issue.

Check out the previous issue on the X-Equals blog. The repost of the first digest is a one time thing, so don’t miss out on future issues! If you are reading this late, it’s not too late to sign up for the next issue. If you have missed the last issue and want to get it, first sign up and then e-mail me at help@lifeindigitalfilm.com and I will forward you the latest issue!

Until Next Time,

Michael

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Well, I am trying to get back on a constant release schedule. I hope to have a new post up every Monday and Friday, with new presets coming on 2 or more Mondays a month. I cannot keep up the rlease schedule I was doing earlier this year if I want to avoid burning out and taking a whole summer off again, and with my duties elsewhere, 2 days a week may even be pushing it. We’ll see how it goes, but I am going to make sure to get at least one post up every week if I cannot get two up.

Speaking of duties elsewhere, you have signed up for the X-equals+Digest, right? If not please do so, you will not be disappointed!

Well onto the meat of today’s feast, another preset. Today I finally complete the triumvirate of my Forte Fortepan collection I start almost half a year ago. I previously released the 100 and 400 versions of Fortepan, however 200 has been lingering in my Lightroom presets folder for months and I am finally getting around to releasing it. I feel it waited long enough.

Hopefully you find this preset of use to you. I am currently working on completing the newest edition of the Cold Storage Collection, hopefully it will launch in the coming weeks.

In the meantime, if you haven’t already purchased the first Cold Storage Collection, you can get it now for 33% off, saving about $3.30 off the normal $10 price tag. Simply add it to your car with the button below and when checking out use the code “LIDFCS1” in the discount code box.

Yeah, I know $3.30 ain’t much, but it is a discount, so take advantage of it if you have not purchased the collection already! Discount code expires one week from today, at midnight 9/14/2009!

Anyways, that’s enough for this jaunt, see you all next time.

Michael

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Alright, it’s been a while since the last preset release, but most of this WordPress switch is over and it is time to get to putting some material back out again! Today I bring you another preset, this time simulating the old, cheap Polaroid High Definition 200 35mm film that could once be found on the shelves of Wal-Mart in the USA.  I really want to say that this film was actually manufactured by 3M, but I am not sure.   Look close on the sample above, the look similare at first glance, but if you look close, the right side is noticably different. It is subtle, but it is there.

This preset was devloped from a roll of film that was found in the bottom of a closet earlier this year.  It had probably sat for years before ever getting loaded in my Minolta X-700 and I am estimating that it had expired in the late 90’s or early 2000’s.  Anyways, after I scanned in the roll of film, I found it had a strong blue cast to it.  Normally I create the preset as scanned, but I decided I would go ahead an release a corrected version, trying for that original show room floor look.  I will be releasing the “expired” version of this film soon as well.

Anyways, the download is below, I hope you enjoy it.  Be warned, the reds can be hars on skin tones of those with blemishes, so if that is an issue lower the saturation of the red channel in your image.  As you apply this preset to more images, you will see more of the difference it can make on an image.

Hopefully some one enjoys this preset.

Anyways, if you have not noticed, I have been writing on an almost weekly basis over at X-Equals.  Normally I have an article up on Brandon’s blog on Thursdays, but this week we have been working on something special.  Tomorrow Brandon is launching his new X-Equals+Digest, a twice a month e-mail digest serving up new content not seen on the X-Equals website, and I am a major contributor to his efforts.  Sign up for his new digest here, doing so will provide you with exclusive content available only to his subscribers and you wil be helping me out as well as I am heavily involved in helping him with this project.  If you sign up soon you will get an all-new preset designed by me when the digest goes live tomorrow.  So sign up, you will be doing a good thing!

Until next time (which will be sooner than last time)

Michael

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[Download updated 8/31/2009 with the ACR presets now included.]

Hey everyone, it’s been a while, but it is finally time to resurrect LIDF from the ashes created by all my personal issues from the past few months. LIDF will now update on Saturdays and Wednesdays, with new articles, presets, reviews and my own rants. We will be taking a voyage more into film as we proceed, as I am now shooting film ten times more than digital. But LIDF will not be completely film based, as I will continue to feature Lightroom tips and presets on a regular basis.

Part of the reason I am shifting some focus to film on LIDF is because one needs to know about film to properly simulate the look of film. In fact you should shoot a roll or two regularly to make sure you are achieving the desired look when faking it. For more reasons to shoot film, check out my recent article over at the X-Equals blog +Improving Digital Photography with Film. As I shoot film to make more and improve existing emulation presets, I get more and more attached to the process. In fact, I am currently working on a series of articles covering a workflow for using film within Lightroom, from shooting, to scanning to processing. Watch for it in coming weeks.

