Topic: compensating for tungsten

[jojonas~]

I just scanned a roll of kodak ektachrome 64t (tungsten). I've used the film a few times with my holga and crossprocessing it but this time I had it shot with my yashica tlr and developed as slides.. the blue cast ain't as charming and somehow I think the scanner turns it even more blue.

so I thought I'd ask here if anyone has any tips on how to compensate for tungsten film shot outdoors in daylight.
I use an epson v600 to scan and I have photoshop 7 to work with.

here's an example from the roll, maybe not the best but the blue areas were definitely more neutral (the colour is pumped up a bit)

[Mojave]

Hey Jojonas. I kind of like the colors myself. Very interesting shot. But, to control the WB, the easiest way is through ACR (Adobe Camera Raw), but I think you need CS3 or later for that. I think. Im not familiar with PS7. But with CS3, you can tell it to open all your files into ACR, which is the program that opens all NEFs automatically. It just launches automatically if you open a jpeg or tiff from Bridge. In that window are sliders and one of those sliders is Temp, which is the WB. You just shift it to warm up the photo. Plus there are color sliders on another tab in ACR which allow you to fine tune the hue, saturation and brightness of each color. Its pretty awesome. I couldnt live without it.

In PS7, Im guess you would have to create a hue/saturation adjustment layer and play around with the color that way? Not sure though.

I'm interested in seeing how others here do it because this cant be the only way.

[Francois]

You could always rescan and use the color correction button...
If that doesn't work, I know CS3 has a photo filter button under the Adjustments menu... I can't remember if it was already there in Photoshop 7...

You could also re-scan with a color correction filter laid on top of the slide... that should also work.

Funny but in your picture, the blue cast tends to make the pink fluorescent

[jojonas~]

wow.. cs3 seems fancy O.o

mojave: hue/saturation didn't help much (looked like a 70s poster all of a sudden!) but I found something else called variations that helped a bit. usually I just add layers in different styles and opacities and fill them with colours I think would work. fun to experiment with but slows down the workflow like whoa~

francois: colour correction huh? I'll try how that works out.. when I scanned I used the colour balance a bit to go from blue to yellow and cyan to red.

and sorry, no fancy stuff like photo filters in photoshop 7

the pink was kind of flourescent in real life too, or should I say a aposematic colour? hehe, some swedish words translate wierd.. anyway I'm glad that stuck to the film

[Mojave]

CS5 is what I want now. Its got this add aware fill, or something like that, that is so smart its unbelievable! I get hard water marks on my film a lot and this little tool makes it so all you have to do is circle the bad area and select the add aware and it just magically fills in the area perfectly. Even if you something in the shot that spans a lit and shadowy area. Just circle the unwanted item, select add aware and the program magically fills in the area just like that object was never there. Im getting CS5 in a few months. Its going to save me so much time!

[Mojave]

I hope this is ok, but I saved a copy of your image for display purposes only. I already deleted it off my hdd, but I wanted to use your image so you could see what the sliders in ACR did. I am posting two screen shots and right now I cant tell if you'll be able to see the sliders very well or not. Hopefully you can.

The first screen shot shows ACR on the default "tab" that show the temp slider at the top. I moved way to the right to show you how dramatic a change that slider can make. The second screen shot only shows the the color sliders. I didnt adjust them at all.

[jojonas~]

whoa, cool. that's a whole other photo right there haha! the letters are a bit dinky but I can read em.
I don't mind you saving a copy, go ahead if you like it'd be real nice of you if you uploaded a version of the photo here with the temperature adjusted. that way I have something to compare to.

[Mojave]

Im totally guessing at what you want but based on my own experience with WB issues, the color shifts are usually subtle so I did only slight adjustments. I used the ACR window to boost the blacks, brighten the over all image, add a bit of contrast, soften it a little with the clarity slider to make up for adding the blacks, and then used the color sliders to adjust hue and brighten the blues a bit. Those pinks are really bright so Im not really sure if this is realistic or not. And while it sounds like making all of these adjustments was time consuming, it isnt. I made all the adjustments in less than 2 mins.

Thanks for letting me play! I love this image. The really shallow DoF with the perspective you chose is very nice!

[jojonas~]

here's what colour correction did at first and what I squeezed out on the other end. can't get the pink right without loosing detail in the scanning software.

anyway, this was an interesting exercize

edit: is it just me or does the left one look cross processed? haha~

[Mojave]

LOL! It does look cross processed! I like it!

So is the image on the right the right color then?

[jojonas~]

I'd say the pink was right in the first photo (that was my aim with that one) and atleast the grit and cement is pretty close to home in that last one.

I did really like your extra warm toned ones though

[Francois]

You could also try and get your hands on the Kodak Digital ROC plugin. This is what it gave me on a single click (no adjustments).

[jojonas~]

seems a little harsh but I'll see if it works with my version and if you can tone it down a bit.
thanks francois!