Does this resemble push processing?

09/23/2004 07:42:33 PM · #26

Originally posted by mariomel:

Very cool! I like this style alot. BTW, what lens was this shot with?

The Sigma EX 12-24mm f/4.5-5.6

Canon EF 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM

09/23/2004 07:50:21 PM · #27

The #2 from your earlier post has a very nice film feel to it.

The push affect on the skateboarders is good too, but I keep thinking they have almost too much "pop" compared to film. I cannot articulate very well, but before I saw this post I had spent the last hour browsing black and white magazine and the skateboarded feels off. I see the bumped contrast and I see the grain which work, so I think it's something else.

dr rick

Canon EOS-300D Rebel

09/23/2004 08:04:36 PM · #28

Originally posted by Gil P:

I wonder how this technique can be applied to Digital, I guess it's only a question of underexposing it.

This question can be interpreted two ways. John explained how to give a normally exposed photo the appearance of push processing as an art technique. (A very good one, I will add, which I gladly add to my toolbox. Thanks for sharing, John.)

The technique of push processing to get a photo in underlit conditions can also apply to digital. Gil's guess is right; you underexpose and adjust levels during postprocessing. The contrast isn't increased like with overdeveloped film, but that can be added too if desired. This works best with RAW mode where the minimal information captured, all at the dark end, has 12 bit color depth (apply the adjustment during the RAW conversion). I tried this just last week! I underexposed this photo by 1.3 stops to get a shutter speed high enough to prevent the motion blur from being too distracting.

BTW, I completely agree with the sentiment to expose correctly whenever possible.

09/23/2004 08:06:29 PM · #29

Originally posted by Nusbaum:

These are just some tests. I think there are certain types of images where it will work better than others. Traditionally, film is pushed when the photographer needs a faster shutter speed than can be achieved with whatever film is loaded. This generally means he is working in a darker environment. Push processing was started out of a need for a faster shutter speed, I believe. My objective is to recreate the effect of that type of processing. Most film photographers don't push much anymore for 'effect'. Faster speed films are available now :)

09/23/2004 08:32:02 PM · #30

I didn't think there was anything wrong with your push technique, I probably just went off on a general B&W conversion tangent. Some images I convert just do not look right and I think it's the way film responds to color vs what I usually get from photoshop (channels based conversion). I let that leak into my response because I got the same feeling from the image of the skateboarder. My photographic education was very traditional (manual slr, plus-x/tri-x, and fixed contrast fiber based papers) and I miss that look. I'm really enjoying your work, even if i's just tests, so please take the comments as discussion and not critisism.

09/23/2004 08:44:58 PM · #31

Originally posted by Nusbaum:

Absolutely :)

I understand where you are coming from. Reproducing film processing effects digitally is purely hit and miss. I don't think a lot of them can be duplicated to a level where a traditional film photographer would accept them as 'duplicates'. There is just too much that is different all the way around...

Tamron SP AF 17-35mm f/2.8-4 Di LD Aspherical IF for Canon

09/23/2004 09:00:59 PM · #32

Originally posted by jmsetzler:

Originally posted by Nusbaum:
I didn't think there was anything wrong with your push technique, I probably just went off on a general B&W conversion tangent. Some images I convert just do not look right and I think it's the way film responds to color vs what I usually get from photoshop (channels based conversion). I let that leak into my response because I got the same feeling from the image of the skateboarder. My photographic education was very traditional (manual slr, plus-x/tri-x, and fixed contrast fiber based papers) and I miss that look. I'm really enjoying your work, even if i's just tests, so please take the comments as discussion and not critisism.

Absolutely :)

I understand where you are coming from. Reproducing film processing effects digitally is purely hit and miss. I don't think a lot of them can be duplicated to a level where a traditional film photographer would accept them as 'duplicates'. There is just too much that is different all the way around...

This may not belong here, but earlier this evening I was playing around with a Convert to B/W Pro from theimagingfactory.com. I usually don't like things that hide the conversion from me, but this one is fun for somebody who enjoyed traditional darkroom work. I like switching between the tonality for Ilford DELTA and Tri-X, sliding an 'exposure' slider, and trying differnt paper contrasts. I don't know if I'll pay after the 30 day trial is up, but it is interesting to try. My experiments (Ilford DELTA tonality for both)... next comes the noise and maybe a little bit of your push technique to see what happens.

