Forget RAW and go ACROS

[DominikDUK]

ruilourosa it´s a hard thing to replicate silver gelatin printing in digital...:

Actually it's easy and has been done for more than 20 years Durst Lambda and pretty much every Minilab for the last 20 years. The image capture medium is film or an analogue or digital sensor. You can make a digital print (inkjet, etc...) from film, and an analogue print (Silbergelatine Baryta) from digital

 

[user237428934]

Hmm so if company that does both Acros film, and Acros film preset (for the sensors that they also have developed), what really is THE, then? 😀

They could even tune their films to better mimic digital presets, if they wanted.

There is no single look for any film. I'm sure in the Fuji labs they have some reference recipes for developing and printing but that's not relevant for the world outside of the fuji labs. Look at a flickr group of any popular film. There is no consistent look because there are so many developers and recipes and differences in agitation and papers (or scanning and printing) out there.

I believe that 80% of the people who actually used Acros film will look at the Fuji Acros preset and they will notice that their Fuji Acros experience is (slightly) different.

The same applies to film presets. There are dozens of tools out there and every single tool does Tri-X, TMAX, Acros, etc. slightly different.

People who like Tri-X usually don't like Acros because it looks almost too digital (so they say).

 

[ruilourosa]

minilab prints are not what i was talking about. I also never saw a frontier or lambda printing on barita paper...

also: printing in a minilab you can never get a silver gelatin print just a dye print

 

[ruilourosa]

you can choose your medium and do whatever you want but each has it´s own look, so take advantage of each, do not try to simulate one with the other

 

[DominikDUK]

minilab prints are not what i was talking about. I also never saw a frontier or lambda printing on barita paper...

also: printing in a minilab you can never get a silver gelatin print just a dye print

An RA4 C-Print is a silver print, the silver is bleached out but silver is still the light sensitive component. A drylab which is not the same thing as a classic minilab and unfortunately the most widely used "print"service today is dye sublimation. Whitewall print service offers Baryta prints made with a Durst Lambda so do many others.
Ilford offers a Baryta paper that was especially designed for digital enlargers and LED and Laser exposure Ilford Galerie FB1k Digital Silver.

 

[ruilourosa]

Man you are wright!!!!!! i did not know about this paper! although i am guessing that finding a printing service that has to have a lambda or frontier fitted to ilford chemistry maybe a pain!!! and let´s see if it lasts... kodak also had panalure...

And yes ra-4 process papers are silver based but in the end they do not have silver... and all ra-4 process papers never worked well in BW from my experience...

for you to fully understand what i was talking about: Digital cannot be printed in an common enlarger where you can make a print, not just print an image! I develop and print my images at my place in my time not in a expensive machine in the printing bureau, in the most standard way

The discussion started in simulations and i believe that images, their sintaxes and their materialities do not need to simulate others, they can be whatever they are

 

[DwF]

I appreciate you going to such trouble here. I won't further complicate the debate other than to suggest that the "wife beater" under your un-ironed shirt introduces issues of density to the post-processing that further complicates your effort 😉

Sony A7 ARW-file shot at 250ISO off tripod, Tamron Adaptall24-35mm set to 35mm 4.0. Quick shot with sort of the same lighting in my garden and an un-ironed shirt. This was Lightroom hand processed only.

The PNG compression (Apple screen shot) reeks mild havoc on it but the shirts have similar transgressions from lights to shadows.

I'm pretty certain that if I wanted, I could recreate the tonality of the white t shirt completely.

 

[Ranchu]

The shirts are not the same, dude's is brighter and has texture. And yes, your shirt looks hard in contrast, compared to the dude's. The idea is not to make a dull shirt bright, like you suggest when you say 'recreate the tonality', but take a picture of a guy wearing the bright white shirt.

You want to handle that t shirt or those clouds with digital? It'll look hard.

 

[shawn]

This is a crop of a straight out of the camera ACROS JPEG from the X Pro 2. At ISO200 so the grain substitution isn't really active.

Same thing with gaussian blur added...

Shawn

 

[cz23]

There is no single look for any film. I'm sure in the Fuji labs they have some reference recipes for developing and printing but that's not relevant for the world outside of the fuji labs. Look at a flickr group of any popular film. There is no consistent look because there are so many developers and recipes and differences in agitation and papers (or scanning and printing) out there....

One of the more sensible things said on this topic around here in a while.

It applies even more generally to the so-called "film look" itself. What film? What developer? What time? What dilution? What temperature? What agitation? What, what what....?

John

 

[Ranchu]

So many possibilities, it's a wonder anything gets said at all. That's why earlier I said that film and digital have an area in which their looks overlap, which lets people pretend they're similar if that's their interest. I've never used acros, but from looking at flickr, it looks a lot like digital to begin with. Maybe a bit creamier highlights?

 

[Rayt]

I've never used acros, but from looking at flickr, it looks a lot like digital to begin with. Maybe a bit creamier highlights?

That's the only criticism I have heard from my film shooting friends about Acros that it is too clinical, too "boring". I like the stuff more for its reciprocity characteristics for larger formats. Souping it in Rodinal gives it more character I guess. Acros is too expensive now compared to TMX but I still have many cans of the Arista Legacy.

 

[Ranchu]

That must be a good feeling! 🙂

 

[infrequent]

Found this video from Ted Vieira. He compares ACROS film (which he favours) and compares it with the ACROS film simulation mode on the 3rd gen Fuji sensors.

https://youtu.be/bwk9xMsgQlE

Note: He is pushing ACROS 100 by 2 stops.