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

Today I am releasing the first iteration of a special request. Months ago, a fellow by the name of Maxim Muir asked me if I would be able to emulate Kodak Kodachrome ASA 10. This particular flavor of Kodachrome went extinct years ago, in the mid 1960′s. Needless to say, I would not be able to shoot it myself, and run it through my normal emulation workflow. I had to design the preset blind, relying upon scans other had made of their old Kodachrome slides.

Thankfully, Maxim had made his expertise available to me, and between the two of us we created a preset that captures the flavor and feel of this classic Kodachrome. We spent weeks refining and testing the preset, until we came to the one we are releasing today. Buy no means do I claim this is 100% accurate, it does however reproduce the effect we observed in freely available scans. Unfortunately those scans were retouched.

After a week of forensic emulation refining my first attempt, with a little help from a few members of the Photo.net community, we reached a point where the preset functions reasonably well considering the tools available to me to analyse the film … namely not much.

So feel free to take this final version and give it a spin. We are looking to make this as accurate as possible, so feel free to leave constructive comments to help further improve this preset.

I will be releasing in the coming days another iteration of this preset. Later this week I will bring you my Release Candidate version of the preset to allow for more extensive community testing. The RC has a different look to it and is completely worthy as a good preset on its own, it just does not feel as accurate as the current release.

If you are interested in helping me further refine this, or other presets simulating film long since gone, contact me at michael at lifeindigitalfilm dot com. If you have any slides or negatives for film no longer available I can utilize them for emulation as long as most of the color spectrum is available to me across multiple frames, I get a good sample of skin tone and highlight and shadow clipping. I don’t want treasured family keepsakes for this endeavor, only the frmes from a roll that are not quality shots, compositionally speaking. If you dare not send your originals via the mail (I can’t blame you) contact me and see if you can provide a quality scan for my analysis … I will walk you through a scanning process to retain the most data possible.

In the interest of full disclosure, yes I do sell presets on LifeInDigitalFilm  to further finance my site. The money garnered from LIDF sales do not go toward me and my family, but to keep my site running, acquire film and finance the expenses incurred in the process of emulation.

However, whenever a donation of film, slides or whatnot from the community come to me to aide in the process of emulation, the presets created from that process will be released on the site completely free, under my normal Creative Commons BY-NC license. Non-commercial refers only to reusing the preset itself for further distribution as a preset, the presets can be freely used for commercial purposes from amateur to professional photographers and editors.

All presets on LIDF will be included in Cold Storage collections. The free presets will remain available, even after the collection goes up for sale. My interest here is to preserve classic and modern films for posterity, not to make money. However it takes money to do what I do here on LIDF, I cannot continue to produce presets without available funds to carry out the process. I cannot bear the expense from my normal salary, LIDF must pay for itself. Cold Storage collections help that.

By the way, Cold Storage 2 is almost ready to release, although I have said that before, I have about everything 95% ready for launch.

So enjoy the Kodachrome 10 preset, relive a little of the past through you current images. Comeback for the Release Candidate version of the preset later this week.

Many thanks again go to Maxim Muir for the idea and help in bring this preset to all of you.

Until Next Time,

Micahel

So, again

I have shot 15 rolls of Kodachrome 64 in the past year, with 6 more in the freezer. If you have some, or decide to buy some, I recommend you get out and shoot it soon, as Dewayne’s, the only K-14 processor in the world, announced continued support only through 2010. Once they close up the K-14 line, it’s all over. If you have any left, your only option will be cross processing in B&W chemistry.

Kodachrome was and is the defacto standard when it comes to archival quality slides. Although they fade rather rapidly under the light of a projector, in dark storage, they colors stay true to the day they were shot. A quick search of the US National Archives will bring you scans of Kodachromes shot in the late 1930′s that look as crisp and colorful as if they were shot yesterday. That longevity will be missed.

What will furthermore be missed will be Kodachrome’s magical appearance. I can’t describe the nuance that is Kodachrome, it it too subtle to define in words. Only a projection from a Kodachrome slide will ever do it justice. Kodachrome is difficult to scan, expensive to process and now scarce to get. But it is a film worth the expense and hassle, and I am glad to have gotten back into film photography to enjoy Kodachromes waning days.

In Kodak’s press release, they recommend two excellent replacement films for the Kodachrome lover. The first is KODAK PROFESSIONAL EKTACHROME E100G, which is a beautiful film in it’s own right. Not to disparage it, it lacks the subtlety of Kodachrome. However, I will concur it is the closest option you will get in an E-6 film (also try Fuji Astia if you shoot a lot of people, as I feel it renders better skin tones than E100G.) Kodak’s second recommendation is their new EKTAR 100 negative film. Which is a wonderful option, as it has it’s own special nuance that no other film comes close to (I will be posting an in-depth review of the film in the coming weeks). However EKTAR poses two problems. First, it is a negative film, not a slide film. As fine grained as it is, EKTAR still cannot capture the feel of a slide. Secondly, EKTAR is special in it’s own right, with a great feeling to the colors, giving me a feel of the seventies in 2009. However it does not convey the timeless Kodachrome does. In short, there is no replacement for Kodachrome.

What I hope Kodak does, is spend some R&D money and produce us a new E-6 film that will carry the Kodachrome name and emulate the feel. A lot of Kodachrome’s magic is in the K-14 process itself, but if Kodak can give us a film as nuanced as EKTAR or as beautiful as PORTRA VC they can bring us an E-6 film that can capture some of the true-to-life nature of Kodachrome. Ektachrome is great, but it doesn’t bring the bang like Kodachrome.

For now, go out and get some Kodachrome and shoot a roll or two. Kodak estimates current stock will last through Fall 2009, however I am going to guess it will get scarce in the next month or so. If you don’t shoot fil anymore, but want a feel of Kodachrome, try my two Lighroom/ACR Presets I have on the site. Try my current Kodachrome 64 and my Kodachrome 25. They will get you close, but they won’t get you there. I have two emulation test rolls shot awaiting development currently of Kodachrome 64. Once I get them back I will do a fresh emulation and a Camera Profile for the results. That will be a while however.

In the end, today feels a bit like the day the music died. My heart sunk a little when I saw the news on Twitter. But we move on. There are great films still available and will continue to be, and out digital cameras and Adobe’s magical tools will provide us with the means to bring us a little closer to the magic again. To me, today is a day i will remember for quite a while. It came as no surprise, the writing was on the wall and i was stocking up to complete a personal project. The finality of it still hits home.

Have a great day,

Michael W Gray