Message edited by author 2004-09-23 21:04:25.

bruski

Canon EOS-50D

09/23/2004 09:07:55 PM · #33

Those look better like that than they did in color imo :)

Originally posted by Nusbaum:

Originally posted by jmsetzler:

Originally posted by Nusbaum:
I didn't think there was anything wrong with your push technique, I probably just went off on a general B&W conversion tangent. Some images I convert just do not look right and I think it's the way film responds to color vs what I usually get from photoshop (channels based conversion). I let that leak into my response because I got the same feeling from the image of the skateboarder. My photographic education was very traditional (manual slr, plus-x/tri-x, and fixed contrast fiber based papers) and I miss that look. I'm really enjoying your work, even if i's just tests, so please take the comments as discussion and not critisism.

Absolutely :)

I understand where you are coming from. Reproducing film processing effects digitally is purely hit and miss. I don't think a lot of them can be duplicated to a level where a traditional film photographer would accept them as 'duplicates'. There is just too much that is different all the way around...

This may not belong here, but earlier this evening I was playing around with a Convert to B/W Pro from theimagingfactory.com. I usually don't like things that hide the conversion from me, but this one is fun for somebody who enjoyed traditional darkroom work. I like switching between the tonality for Ilford DELTA and Tri-X, sliding an 'exposure' slider, and trying differnt paper contrasts. I don't know if I'll pay after the 30 day trial is up, but it is interesting to try. My experiments (Ilford DELTA tonality for both)... next comes the noise and maybe a little bit of your push technique to see what happens.

Tamron SP AF 17-35mm f/2.8-4 Di LD Aspherical IF for Canon

09/23/2004 09:19:27 PM · #34

Originally posted by G4Ds:

Those look better like that than they did in color imo :)

Thanks... I agree. I have always preferred black and white to color, but then I end up doing digital in color because I think that is what people want to see. I think this is a slight mental problem on my part.

bruski

Canon EOS-50D

09/23/2004 09:24:02 PM · #35

Originally posted by Nusbaum:

Originally posted by G4Ds:
Those look better like that than they did in color imo :)

Thanks... I agree. I have always preferred black and white to color, but then I end up doing digital in color because I think that is what people want to see. I think this is a slight mental problem on my part.

Alot of people these days like B&W.

Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 24-70mm f/2.8G ED

09/23/2004 09:59:20 PM · #36

Originally posted by G4Ds:

Originally posted by Nusbaum:

Originally posted by G4Ds:
Those look better like that than they did in color imo :)

Thanks... I agree. I have always preferred black and white to color, but then I end up doing digital in color because I think that is what people want to see. I think this is a slight mental problem on my part.

Alot of people these days like B&W.

I bet with a little effort, we could decipher what that tool is doing and duplicate it with a simple action...

Neil

Fujifilm X-T30

09/23/2004 10:03:22 PM · #37

An interesting discussion. I remember pushing tri-x in the darkroom when I was young, but not for effect, just to get faster film. So I'm not sure what the effect we are looking for (from your examples it seems like extreme contrast), but for fun I tried this on an underexposed image taken llast April with my G2 in raw mode (taken at twilight).

I tried the plugin for imagefactory too.

Here's the orig (conversion from raw to png to jpg) and the others converted as well first using the push process technique described below, but with brightness set to only -50, so I didn't loose all the tree details in this already underexposed image. Then I started over, did Trix in imagefactories filter, with an adjusted gamma to brighten the image a bit, and that looked cool. I cropped these after the tests, and reduced for upload to 640x4xx, so the crop may not be identical, but the base pic is. I didn't do any post reduction sharpening, or other cleanup, as this was only for the test:

I welcome any thoughts and comments on what is appealing, if any of the mods were.

09/23/2004 10:08:05 PM · #38

Originally posted by nshapiro:

I welcome any thoughts and comments on what is appealing, if any of the mods were.

There are a few differences in what we have done here... Try the push technique again, but not on your original. Go ahead and post process your original the way you normally would and then try the technique. I think it will produce a significantly different result...

Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM

09/23/2004 11:10:40 PM · #39

Originally posted by jmsetzler:

Originally posted by G4Ds:

Originally posted by Nusbaum:

Originally posted by G4Ds:
Those look better like that than they did in color imo :)

Thanks... I agree. I have always preferred black and white to color, but then I end up doing digital in color because I think that is what people want to see. I think this is a slight mental problem on my part.

