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

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

Film is dead…or so many people though until Kodak released their new Ektar 100 film to the public last year. Coming to market with the daring claim of “Finest Grain Ever” it would be an uphill battle to sell a new color print film to the general photographic public in the age of 10+ megapixel consumer-level DSLR cameras. It would take a really special film introduction to stand a chance up against the modern resolution of DSLR’s with a 35mm format film. Did Kodak do that? Yes they did.

First thing to note about Ektar, is that it was designed from the ground up to be scanned into a computer. As most labs now do digital prints, requiring the negative to be scanned before printing, Kodak had to design a film that could easily be scanned, have great color and high resolution. I have been scanning my rolls of Ektar with an Epson V500 at 3200 and 6400 DPI and my Plustek OpticFilm 7200 at 3600 and 7200 DPI.

On either scanner Ektar 100 brought forth good contrast, bold colors and almost no grain. In fact I notice digital noise from my scanners more than I do traditional grain. Ektar has required little correction in Photoshop or Lightroom after scanning is completed.

As far as image quality goes, I have been successfully printing excellent 8×10’s from 3200 DPI scans on my V500 and 11×14’s at 7200 with my Plustek OpticFilm at 7200 DPI. No other negative film will allow me to make quality prints with these scanners and resolutions. Even most slide films will not scan this high quality for me with consumer grade scanners.

Ektar delivers a clarity nearing slide film, color characteristics not found in any other film with the wide exposure latitude of negative film.  Ektar shows to produce good images in my testing from -1 EV to +2 EV (or shot at ISO 50 up to ISO 400) without needing to push the development. Albeit the further you get away from box speed the more image degradation occurs, but in a pinch you can pull a good image out of Ektar shot at ISO 800 with some good scanning techniques.

Ektar’s next big advantage is price. You can find Ektar in 135 format for little more than a roll of Kodak Gold and quite a bit less than Portra. At my local photo shop, Gold 200 goes for $4 USD, Ektar 100 for $5.25 and Portra 160 NC for $7. So for little more than the price of regular consumer film, you can get a high resolution professional-quality film. A film that can be scanned with an inexpensive flatbed scanner and produce images equal or greater than current low-end DSLR’s. With better scanners you can even outperform the quality of many high-end DSLR’s and still retain the unique look of film. I have a 20” x 30” print on my wall made from a drum scan of one of my Ektar shots and the print is beautiful with a barely perceptible grain, my Canon 400D XTi or 5D could never even come close to producing that print. At this point a $10 dollar yard-sale SLR and a few rolls of Ektar can do you as good as a $500 XTi, if not better.

Cost, ease of scanning, resolution, grain and exposure latitude alone are good reasons to grab this film, but the unique look is worth the price of admission and then some. What really gives Ektar a unique advantage is its appearance. I find it to have a strange modern nostalgic look when shot at ISO 50 or 64, like a quality film shot from the 70’s. It shifts a bit blue and retains bold colors. If Ektar is shot at box speed, I have found that it reproduces colors reasonable accurately, although more punchy than normal. I find myself overexposing street photography for the vintage look and shooting landscapes and nature at box speed. It is nice to have the option of two distinct looks from one film and get good results at either setting. Again, you can take Ektar on upwards toward ISO 800, but plan on spending some time in post getting you image looking good. Still, it can be done though.

Some have complained of Ektar being inappropriate for human subjects, being a bit too saturated for skin tones. I have not found this to be the case, as some simple adjusting of saturation in Photoshop can alleviate this issue without dulling the overall picture.

Oversaturated skin tones with Ektar tend to be most common at box speed, and taking it to 50 or 64 can help as well. However I have no issue shooting portraits at box speed with Ektar. In fact Ektar has almost replaced Portra 160 VC in my wedding gear for outside, nature portraits. I have been happy and so have been my clients.

In general, Kodak’s Ektar 100 is a great general purpose film. It is well suited for travel, with its punchy colors and great contrast. It can capture human subjects and look fairly natural, while at the same time give you saturated backgrounds. Ektar is the new film of choice to take for family photos at the Grand Canyon (Now that Kodachrome is gone).

