Your secrets & tips ... Creating ‘Dirty’ jpgs/dngs

[Ko.Fe.]

With presets in PP all of the photos starts to look the same. Sometimes just too much of the same. And with over PPing it is making it worse. And then I see same preset been populated in different threads, it is kind of setting me off. And then I see many pictures of the same over PPied at the same page, it is just annoying. It is no pictures anymore, but gobble of over PPied images which all looks the same from thread to thread, day to day, year to year.

_____________________________________________________________________

No PP and muddy is requiring to find your camera. To suit your own taste.

My camera for muddy colors is E-PL1. It just has right amount of non-perfection at its maximum ISO.
For BW I like old Lumix P&S with Leica lens. M-E BW at ISO2500 is also fine.
I liked EOS DSLRs high ISO JPEG1 with in camera BW with red filter in camera preset.

No over extreme from all of those.

I like SOOC BW from Q, BTW. For SOOC colors nothing is close to OMD, to me.

 

[Axel]

For me the G´mic Filters in GIMP do the job of film emulation or grain very well - if wanted.
Here is an example of a tmax1600 grain-preset. The effect ist adjustable in many ways.

original from digicam

 

[helen.HH]

Thanks for all the recent posts... I am sorry I have not written back
I was actually working the last week, something I have hardly done in EIGHT MONTHS, so I was happy to make real money !!

I am getting into the groove, breaking rules
since the 21 angulon does not meter, and exposure compensation makes more problems than less...with the angulon I go by my natural gut/ instinct for metering
here is one I like
where spot on exposure bored me, seemed too pretty film like,
but when I shot it again, I chose to be more creative and I prefer it, very little post processing




a casual nstroll, dark, broody and moody, thats the way I like Miss 21 angulon by Helen Hill, on Flickr

 

[peterm1]

Thanks for all the recent posts... I am sorry I have not written back
I was actually working the last week, something I have hardly done in EIGHT MONTHS, so I was happy to make real money !!

I am getting into the groove, breaking rules
since the 21 angulon does not meter, and exposure compensation makes more problems than less...so I go by my natural gut/ instinct
here is one I like
where spot on exposure bored me but when I shot it again being creative I preferred it




a casual nstroll, dark, broody and moody, thats the way I like Miss 21 angulon by Helen Hill, on Flickr

Helen, I find that far too many photos I see on the internet are perfectly exposed with lighting balanced and lit across the whole frame. Making them technically fine, but too often, somewhat boring. I much prefer the sort of image you have posted here with a bit of shadow to add "dimensionality" and life to the scene. So, I like it a lot. Well done.

 

[peterm1]

Further to my post below, I quite like the mood embodied in this kind of street shot where the shadow and light adds some depth and drama to the scene. Imagine how it would have looked if the lighting were balanced across the whole scene. It would have been much more "flat" and to my eye less interesting.

Coffee with Sunshine by Life in Shadows, on Flickr

 

[helen.HH]

YES Agreed 'PeterM1' /Peter, a Lovely shot !

This is what I enjoy in your body of work. The desire to have a more cinematic, atmospheric vibe to draw in the viewer

Sometimes perfect exposure works / more so with Film, though film more forgiving and certainly imperfection in Film can be quite Beautiful.

The problem for Me with digital is it's rendering of lights / unnatural lights, halogen, tungsten, lcd, etc

 

[peterm1]

YES Agreed 'PeterM1' /Peter, a Lovely shot !

This is what I enjoy in your body of work. The desire to have a more cinematic, atmospheric vibe to draw in the viewer

Sometimes perfect exposure works / more so with Film, though film more forgiving and certainly imperfection in Film can be quite Beautiful.

The problem for Me with digital is it's rendering of lights / unnatural lights, halogen, tungsten, lcd, etc

Thank you Helen, much appreciated. Yes that's it - "cinematic" is part of what I strive for. (Though I freely concede that I am still learning and sometimes much over do it. C'est la Vie).

I agree whole heartedly about digital's rendering of lights - especially as you say, unnatural ones. I particularly dislike mixed lighting sources (something that is hard to avoid in the type of shooting I do) as it often makes it impossible to balance out and fix in post - fix one part of the image and the rest of the image goes out of balance. I especially dislike purple or magenta tones which are particularly unpleasant especially on skin-tones. To be 200% frank these types of lighting issues where I have failed to successfully correct them in post are often present in images that I convert to black and white if I otherwise like the image.

