The Home of the Hybrid Photographer

Hey, what is up with everybody? Sorry for the extended absence, but I have had way too much on my plate of late and needed to get some crap lined out. Sometimes I feel it is better to do nothing than to do something half-assed, henceforth the lack of updates on LIDF since the Kodachrome 10 release in October. After sorting out some issues, running away to the woods to regain my sanity, and laying out my 2010 roadmap for LIDF, I am back, on December 1 to relase my first Lightroom 3 Beta preset.

So, on with what you are here for. Today’s preset is designed primarily for Lightroom 3, and as such the download only contains the Lightroom version of this preset. It is an emulation of Kodak T-Max P3200, done in my tradional LIDF release format with a Normal, Auto and Curve version of the preset. What is new, is that this is the first LIDF preset to feature grain simulation, leveraging the new Grain capability presented in Lightroom 3 Beta. To this extent, the download also includes a Grain version of the preset that applies the custom grain settings that I made to simulate the look and feel of T-Max P3200 developed in 1:1 D-76.

Once you unpack the zip file and install it in Lightroom, you will be presented with 4 presets. Regulars already know this bit of info, but since there is no readme file in the download today, I felt I should explain my preset packaging here, for new users.

Kodak T-Max P3200

This is the basic preset, and will adjust most settings preset in Lightroom to create the effect. This is the final product of my development cycle and represnts the closest emulation I could manage on my PC. If your image is well exposed, this preset will usually provide good results with one click.

Kodak T-Max P3200 Auto

In this preset the Grayscale Mixer, Tone Curve and Clarity is set byt the preset, while basic tone is automatically adjusted by Lightroom. This preset is excellent to use on images that are off in exposure, or to simply see what the preset lookslike on any given image.

Kodak T-Max P3200 Curve

This preset, which is the most basic emulation but the most versatile, applies only the Grayscale Mixer, Tone Curve and Clarity settings, leaving all other adjustments untouched. This preset plays the best when stacking with other presets and is the one to use if you have lready edited you images.

Kodak T-Max P3200 Grain

This preset strictly proveds the grain simulation for the emulation. There is no color adjustments made, it strictly applies grain. Use this after applying the film preset of you choice from above. As this preset only adjusts the Grain Simlation sliders in Lightroom 3, you can apply this grain profile to any other preset or image without using the other presets in this set.

Please note, this download works fine with Lightroom 2, just do not install the Kodak T-Max P3200 Grain preset,as it will literally do nothing in Lightroom 2. The film color and tone simulation will work just as any other LIDF preset would.

Hopefully you enjoy the preset. I chose to use Kodak T-Max 3200 as my first LR3 emulation, as it has visually heavy grain in real life and was a good film to test out Lightroom 3′s grain capability.

Other Stuff

Now that I got my apology gift to you out of the way, I am going to tak another moment of your time to update you on some of my projects.

First, Cold Storage 2 is complete, with the exception of the guidebook, which I am slavishly working on. The second the guidebook is complete I will get Cold Storage 2 up and available for sale. 46 more presets, featuring all the presets release on LIDF since the first Cold Storage collection and a litany of new, exclusive presets only found in the Cold Storage 2 collection. Hopefully this will be ready to roll shortly.

Also, my Scanning series will start up this weekend, sharing my film scanning workflow for Lightroom/ACR helping you get the most out of your film and scanner by taking the editing process into the RAW workflow of Lightroom and ACR. This will be a fairly long series, and will also have an E-Book released during its run with all the blog content and some fesh content, all related to scanning. Stay tuned for that.

Next, on the topic of books, in the very near future Brandon, of X-Equals, and I will be releasing an E-Book bringing together all of our Lightroom/Photoshop articles present on X-Equals into one easy to use book. I’ll let you know when the bomb drops, it will be soon, and if you use Lightroom you will find it to be an valuable resource.

Everything else aside, my little break gave me a good refresh, and I am ready to rock again. I am going to take LIDF to a once a week schedule for the forseeable future, set up for Friday/Saturday post each week. I am not going to stick fast to that schedule, as I plan on sprinkling other posts in occassionally, but the regular post will be up at the end of the week each week.

Anyways, its good to be back, and thanks to all the visitors who kept droping by, all the tweets and links from others, and actually growing my volume of visitors while I was away. It means a lot to me.

