How to get that 60-70s color look today?

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kmerenkov

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Hi all,
I've been struggling a bit but I couldn't keep it anymore. This question was in my head for a very long time.

I am young so I wasn't around 40-50 years ago, especially in photography world.
I always look at old colour photos and like their colours. I don't know how to describe them... warm, pale, or anything else. They just look different from today's colours to me.
Here is some reference to what I am talking about: http://www.yeyeland.com/articles/chantal-.htm - look at this car shot for example (there is a lot of other old photos from this nice time period at this site - http://www.yeyeland.com).

What gives such colours - film, printing, my imagination? Is it possible to achieve such colour reproduction today?
 
35mmdelux said:
One word: Kodachrome. Or, the dye trnasfer procedure.

Best -- Paul
Click to expand...
Oh no! You mentioned magic Kodachrome word. Now I will regret till the end of the days that I was late for 50 years at appearing to this world. 🙁(
About dye transfer procedure - googled a bit, still have to read about it. No time at the moment. But from what I read it takes skill, few days of time and some deep wallet.

Basing on your comment I conclude that this world is doomed now.
 
You want real depression? Go look at some Kodachrome 4x5 slides from WWII. They look just like when they were shot 60+ years ago. There is nothing else in this world that looks the same as large format Kodachrome... Nothing. And nothing else ever will again.

William
 
Some of the advertising and commercial images were reproduced using a process called "carbro" printing. This was a four color process using pigmented carbon tissue with each successive layer CYMK added separately. This process allowed individual films to be hand etched and "tooled" so that careful color reproduction could be obtained. Sometimes this was expanded to add more special colors, as in the case of Marlboro advertisements, where Marlboro red was a fifth color.

Overall, I think it has a lower color gamut that current technology, and a starting point would be to break an image into CMYK color and perhaps adjust densities of each sep.
They also tend to be on the warm side, since the magenta tended to more red and the yellow was more contaminated with magenta. The yellow was not as bright as current.

It's kind of a pigment vs. dye issue, but the pigments are desaturated. I also depends on the age of what you are looking at, since it's reproduction may have faded some.
 
Here's a method using an RGB image converted to multichannel which gave a CMY image, then I added a channel and pasted the magenta channel into the new 4th channel, then converted to CMYK then back to RGB. This drops the black like the old tricolor process, maybe a starting point. You can compare to the original RGB image. Only problem here is that it's a scan from some old Fuji NPS which has lost color. Have to try it with some RDPIII for the real test, since we are now without Kodachrome 25 and earlier slower versions.

Normal image
sixthandjones.jpg


"Carbro" Image
sixthandjonescarbro.jpg
 
Here's a test with RDPIII, more saturated, and the magenta was too strong, so I took the cyan to make the fourth channel, and also decreased it's density somewhat, then had to lighten overall.

RDPIII Normal
rdpiii.jpg


RDPIII Carbro
rdpiiicarbro.jpg


There is a lot of control by adjusting the channels in multichannel mode, then go back to CMYK to make up the black.

Hope this helps. Post some images of your experiments. My first photo instructor used to shoot large format food photography in Toronto and used this carbro process exclusively, so that would be in the 50's for him.
 
kmerenkov said:
Oh no! You mentioned magic Kodachrome word. Now I will regret till the end of the days that I was late for 50 years at appearing to this world. 🙁(
Click to expand...
Kodachrome 64 still being manufactured and sold, albeit not directly in Russia. Try it while you can.

copenhagen3.jpg
 
I was asking about getting results with film, not with photoshop.
Oh well, too bad it is not possible to achieve now 🙁
Also, only Agfa I've seen in my life with my own eyes is APX 100 and 400 (20 rolls are with me at the moment). So, no expired agfa for me too...

Thank you all for advices
 
All the material shot in the '60s is now 40+ years old, not to mention we see much of it in the form of book and magazine images, which are certainly faded, so how can you say what it looked like when it was new? Kodachrome is just good slide film, the images are vibrant and saturated: consider the famous "Afghan Girl" photograph shot on Kodachrome.
The only thing I know is to avoid the Fuji films if you want a 60s look, since they are very contemporary, almost digital looking.
 
Joe said:
The only thing I know is to avoid the Fuji films if you want a 60s look, since they are very contemporary, almost digital looking.
Click to expand...
Yes I didn't like fuji look on my photos (probably because weather in moscow is often clouded and dull), though I liked how saturated fuji is according to flickr search results.
What would you advise then? Some NC portra? I don't have experience with colour film, I am avoiding it like plague for some reason.
 
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