B&W Filters w/ Color Film

[Mike1234]

Greetings All!!

GIVEN: Shooting color neg film, scanning, printing B&W.

I'm well aware of the effect of deep color filters on B&W film. I'm also aware that color ranges can be lightened or darkened in PS and that color channels can be deleted or individually manipulated, etc. However, overdone, this creates noise and other unwanted problems.

What I DON'T know is how deeply colored filters used with color negative film affects color brightness when the scanned image is converted to grayscale. For example, would using a #25 or 29 red filter darken blue sky and green foliage in the scan. If so, by how much? Same question for deep green, blue, etc. Has anyone tried this? If the filters have a significant effect it seems appropriate to use them in lieu of excessive post processing.

 

[Bob Carnie]

If your end result is a black and white print and you use colour film I see absolutley no reason not to use filters to adjust tonal values.
I have not heard of anyone doing this , but worth investigating

FWIW I have converted crossed process film to black and white with great results, opinions may vary but I believe heavily filtered colour film will create some great effects.

 

[Mike1234]

Thanks, Bob. It seems I'll be doing some testing very soon. I'll post my findings.

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

I think it would work, but it seems to me that it would make more sense to do it in software with channel mixer, if you plan to shoot color to print B&W, so you can shoot the film at the full speed without having to compensate for a filter on the lens, and because the filter is a source of flare.

 

[Mike1234]

Hi David!!

I understand your reasoning but my goal is ultimate final print quality. If I make BIG changes to the brightness of a given color or colors I always end up adding noise.

BTW, I would shoot one image with and another without filtration so I always have the option of printing color. I'm going to try some tests to determine if there's any merit to my hypothesis.

 

[Bob Carnie]

Give it a go,
I have a lot of film that I crossed processed for John Callow here, and for fun converted to black and white .
John not only shoots cross processed but also night scenes with extremely long exposures.
When converted to black and white we got some very good conversions.

Just remember that you are in territory that may take a lot of testing and lots of unpredictability.
I do a lot of channel blending of colour images to build up the **weight ** of an image then use luminosity to hide the wonky colours , what you are doing is making the moves at time of original capture which should give you some very good results.

Thanks, Bob. It seems I'll be doing some testing very soon. I'll post my findings.

 

[Mike1234]

Do you guys think a color chart is the best test subject? The even/smooth toned patches should reveal noise levels quite easily. Or is there a color chart with graduated tones, i.e. red-to-blue, blue-to-yellow, yellow-to-red, cyan-to-magenta, etc.? I suppose I could just make the latter. A home-made garduated color chart would serve this purpose nicely, I think, because it's not "color accuracy" I'm concerned about. It should still serve the purpose of showing noise, banding, and other bad stuff.

 

[Bob Carnie]

Mike
A colour chart may not be required , you will know immediately by scanning and looking at the channels if you are inducing unwanted noise.
Rather I would experiment more with subject matter you enjoy first, make some prints and see if it is any better than regular colour exposure , scan and print.
It should be pretty obvious you are on the right track after a couple of side by side roll tests..

Do you guys think a color chart is the best test subject? The even/smooth toned patches should reveal noise levels quite easily. Or is there a color chart with graduated tones, i.e. red-to-blue, blue-to-yellow, yellow-to-red, cyan-to-magenta, etc.? I suppose I could just make the latter. A home-made garduated color chart would serve this purpose nicely, I think, because it's not "color accuracy" I'm concerned about. It should still serve the purpose of showing noise, banding, and other bad stuff.

 

[Mike1234]

That's true, Bob. I'll probably test both ways just for the fun of learning something new.

Years ago I tested the long-believed theory that opening and re-saving a JPEG many times caused increasingly obvious artifacts. What I found is, unless fairly obvious changes were made between saves, it made no perceivable difference. I used, real images, graduated color patches and solid color patches.

I just need to see for myself because I'm overly pragmatic... I have to see/learn for myself.

 

[Bruce Watson]

...my goal is ultimate final print quality.

Then I don't understand what you're trying to accomplish. If you want ultimate B&W print quality, use a B&W film for capture. For the same ISO rating, B&W negative film is both sharper and less grainy than color negative film. If you want the linearity of color negative film spectral response, use one of the Tmax films.

It looks to me as if you are trying to make this harder than it actually is. Like you are chasing a magic bullet. To find out, make sure you can define the problem. You can't solve a problem you can't define. So... what are you trying to do with color film that you can't do with B&W?

But to answer your original question about filters, the laws of physics won't change depending on what film you use to make the capture. A red filter will still pass the longer wave lengths and block the shorter ones. And the film will still record what it sees, regardless of B&W or color. Depending on how you scan the film and convert to grayscale, capture to B&W or color negative film should give you similar results.

 

[Bob Carnie]

Hi Bruce

I am not sure if Mike will find what he wants but it is an interesting task.
For example when I do BW conversions I am trying to take the best of all channels and blend them together to get the best result.

