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

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

Another day, another Fuji-looking preset. Today I bring you Fuji 160S, the subdued color sibling to yesterday’s Fuji 160C. While still quite vibrant, the color is more subtle than 160C, however it still can bring some pop to an image. This film was designer for use in portraiture, and thus it handles skin tones beautifully. A nice film, which I found I quite enjoyed, as I have a liking to the more subtle tones of portrait films.

As it is quite a busy day, I am going to leave it at that. Come back tomorrow, when I will have some honest-to-goodness blog writing done…or if all else fails another preset from the B&W vault.

Until then,

Michael

Alright, back on schedule. Releasing one of two quality Fuji presets today, tomorrow another follows. Today I bring you my interpretation of Fuji 160C, one of Fuji’s professional line films, this one designed for general use, with a heavy leaning towards strong saturation. The film produces great, saturated colors, but not too far over the top. Great for all kinds of uses, but maybe a bit rich in the orange channel for portraiture. But that is what Fuji 160S is for.

160C features a fine grain and Fuji’s “4th color layer” which supposedly allows for richer colors with less grain. Either way it is a great film with a lot of versatility.

Come back tomorrow for the next film preset in my Fuji set, 160S. The subdued portrait film.

Until then,

Michael

Alright, here is a preset I had mentioned I have been working on for a little while. Today I release my version of Fuji’s Fujicolor Press 800 film, which was design to be a high-speed film primarily for media use in adverse lighting conditions. The emulsion is rather grainy, but grabs sharp, clear images. This was one of the first Fuji film emulsions that utilized their 4th color layer, leading to vibrant images even under bad lighting without sacrificing shutter speed.

A warning up front, my presets are primarily designed from me physically shooting a roll of film and then further analysis. Sometimes this can lead to unique effects from roll to roll. I feel this is a case of that, the blues in this roll and emulation are really washed out, as you can see in the image above. I could correct this, and make the blues look more “correct” however that would be an inaccurate emulation of this roll. I emulate actual film, not the average look of the film. As I shoot more, there will be new emulations of every film I have done so far. It is the way I am choosing to do this project…there is no end all be all emulation for any film, each batch of film created will differ in appearance and reaction from batch to batch…therefore my emulations retain the quirks of each individual roll and each processing method used.

To compensate for the washed out blues, I recommend that you first slowly lower the Blue channel Luminosity, bringing some more depth to the color. If that is not enough, increase the Blue Saturation slowly until you get what you are looking for. Only do this if you really nee to do the blues, as most other colors look accurate compared to other samples of the film I have encountered. Enjoy the preset.

That is all for today, quick post just to make the release. Enjoy your day, and if you have any beautiful photos that you have just process with my or anyone else’s preset, please consider entering it in the Presetting Lightroom contest on Flickr. Just a few days left to enter!

Until Tomorrow,

Michael

[Adobe Camera RAW presets added 01132009]

Bonus Preset day! Today you can also enjoy my new Polaroid 669 preset, in 3 flavors, plain, warm and cold. The zip include the standard color-balanced preset, a warm toned preset, and a cool toned preset. The color casting was achieved via my normal method of split-toning. For a much more different approach try X=blog’s version of Polaroid HERE also.

I assume you all know about 669 film, and if you don’t, give it a Google. It’s my bonus preset for the day, so I am making this short.

Until Next Time,
Michael

[Adobe Camera RAW presets added 01132009]

Sorry for the extended drought of my film emulating presets. I am back after a fairly long stretch of “real” work, and I have presets!

Tonight I release my interpretation of Kodak Panatomic X B&W film. It has been discontinued for quite some time, and I was only able to get a hold of a few samples, and no real film for me to shoot. That is to be expected from a film that was discontinued almost 30 years ago. I feel the emulation is as close as I can get with Lightroom as it stands. There is some nuance with the smoothness of the tone that I noticed in the original film that is impossible to even correctly approximate. I tried for the past two weeks to get the tone nailed, but I could not do it. I feel the overall look is right, and a perfectly exposed image will convert wonderfully. If Lightroom has to work to correct exposure expect the tone to not be so smooth. I can’t explain why it works like this, but it does.

While the Panatomic preset is not perfect, I am still proud of it and hope you all enjoy it.

Also, as a bonus for you patience, I am also releasing my interpretation of Kodak Gold 100 and 200. I am not a big fan of Gold film, but it is one of the most commonly shot films in existence. Surely someone likes the look. There is an individual release for both 100 ISO and 200 ISO, this is due to a slight difference in the tone curve that is evident in brightly lit photographs. Not much else to say on these, which is why they are “bonus” presets.

Kodak Gold 100

Kodak Gold 200

Thank you to all who visit my site, and my apologies for the extended delay in releases.

Until Next Time,
Michael