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.

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