Alot of people these days like B&W.

I bet with a little effort, we could decipher what that tool is doing and duplicate it with a simple action...

I was wondering about that. There are six sliders that are adjusted differently for the various film types. I'm assuming they build a curve based on a film reacts to different colors. Once we have the curve it should be easy to put into an action.

dwoolridge

09/24/2004 01:31:16 AM · #40

Originally posted by Nusbaum:

Originally posted by jmsetzler:
I bet with a little effort, we could decipher what that tool is doing and duplicate it with a simple action...

I was wondering about that. There are six sliders that are adjusted differently for the various film types. I'm assuming they build a curve based on a film reacts to different colors. Once we have the curve it should be easy to put into an action.

Even if you assume (and I wouldn't) every combination could be reduced to a single curve entry (where separate RGB curves are considered a single entry), that's a big steaming pot of curves.

The appeal of the IF tool is not that it does anything magical (i.e. something that can't already be done in photoshop with the given tools), but that its interface makes the process so much easier. It's nice that it works in 16-bit mode too.

Similarly, the brightness/contrast adjustment followed by the levels adjustment can be accomplished in one step with levels or curves. In levels, you just have to squeeze the input (increase contrast) and up the gamma (increase brightness) to roughly (25,1.15,235). You can get finer control with levels, but curves would give you even greater flexibility (e.g. better highlight/shadow compression).

Message edited by author 2004-09-24 02:55:38.

kiwiness

Canon Canon 1d x Mark II

09/25/2004 03:29:00 PM · #41

I pushed, but I kept it in color.... gray scale didn't work so well for this one :)

aerogurl

Nikon D300

Nikon AF-S Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G DX VR

09/25/2004 09:53:08 PM · #42

I also applied this technique to a photo I took today at a local civil war type festival. What do you think, Which one is best?

1. is Original 2. is Pushed 3. is Pushed with Grain 4. Duotone

1.

Message edited by author 2004-09-25 22:03:51.

Canon EOS-20D

Tamron SP AF 28-75mm f/2.8 XR Di for Canon

09/25/2004 10:26:48 PM · #43

Aerogurl, I think I like the second one the best but I also like the first and fourth ones too.

Here's my go with the push processing...

Sony DT 11-18mm f/4.5-5.6 Aspherical ED Super Wide Angle Zoom

09/26/2004 02:08:52 AM · #44

Originally posted by aerogurl:

I also applied this technique to a photo I took today at a local civil war type festival.

I was there all afternoon.. I'm surprised we didn't bump into each other :)

JPR

Sony Alpha a55

09/26/2004 02:26:38 AM · #45

John:

I just found this thread. I was actually about to suggest (in chat the other day when you were sharing your skateboarding shots) that you do something like this with the first photo you shared here. The white parts on the jeans seemed ideal for this sort of black and white conversion. Never being much of a film photographer I was infamiliar with the term push processing but I find that I often use the same workflow as you on many of my images. I love the effect and I'm also very glad that I can simply use photoshop to do it with a correct exposure.

Canon EF 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 DO IS USM

09/26/2004 02:30:51 AM · #46

Originally posted by JPR:

Some images work OK and others don't. If the shot is naturally dark, this process doesnt' work at all...

cpanaioti

Canon EOS-40D

09/26/2004 12:24:54 PM · #47

Here's my attempt at this.

Original __________ Pushed

I retried using my uploaded colour version as the starting point with better results.

Message edited by author 2004-09-26 17:13:20.

aerogurl

Nikon D300

Nikon AF-S Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G DX VR

09/26/2004 01:13:44 PM · #48

Originally posted by jmsetzler:

Originally posted by aerogurl:
I also applied this technique to a photo I took today at a local civil war type festival.

I was there all afternoon.. I'm surprised we didn't bump into each other :)

LOL We are just gonna have to meet and get it over with ;o) I actually looked for you to be there, but I didnt see anyone with a huge lens sticking out of their chest hehe

aerogurl

Nikon D300

Nikon AF-S Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G DX VR

09/26/2004 01:15:49 PM · #49

Originally posted by cpanaioti:

Here's my attempt at this.

Original __________ Pushed

I think the pushed version needs a tad more contrast.

Did you adjust the hightlight levels from 255 to 100? It doesn't look like it to me. It looks very very low contrast.