Today I present another of my inaccurate representations of an infrared film. Although, it is actually a normal emulation of a regular panchromatic black and white film that claims to be an infrared film. Rollei IR has en extended red range that pushes well into the infrared spectrum, however the emulsion is still technically panchromatic, and when shot without a IR filter, the film can be shot as a regular 400 speed black and white film. The effect of the infrared light is overpowered by visible light when shot without a filter, and it has a look similar to Tri-X, albeit with different color responses.

So, this emulation was based off a sample roll shot as regular film, not infrared. Therefore the response show little in the way of IR effects. I felt this was the best way to handle this film, as I still have no access to IR RAW files. Enjoy the preset.

That it all for today, back again tomorrow,

Michael

A quick release for tonight. I have had a hard drive failure on my production PC, bringing almost everything to a grinding halt. I luckily had an rsync update from my PC to my Linux RAID server on site, so I only lost the last day’s worth of work, but that equates to 5 finished presets, 2 articles, and 2 articles for other blogs. Not a good day.

So here is one of the few finished presets I was able to scavenge, Fortepan 400.

Sorry I can’t write more tonight, gotta get back to work trying to stabilize my system and prevent further data loss. Hopefully I can scavenge today’s work before my hard drive totally becomes useless. Be back as soon as possible, hopefully tomorrow.

Until then (and wish me luck)

Michael

Well, it has been a hectic week for me, but I guess I have avoided not posting. It is Sunday night and I am finally getting a release out. Sorry for the lack of contents yesterday, but I had my nose to the grindstone taking care of business. Now that is done and I am back. It may take a few days for me to get back to early posts, but I will get it back.

Tonight I bring to you another black and white simulation. Tonight’s preset is an emulation of Foma’s Fomapan Creative, a nominally rated 200 speed film, functional from ISO 100-800 depending on processing. This roll was exposed at ISO 200 and developed in D-76 Stock soulution for 6 minutes at 20C.

This is a really sweet film, with great tone and wonderful grain. I really like it a lot, enough that I am considering utilizing it for a lot of work I normally do with Tri-X. I have not been overly impressed with many of the modern-classic films (those utilizing the traditional cubic silver), but this one relaly got me. I love the tones it produces.

I hope you find this preset enjoyable. I will be back agaoin tomorrow, with my Monday update and some new links for you to follow. Tuesday shall bring another preset, and further in the week I have a few reviews for some software and services, including a great canvas print service, along with more presets.

I hope to have a WordPress migration in the next month, have some gears moving with some great people right now…I will update further when things firm up a bit more. But good things are coming. I am also working on my own guide to simulating film in Lightroom and ACR, which I will release as an e-book this summer. It is coming along well thus far, and I will update further when I have more information on that as well.

In the mean time, keep using my presets, and let me know what you think of them. Don’t forget to get your copy of the Cold Storage Collection to help me keep getting new films to emulate. On average every $10 purchase/donation will pay for 1-2 new emulations. So if you haven’t grabbed a copy yet, be sure to do so…it keeps the site alive. AND anyone who purchases a copy of Cold Storage will get a FREE upgrade to the 2nd edition that will be coming this summer..it is my way of thanking all the early supporters. To pull the trigger on the deal, look to the right sidebar for the purchase buttons or click here to read more from the orignal post for CS.

Thanks again for all the support!

Until tomorrow,

Michael

Now to follow up my Maco Cube preset from this past weekend, I now give you my version of Maco PO, their Orthopanchromatic film. Being an Orthopanchromatic film, it has a very subdued response to red, but does not render it black as an Orthochromatic film would. Being said, that is all I can say I find special about this film. It is still a good, solid film, but nothing makes it stand out to me, especailly when compared to Fuji Neopan 100 Arcos, another Orthopan film.

I hope you enjoy it

Back again tomorrow, in the mean time don’t forget my Cold Storage collection. If you enjoy my presets and wish to support their further development, the $9.99 usd purchase price goes towards costs for the website and to aquire new film and processing to prepare the film for emulation. The process for making these presets is fairly involved and does require an outlay of cash on my part…your support helps offset these costs. For more information on how I make my emulations click HERE.

Until tomorrow,

Michael