I will be posting some film reviews pretty soon too. Hopefully by sharing my results with different films and providing you with links to get quality film stocks, you will be more likly to splurge on a roll or two.

But enough of all that, you probably want to get to the long-awaited new preset. Well today it is kind of a “beta” preset I am sharing. This preset was made in a few hours just today. It all started with me going out looking at yard sales, hoping to find some film gear. After an unsuccessful jaunt, no cameras or film today, I decided to drop by my local discount grocery store. You never know what these dent and bang stores may have inside their doors, and today I was rewarded with quite a haul. I mention to the shopkeep what I was seeking and she went in the back room and brought out a box of film, which I promptly bought for 12 dollars. Digging into the box, I came out with 17 rolls of 35 mm, 6 rolls of 110 and 4 rolls of APS film. All expired and of varying amounts of Kodak, Fuji and Ferrania store-brand films. But the big surprise was two lonely boxes of Polaroid 600 sitting at the bottom of the box. I have been wanting to get some 600 film to emulate, but the cost was rather prohibitive to me. Locally I can only find expired 600 integral film for about $15. But I got 2 boxes for $12, with 27 boxes of traditional filn for free!

So in celebration, I got home, shot my emulation targets and scanned in the Polaroids with my Epson V500. This is not the method I usually use for emulation. Although my system is color calibrated, I usually test my film for emulation out at a local optics lab, getting some baseline information on color response before I start my emulation.No time for that today, I have wanted a Polaroid 600 emulation in my catalog for quite some time, and now I had the needed tools to make one. So I did a quick and dirty emulation using the tools I have at home. So this is kind of a “beta” preset, as I am going to do my normal, in-depth analysis and then emulate again. But this one should get you playing with virtual Polaroid 600 until I get to a proper emulation in a few months.

This also got me back to writing LIDF. I have been building up a series of articles and reviews the past few months, and I have enough material ready to keep up a consistent schedule for a while. So with out further ado, the download….

Damn, it’s nice to see my crappy download icon again!

Anyways, enjoy the new release. More will be coming soon. And if you have been suffering from a shortage of my ramblings and creations, be sure to check out X-Equals. In particular, check out my newest article +Monochrome Mojo – Mixing in Grayscale – Part 2 of 2. This article features a new collection of presets called the X-Equals Monochrome Toolkit, featuring 27 new presets to aide you in creating monochrome images that have the essence of real darkroom prints…especially when you print on real B&W photopaper, such as offered by Mpix.

Well, its good to be back. See ya next time,

Michael

PS: If you truly love Polaroid 600, support The Impossible Project, which is trying to bring back 600-compatible integral films. They have a difficult mission, check out their site for what they need and see if you can help! Also check out Polapremium, which is an on-line retailer specializing in Polaroid films (in fact they are part of The Impossible Project) supporting them by buying some Polaroid gear will also help out the Impossible Project!

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Sorry if you were expecting a Monday Update. Felt that it really was not needed this week. Will resume next Monday. Today I felt like releasing a new preset, kind of an atonement for the delay a week ago with the hard drive failure. Tomorrow the next portion of the Presets tutorial will be up.

So today I bring you a straight emulation of Fuji 400H. Fuji’s middle range speed “pro” film, it features a more subdued color palette, placing it in line with the Kodak Portra 400 NC, making it great for candid portraits. The emulation does tend to run a little dark, so it is best on bright images. I hope you find the emulation enjoyable.

Well until tomorrow,

Michael

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Recently a friend of mine was over at my house, discussing film emulation. As he was getting ready to leave, he asked me if I had any E-6 I needed processed, as he does his own and his chemistry is getting a tad old. I said I didn’t have any E-6, but if he was getting rid of the chemistry soon anyways, as he no longer shoots film, he could run some c-41 print film through the slide process. He had never done it before, but he went ahead and took four rolls of C-41 film from me to process.

Well a few days ago, he got the film back to me. Fuji 160C was one of the films he cross-processed, and it turned out to give some really wild results. Almost unusable for my purposes, but it has an edge, especially if there are no people in your image.

See, the processing looks great, interesting color-shifts, green going a touch neon; perfect for some creative landscape or artistic animal work. But is just does not work for humans, as it turns any skin tone a funky shade of yellow. I do not like the look on skin. That is not to say that you might not like it, or may find a way to make it work in an image, its just I don’t think I can.

So if you see a possibility for it, download it and take it for a spin. Let me know if you can make anything out of it.