EDIT: Oh and the other digital issue I really work hard to overcome are blown highlights - which are much more prevalent in digital shooting because of the way sensors work. It's the bane of my life. To cope out on the street where I lack time to check histograms I usually just set the camera to under expose by about 0.7 of a stop where I know there is likely to be some sky etc in the frame. But digital cameras are getting better and newer sensors and firmware help considerably. I recently bought a second hand Sony A7s (first version). It's much touted for its ability to shoot at crazy sensitivities up to 400,000 ISO but what I find actually beneficial in everyday shooting is how it copes with quite "garden variety" ISO sensitivity levels. It makes it so much easier to cope with high contrast in images which might otherwise result in blobs of white in the image. (BTW the other thing that seems to help too is using older lenses which inherently have lower contrast rendering. They make the image rendering "flatter" but this can always be fixed in post processing if desired and by lowering contrast of the image that hits the sensor, they do seem to help produce more keepers.)

 

[helen.HH]

Markjwyatt:

Yes, understood and partially agree to your comment
"Film Grain IS THE IMAGE. Digital grain is NOISE"

sometimes noise works, sometimes not
I am not looking for a 'film' look, can just shoot film when I want
but I do crave a cinematic, moody vibe to digital be it crank up the noise, or a perfect exposure, or moving towards darker shadows or a crazy lens that adds character

Thank You for your cool Photos and Thoughts ~

 

[helen.HH]

Thank You Doug for your suggestion...
Peter's ears were burning and chimed in with some helpful ways of PP,
hehehe !

 

[helen.HH]

'Hans Berkhout' :

It can be quite exhausting, investigating all those photos that make me Smile
and If I may ask: What camera, lens, PP were used in your shot... Loved it !

 

[helen.HH]

'petronius':

You made me giggle with this remark;
"shoot reflections and shoot through dirty/wet/damp windows.
(Saul Leiter and Josef Sudek are kind of Yodas in this field.)"

reflections and dirty windows Im love to fall into and take my chances... they usually fare very well

Saul and Josef certainly have their 'Magic' !

 

[helen.HH]

'Ricoh'"

haha, PURRfect Ricoh
I lover your thinking, WANT IT !
"Following on from the M10R, perhaps Leica should develop the M10Di
Di for dirty."

Let's sell the concept and model number to Leica !
_______

 

[helen.HH]

Tim Gray:

I have not looked into Adobe Capture yet
arghhh, so many new to me options

Thank You ~

 

[helen.HH]

JohnWolf:

BINGO !
You totally understand my thinking...
as you said: "But as I see it, we're not talking about emulating film. I suspect Helen was careful to avoid that language. It's more about adding character and expressiveness to what many perceive as relatively sterile files. It's an important distinction."

i have no Interest emulating Film
Just want a enchanting Digi image that captures the Viewer... draws them in

 

[peterm1]

Helen if interested my signature below includes links to 3 articles of mine published over at Steve Huff's site a few years back. If you are looking for ideas to think about maybe there is something there that might trigger something. Sadly the second article is missing off his site (but I still have it on my computer if desired). In the articles I talk about the approach I try for in shooting (and in processing) much as I have done below, and, especially in the last article, about how Saul Leiter influenced me what I attempt in these images.

 

[helen.HH]

Willie 901:

You nearly killed me with your advice... arghhh, though I do Thank YOU !

I truly respect your expertise and knowledge. You certainly have saved my tush in the past
but I could not stick to your one golden rule: low ISO... sometimes it was just too perfect, too nice , not enough

 

[helen.HH]

Helen if interested my signature below includes links to 3 articles of mine published over at Steve Huff's site a few years back. If you are looking for ideas to think about maybe there is something there that might trigger something. Sadly the second article is missing off his site (but I still have it on my computer if desired). In the articles I talk about the approach I try for in shooting (and in processing) much as I have done below, and, especially in the last article, about how Saul Leiter influenced me what I attempt in these images.

Thanks Peter... more homework, lol !
will do, Cheers ~

 

[newst]

If I am trying to get a film effect in digital I rarely do the adjustment in camera.

Rather I process the image in Lightroom, converting it to a 'film' image in either the Analog Efex or the Silver Efex add-in modules. While I occasionally go through the effort to manually select all the levels/options, I generally just pick one of the presets available.

This is a photograph I took in my backyard yesterday evening, using an A7II and a Tokina 5.6/300mm lens. I loaded the ARW file to Lightroom, selected to edit it in Silver Efex, picked the preset that I liked best, and downloaded the JPG. Simple. If I had wanted more grain it was just a slider away.

2020-09-30 Home Deer A7II Tokina 300-56 DSC06826B by newst54, on Flickr

 

[helen.HH]

‘Swift1’ / Colton:

I very much loved the changes to the Sky and even more the changes to the sand, pebbles, water... Lovely transformation !
Thank You for the tips and visuals

 

[helen.HH]

‘Newst’
Lucky You, deer to prance about
Beautiful ethereal quality to your photo... timeless , classical!