I have tested BW conversion by going into LAB and twisting the A B channel to separate the colours of the scene to spread them apart further , thus getting more tonal separation in the final conversion.
I stopped doing this as I was basically working with other peoples images and it goes against policy of not practicing on clients work.
But when showing several conversion methods, each person I showed would pick the LAB twist.
I have seen this also with crossed processed film when going to a basic conversion.

I do agree the sticking in true BW and using filters on camera will probably give the best results, I think that experimenting this way Mike may find a technique that he likes and can work with.

Then I don't understand what you're trying to accomplish. If you want ultimate B&W print quality, use a B&W film for capture. For the same ISO rating, B&W negative film is both sharper and less grainy than color negative film. If you want the linearity of color negative film spectral response, use one of the Tmax films.

It looks to me as if you are trying to make this harder than it actually is. Like you are chasing a magic bullet. To find out, make sure you can define the problem. You can't solve a problem you can't define. So... what are you trying to do with color film that you can't do with B&W?

But to answer your original question about filters, the laws of physics won't change depending on what film you use to make the capture. A red filter will still pass the longer wave lengths and block the shorter ones. And the film will still record what it sees, regardless of B&W or color. Depending on how you scan the film and convert to grayscale, capture to B&W or color negative film should give you similar results.

 

[Mike1234]

Bruce / Bob,

The primary reason I intend to shoot color neg is because I don't have the energy anymore to process my own film. Perhaps it's more attitude than health but, for now, I just want to experiment with using color neg film.

What I should have mentioned but didn't is that most of my work will be color prints anyway and even if I do intend on printing B&W from the inception of the image I may often want the option of printing color. I would need to buy a second Horseman 6x12cm back to load with B&W if I shoot both or just waste film.

If I find that I'm not getting the results I want with color-to-grayscale conversion then I'll probably switch to B&W film as appropriate.

BOB... Am I understanding you correctly that you swap the color channels in Lab mode? I'll have to give that a try.

*** Does anyone know where I can see some good "detailed" comparisons showing B&W film vs. color neg converted to grayscale with all digital workflow after image capture and film development? TMX vs. Ektar 100 would be an interesting pair to compare, I think. This could be the most likely pair to prove Bruce's point.

 

[Bob Carnie]

Mike

Bruce is right, you will get better sharper results if you just shoot BW.

But from my perspective I am converting to BW all the time for clients and have tried many , many steps to get good conversion.

One crazy method is this... do not try with client work

I work with CS3 , CS4 is slightly different command structure.


16 bit>
Colour file convert to Adobe 1998 for arguments sake,
Change mode to LAB
make a layer of background
Image> adjustment> curves> command 2 (opens A channel)> man from mars **Dan Margulis** bring bottom and top sliders in which will drive the green and magenta ballistic >
Repeat with the B channel > command 3

I would then save these layers for future modification by reducing the opacities of the A and B channels.

Go back to RGB, and you can channel blend to your hearts content to get the best conversion you like.

You may need to go back to LAB layers of the A & B channel and adjust the opacity to get the desired results.
Basically what is happening is the colours magenta green ** complimentary colours and the blue yellow are being driven apart from each other and creating some interesting tonal opportunities.

At a certain opacity, and I cannot tell you what that is you will find a lovely local contrast tonality that regular BW conversions, or filters on the camera cannot reproduce.

I imagine you also can play with select colour and hue / saturation in RGB to get some good results.. (I have never done this btw in RGB).
At a point you go too far with LAB and your colour's are out of gamut, but as long as you can see the drift then convert to BW you get nice separation.

I hope this is not too confusing, if it is Dan Margulis on Kelby Training is the man and his Man from Mars method is the starting point for this unusual BW conversion.

Bruce / Bob,

The primary reason I intend to shoot color neg is because I don't have the energy anymore to process my own film. Perhaps it's more attitude than health but, for now, I just want to experiment with using color neg film.

What I should have mentioned but didn't is that most of my work will be color prints anyway and even if I do intend on printing B&W from the inception of the image I may often want the option of printing color. I would need to buy a second Horseman 6x12cm back to load with B&W if I shoot color also... or waste film.

If I find that I'm not getting the results I want with color to B&W conversion then I'll switch to B&W.

BOB... Am I understanding you correctly that you swap the color channels in Lab mode? I'll have to give that a try.

Does anyone know where I can see some good "detailed" comparisons showing B&W film vs. color neg converted to grayscale with all digital workflow after image capture and film development? TMX vs. Ektar 100 would be an interesting pair to compare, I think... would be the most likely to prove Bruce's point.

 

[Mike1234]

Tonal Control w/ Color-Grayscale Conversion: Bob, that's a very intriguing approach but why convert the file to Adobe 1998? I'll be working in 64 bit CS4 Extended, BTW.