There will be more upcoming C-41 to E-6 cross processes upcoming, most less harsh than this one. Also I have some revisits upcoming, where I shoot another roll of an already emulated film and emulate it again. Be it a different expiration date, different developer or just different conditions at time of test shots. I try to emulate any roll I shoot, and if they are good enough, they will make it here. Worst case scenario, you have 5 different Tri-X presets to choose from, but choice should never be a problem.

Back soon with Part 2 of the Presets series

Until Then,

Michael

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Okay, so you just downloaded some new presets, and you can’t wait to take them for a spin. First you will need to import them into your application of choice, be it Lightroom or ACR. We will walk through the process for both applications. Then I will show you how you can look inside a preset and see what it does, without even running it in your application.
So first, place your preset files (Extensions of .lrtemplate for Lightroom, .xmp for Photoshop) into a folder on your desktop. Name it whatever you want, as it is just holding the files for now. If you downloaded an archive, such as the .zip files I use here, make sure you unpack the archive before moving on.

First we will look at the method for Lightroom. Simply fire up Lightroom and get into the Develop module. Once the module loads, look to the left panel, and scroll down to the Preset tab, if you don’t already see it. Make sure to expand the tab if it has not already been opened by clicking on the small triangle on the left.

You should now see a folder entitled Lightroom Presets, which are the presets included with Lightroom itself. Beneath it is a folder entitled User Presets, bring your cursor next to it and right-click. Up pops the contextual menu with the options of “New Folder” and “Import”.

Click on “Import…” Once the dialog box opens, point the explorer to the desktop and open your folder you made earlier. Inside, highlight the .lrtemplate file you wish to import.

Then click “Import” and your new preset will be installed in the User Presets folder.

Now your preset is installed and ready for use. However you will rapidly make your User Presets folder a catastrophic mess. So you need to organize a bit. Let’s go ahaead and make a new folder.

To make a new folder, right click again by the User Presets folder and choose “New Folder”.

Name it whatever you choose.

This will create the new folder in the presets menu.

You can then drag the imported preset to the new folder or right-click next to it and import another preset into the new folder.

Pay attention to how you organize your presets in Lightroom, as they are a pain to sort after you have amassed a large amount. This is since Adobe only allows 1 level of folders in the presets menu. Hopefully in future releases Adobe may endow us with nested folders, and if they do it will drastically improve organization of presets.

Installing presets in Adobe Camera Raw nowhere near as elegant or user friendly, however it is quick and effective. In fact, to install the presets, you do not even have to open Photoshop, let alone ACR. To install presets into ACR, it is easiest to do it via your operating system. So open up Finder in Mac or Explorer in Windows, and point it to the following path (I believe Vista should be the same as Windows 7, but I am not sure. Vista users try it both ways):

Macintosh: /Users/UserName/Library/Application Support/Adobe/CameraRawFolder/Settings

Windows: C:\Documents and Settings\UserName\Application Data\Adobe\CameraRaw\Settings

Windows 7: C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\CameraRaw\Settings

Please insert your user name for your system into the respective path where you see UserName. If your system is installed normally, this path will place you right into ACR’s preset folder. Here is a screen from my system:

Now all you have to do is copy the .xmp presets for ACR right into this folder.

Close the folder and start Photoshop. Open a RAW file to bring up ACR.

Once ACR opens, click on the presets tab.

Almost magically your presets are ready to go, no other work needed. I strongly recommend only keeping presets you frequently use installed in ACR, as there is no method by which to sort them.

This is not to say that this is the only way to install presets in either program, but they are the most straight-forward in my opinion. Likely most all of you already know how to do this, but I felt that I should cover it anyways. Now onto a topic some people I know are not aware of… how to see what a preset does without loading it into Lightroom, or “Reading” a preset.

To read a preset, simply open the .lrtemplate file in any text editor. In Windows, you can just open Notepad and drag the .lrtemplate onto the empty Notepad window. This will open the preset in plain text. Although it can appear to be intimidating at first, take some time and look it over. You will start to see correlations between the text and the sliders in Lightroom. (Click the image below to view larger):

If you look at a presets text dump, I am sure you will start to see the correlations from the text file to Lightroom. A preset automatically configures your Develop Module tools for you, that is all they do. By looking at the text dump of any preset, you can see exactly what it will manipulate in Lightroom before you use it allowing you to know what to expect. It just takes a little time to get used to a tools internal name in the preset compared to the label on the slider in Lightroom. With a few reads and comparisons to the Develop Module you will get a quick understanding. You may not look at a preset’s text dump often or at all, but when you are away from your Lightroom computer, like at work, taking a peek inside a preset can tell you a lot, especially when you get familiar with Lightroom.