It’s great to keep in your camera for indoor flash photography. Ektar is a great choice for a primary film, and I have shot the same roll at ISO 50-200 varying between frames and got great results with standard processing. Give Ektar a try and don’t be afraid to experiment with it, the results may surprise you.

If you are interested in grabbing a few rolls of Ektar to try out, please go down to your local pro shop and get yourself a few rolls. If you don’t have a good pro lab, then consider ordering from Amazon or Adorama from the links below, it’ll give me a little kickback then, but please support you local photo lab before ordering online. You may pay a bit more, but to have personal service and knowledge people nearby it is well worth it.

Try it…You’ll like it!

Michael

Links to purchase Ektar below.

Buy at Amazon or…

Search for Ektar at Adorama.

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

Today, in association with X=blog, LifeInDigitalFilm presents two film emulation presets featuring my new Holga effect. Today’s download consists of my Kodak Kodachrome 25 and Kodak Panatomic X presets with the new Holga effect built right in.

When using these presets on normal dSLR images, without cropping, these presets are ready to rock. If you want the classic square cropping of a Holga with 120 film, simply change the Post-Crop Vignette Roundness from +33 to 0.

If you want to get the Holga effect in a preset of its own, hop over to X=blog. Brandon’s site is the exclusive home to my Holga-effect preset. It is ready to stack ontop of any of my presets, or any other preset you want a Holga-look applied to. Refer to yesterday’s tutorial on modifying presets to combine the Holga effect with any other preset into a brand new preset.

Currently the Holga effect and Holga-treated presets are only available for Lightroom. I am working on a method by which to use them in ACR, and will update when available. For now, enjoy with Lightroom.

[NOTE: I figured out a work-around to use the Holga Base preset in ACR. It is live over at X=blog. I am not going to release the Holga+Film presets for ACR due to the extra step involved to complete the effect. If you want Holga+Film effects in ACR, grad the Holga set at X=, follow the install instructions. Then get the desired film presets here and install. In ACR apply athe film preset first, then the Holga BAse, finally goto the Graduated Filter menu and add the Holga Base Gradient. This will stack the Holga Effect over the desire film preset.]

Until later,

Michael

Another day, another preset. And today is Valentines Day, so I am releasing a special release of one of the most popular emulations from my original Slide Film Collection. Kodak Ektachrome 100VS was the one emulation in that pack that I received the most compliments on, so recently I went out and bought two fresh rolls of E100VS and set out to make a new version, using my new emulation procedure.

Six hours went into this preset, starting with the analysis and general development to get it close, finishing with 3 more hours this morning fine tuning it. I hope everyone enjoys this as much as my first attempt.

For those of you still using my original MikeyG!s Color Slide Film Collection, those presets are still fine, however they are not as accurate as those being released on LifeInDigitalFilm currently. While developing my Kodak B&W collection I developed as more through and accurate way to simulate film, and that method is being utilized in this preset. (More Information on my development process can be found at the Flickr Presetting Lightroom Group) If the old emulation still works for you, wonderful! I just ask you give this newer one a shot, as I feel it is much more accurate in it’s depiction of the capabilities of this film stock.

Also, this can be a finicky preset under certain circumstances, so I highly recommend reading the readme.txt file in the download archive. You may find it of help, however I don’t feel like getting technical on the blog today.

This preset was not free for me to make. I used 2 rolls of E100VS and Lab processing to get the final results. Between film costs and development costs this emulation cost about $25 USD to develop. I can back that off to about $12-$15 when I consider that about half of each roll got shot on personal projects, however ther was still a definable expense to do so. I would like to thank those who have purchased the Cold Storage preset collection for helping finance my site and emulations. For every 1 purchase made, I make enough to be able to purcahse and develop a roll of B&W film (lower since I do my own devloping). For every 3 purchases made I can develop 2 Color (C-41 or E-6) emulations (as I am currently still sending this out to a lab until I get better at color development). The purchases are also helping to purchase hosting for the blog, which will be migrated as soon as I finish getting my WordPress theme the way I want it.

If you have not done so already, please consider buying the collection for $9.99 USD. There are links at the top right side of the blog, or click the following link for more information on the 12 exclusive presets available within: Cold Storage. Also included in that preset is a version of this same E100VS that I had Cross-Processed at the lab a while back.