Print Quality: If there's a very noticible difference in quality then I'll probably shoot some B&W film. However, methods/techniques have evolved since I shot Agfapan 25 and 100 processed on Rodinal and selenium toned 26 years ago. I'll probably switch to TMX... I HATED TMX back then because of the poor micro-contrast/acutance I was getting with it. Maybe it's better now but even if it's not I think I can correct this with PS curves and some sharpening. I'll have to find a new (new to me) TMX film processing method suitable for scanning.

 

[Bob Carnie]

Only because I like that colour space and like ending up there for black white printing with RGB devices.
You can use any colour space you want but my printers are RGB , therefore Adobe 1998.
It has a large gamut to accept the tonal moves I make with all my work.

Tonal Control w/ Color-Grayscale Conversion: Bob, that's a very intriguing approach but why convert the file to Adobe 1998? I'll be working in 64 bit CS4 Extended, BTW.

CS3 for blending the channels are command 1 for red, command 2 for green, and command 3 for blue.
for some reason CS4 I believe it is command 3 for red, command 4 for green and command 5 for blue.
You would think this would be something the would not change when upgrading the software.


Print Quality: If there's a very noticible difference in quality then I'll probably shoot some B&W film. However, methods/techniques have evolved since I shot Agfapan 25 and 100 processed on Rodinal and selenium toned 26 years ago. I'll probably switch to TMX... I HATED TMX back then because of the poor micro-contrast/acutance I was gettiing with it. However, I think I can correct this with PS curves and some sharpening. I'll have to find a new (new to me) processing method suitable for scanning.

 

[Bob Carnie]

Sorry Mike I edited in your notes.

the bit about Adobe changing the channel numbers.

 

[Mike1234]

Only because I like that colour space and like ending up there for black white printing with RGB devices.
You can use any colour space you want but my printers are RGB , therefore Adobe 1998.
It has a large gamut to accept the tonal moves I make with all my work.

I think I'm exposing my ignorance here. Adobe 1998 sounds like an old version. I've been out of the multimedia business for several years and am having to catch up. True B&W analogue wet process? I'm just repeating that I've been out of that for 26 years.

I feel like a child asking mommy and daddy why the sky is blue and the grass is green.

I do appreciate the help/advice and will be experimenting with the recomendations given. I hope I don't make a pest of myself.

Sorry Mike I edited in your notes.

the bit about Adobe changing the channel numbers.

Evyone makes miskates.

Yes, you'd think Adobe would leave a good work flow alone. Command 1, 2, 3 makes sense because there are, after all, three RGB channels and it functioned top to bottom... very logical.

 

[Bob Carnie]

Mike you will get all kinds of experts telling you what is best, bestest, better, all I can say play with PS , read up on Dan Margulis, Kelby Training, its all good and there definately 40 ways to cook the image with PS and learning them all will take you years of fun.
I am a worker bee, I am driven to experiment with PS , Printing in all types of varietys and what you learn can be used later if not pertinant now.
Today I am making 30x40 lith fibre prints on my enlarger, to go to Paris on Tues, but like the crazy bee I am talking to you between tests and prints.

Try to stray away from advice that says the only way is such and such, for example if you are interested in platinum, gum, carbon and cyanotypes , and want to make digital negs, I believe it is important to learn about CMYK, RGB and LAB , combined they have 10 channels and 20 if you invert them. For multiple printing in these mediums with separate registered film it is extremely helpful to use the masks that the channels can provide. You may remember in the old days, complicated maskmaking to bring out the best in an image, well the same applys today except there are way more methods to choose from.

Soooooo my advice is to dedicate time to play with PS and film and not worry about any wrong or right way... after time some of the play becomes cool methods of better craftsmanship.

 

[Bruce Watson]

...I have tested BW conversion by going into LAB and twisting the A B channel to separate the colours of the scene to spread them apart further , thus getting more tonal separation in the final conversion.
.
.
.

I do agree the sticking in true BW and using filters on camera will probably give the best results, I think that experimenting this way Mike may find a technique that he likes and can work with.

If he wants to find a new workflow to end up with a B&W print, then experiment away. I'm all for it. But if he really wants what he said -- "ultimate final print quality" then we already know where he's going to end up -- with B&W film. Not only the "ultimate" capture, but also 1/5 the money of C-41. OK, maybe just 1/4. But much, much cheaper. And sharper and less grainy. Etc.

That said, I like your idea of the a-b twist. That's pretty cool out-of-the-box thinking. And it's certainly not something that a B&W film can do. That, I think, is a path well worth investigating. Good on ya.

 

[Mike1234]

Okay guys. You've convinced me to shoot B&W if I see the final Images as being (or possibly being) B&W so I'll sometimes shoot B&W and color of the same image. I didn't want to buy another RFH but so-be-it.

It seems that, for a hybrid workflow with someone who knows how to use the PS curves and sharpen tool well, TMX is probably the best bet for best overall quality. Is this your opinion?

I'm still going to experiment with color-to-grayscale conversion because I'm curious as to what can be achieved with a very fine-grain color negative film, such as Ektar 100, printed B&W.