Also, it is possible to convert Lightroom presets to ACR. I have a tutorial up on X-Equals that explains the method to accomplishing that. Jump on over. Also, the presets I installed during this process were from Brandon’s excellent collection of presets that can also be found on the X-Equals blog, click to be transported to his list of great presets. Don’t forget to check out my article on sharpening in Lightroom over there too!

Hopefully this might help someone. If not, I just wasted a lot of my time writing, well not too much time. But again, I felt I needed to cover these tasks if I am to move firther into discussing presets in Lightroom and ACR.

Back again soon,

Michael

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So, for everyone still with me, let us dig on in. Lightroom and Adobe Camera Raw are both amazing, powerful tools that allow you to manipulate, interpret and create images. When using RAW files, the tools provided to you in the Develop Module allow a level of control over your images that is almost insane. The Develop Module offers you over 60 sliders to enhance your image, each affecting the image in different ways. That is not even counting the local adjustment tools or the tone curve! The sheer amount of tools provided and the power of each one allow you to interpret the RAW data provided by your camera in amazing ways, and can be a bit overwhelming.

The manners in which all of these tools are configured make your “recipe” for your image. When working with the sliders, it can take quite some time to achieve the effects you desire. However if you have to adjust every image in your shoot, making them look similar, it can become quite tedious. You have the option to copy and paste these settings from image to image, which may work fine for a single project. However you may find yourself referring back to that same “recipe” time and time again. Having to go to that original image each time and copy its settings would become quite the burden.

To remedy this situation, Adobe endowed both Lightroom and Adobe Camera Raw with a system to save these image “recipes” and to apply them to any image in just one click. This system is called Presets and the act of making them has been coined “presetting”. Countless individuals have made it a personal hobby to create these presets and share them with the world; others have set out to make finely-tuned presets that they offer for sale. These Presets allow others to apply the same processing that the creator made to their own images, greatly improving their workflow.

Presets can be used many ways. Some people simply choose an image; choose a preset, click and BAM! They have their image. While this works for a great many, and is great to discover what a preset does, it is usually not the best method to produce you final image. Presets should be used as a starting point. You choose the preset you wish to apply to your image, apply it and then proceed to further process your image. You may tweak the colors, white balance, tone curve and so forth. You should always sharpen and reduce noise yourself, when needed. That is not to say that your image won’t look great without further work; I have seen many 1-click images I found stunning, but you should always give your images the benefit of deeper study. You may decide that the image is perfect as soon as you click that preset, but more often than not, you will see where a little attention can make a good image great.

So over the coming days, not necessarily every day, I will continue this series. Now that you know what a Preset is, in general, we can move forward in discovering how you can use, modify and create your own presets. Once you get all this information, you will see what the true power of presets is, the ability to save you time and repetition. Hopefully this may lift some of the stigma presets carry, that they are lazy and counter-productive to creativity. Yes, you can do what any preset does without using a preset; it will just cost you time. When you have 100 photos to adjust, time tends to works against you.

So, a quick syllabus to let you see what will be forthcoming in this series:

Part 1: Installing and Reading Presets – I will run you through the installation process for both Lightroom and Adobe Camera Raw and then show you how to open you presets in a text editor, so you can see exactly what is adjusted when you use a preset.

Part 2: Creating Presets – A short instructional on the steps involved in creating a preset from a developed image. Covering the process of creating the preset and configuring it to adjust only what needs to be adjusted in an effort to produce presets that can be used together, also known as “stacking”.

Part 3: Customizing Presets – Sometimes, you have a preset you use frequently, but you often have to make some adjustments to the images afterwards. If you find yourself making the same alterations time and again, then you need to modify that preset to fit your needs. I will run through the steps required to alter an existing preset, tailoring it to your needs.

Part 4: Preset Tips – In the final chapter, I will delve further into some tips and techniques you can use to enhance your workflow with presets, be they your own creation or those of others. I will also discuss how to make “Preset Sets” that you can install and uninstall as needed, to keep your preset panel clean.

So stay tuned, I will release a few presets during the run of the series, so it won’t all be dry reading. I will be back tomorrow, don’t know if I will be bringing presets of words, but I will have something for you.

Until then,
Michael

PS: I have a new tutorial up over at X-Equals delving deeper into the sharpening tools in Lightroom. Part 1 is up today focusing on sharpening in the Develop Module. Hop over to X-Equals to check it out. Part 2 on export sharpening is forthcoming.

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