Thank you,

Michael

Will be back tomorrow, I am getting better at these regular posts!

Sorry for the few day delay in updates, got more than a few projects in the fire at the moment. I have had this preset complete for quite sometime now, as observant presetters may notice. Tonight is Kodak Kodachrome 25, which I used in my 100 style preset last week as the Koda preset.

It is an emulation of Kodachrome 25, which, in almost every sample I had possesses a very different color curve than its ISO 64 counterpart. That is not a bad thing, as it gives me more to preset. It tends to pound greens a tad harder, while taking it easy on the blues.

Also I would like to let you know that my Convert LR preset to ACR article has been published by Brandon over at x=blog. I completely rewrote the article and even made screenshots [which I never do here :^P (I never use emoticons either { ...or nested comments })]. I feel the post at x= is far superior to my roughly written process I posted a few days ago. Please check it out HERE.

If you have not seen the x=blog, please do so. It is a veritable treasure trove of great photography, processing, computer, and business tips.

[Adobe Camera RAW preset added 01132009]

Finally I am back up and online, sorry for the extended absence, but I got a good belated Christmas gift for all of you. My Kodak Kodachrome 64 emulation.

Be warned, this is not as straightforward as most of my other presets. If you are of the school of thought that a preset is the last thing you do to an image, this may not be for you. This preset really needs attention after the preset has been applied. It is a little finicky in the contrast/brightness areas. I have not found an image yet that I did not have to adjust one or the other. Mind you, this will get a good approximation of the colors, saturation and response curve of the film, but you will have to pay attention to the brightness and contrast.

Also, if you use my Auto-toning presets, the Kodachrome Auto tends to overexpose, unless your original exposure was dead-on. Much like the actual film, you must have a good exposure when using Auto. Alternatively, just bring down the exposure, it will improve the image if it appears washed out.

This preset can require a bit more work to finesse out a good image, however I feel the results are great when you find the sweet spot. I could have spent much more time tweaking this preset, but I like the results…it just requires a little extra after the preset has been applied.

Also, if you read the readme.txt file in the zip, I have instructions on how to use the split-toning feature to simulate the discoloration of the 60′s era and 70′s era stock. Just in case you are interested.

Until next time[ hopefully much sooner tha last time],
Micahel

However, although I have no new preset to release tonight, I am officially releasing my Kodak preset you all have been using. I have grouped up 9 of the Kodak presets from here, and 3 Presets from my 1st B&W set. I added my “curve” preset to the 3 re-released presets.

Other than the re-releases, If you have gotten all my downloads here so far then you have all this. But if you are just finding the site now, all my Kodak B&W films I have release to date are in this set.

As I go along, Ilford will get a set like this, along with Fuji, Rollei/Maco, and then a set of other film stocks. But for now Kodak is the set I have most complete so here it is:

Included Film Emulations (3 presets per film stock)

MikeyG!s Kodak BW CN Preset
MikeyG!s Kodak Copy Film Preset
MikeyG!s Kodak HIE Preset
MikeyG!s Kodak Panatomic X Preset
MikeyG!s Kodak Plus-X Preset
MikeyG!s Kodak Portra BW Preset
MikeyG!s Kodak T-Max Preset
MikeyG!s Kodak Technical Pan Preset
MikeyG!s Kodak Tri-X Preset
MikeyG!s Kodak T-Max 100 Preset *
MikeyG!s Kodak T-Max 400 Preset *
MikeyG!s Kodak Tri-X 400 Preset *

*- these are the re-released preset. All others are here on this blog and have sample pictures posted.

Get the file HERE

The collection has also been released by Pierre at PresetsHeaven. I ask you all to check out his site daily, as he produces some great presets and also distributes presets created by other talented individuals.

PS: (12/13/2008; 0703 CDT) I just discovered that I had goofed in my Panatomic X release, I accidentally placed my Plus-X Auto and Curve presets in with the PanX standard preset. This effects both the original PanX release and the Kodak Collection. I will fix the issue later today when I get back home. Sorry for the screw-up.

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