Color to b/w

[Adam Wallensten]

Hi!

 

I have just shot a couple of rolls of 16mm colorfilm for a short film, which I want to turn in to b/w. My question is: What is the best way to do it? To let the lab scan the film in b/w or to transfer it to video in color and then remove the colors in the computer in post. Will there be a quality difference in the two methods?

 

Thank you

 

Adam Wallensten

[Jon Kukla]

When you say scan I'm guessing you actually mean telecine. They can't telecine it in black and white, per se, but the colorist can desaturate the image to b/w and grade it from there, if asked. The main thing is to make certain that you've shot a properly exposed grayscale so that the colorist has a standard reference to grade to. Otherwise he'll have to set levels by eye. I'd recommend doing it in telecine if you're certain you aren't going to go back to color, if only because they can properly grade the image with a degree of control you probably won't have in-computer.

[Adam Wallensten]

Thanks. Yes, I meant to make the colorist desaturate the image for me. I'm going to edit and make the final product in Final Cut so I thought that maybe the colorist had better tools to desaturate the image with more controls over the grays. And he will probably be able to match the images faster and more precice than I would be able to. I did not shoot a grayscale card (I suppose that was what you meant) so I guess he has to do it using his (and my) eyes. My thought on doing it myself would be that I will keep more information in the image (?).

 

Another question:

 

If my final product will be on miniDV (or DVD), will there be a difference in image quality if I get it telecined and transfered to a higher quality media like digiBeta or uncompressed QT and then to miniDV instead of tranfer to miniDV directly? Hope you understand what I mean. I know miniDV isn't the best format for the final product, but the short is primarily meant to be seen on television.

 

Thanks

 

adam

[Chris Burke]

Thanks. Yes, I meant to make the colorist desaturate the image for me. I'm going to edit and make the final product in Final Cut so I thought that maybe the colorist had better tools to desaturate the image with more controls over the grays. And he will probably be able to match the images faster and more precice than I would be able to. I did not shoot a grayscale card (I suppose that was what you meant) so I guess he has to do it using his (and my) eyes. My thought on doing it myself would be that I will keep more information in the image (?).

 

Another question:

 

If my final product will be on miniDV (or DVD), will there be a difference in image quality if I get it telecined and transfered to a higher quality media like digiBeta or uncompressed QT and then to miniDV instead of tranfer to miniDV directly? Hope you understand what I mean. I know miniDV isn't the best format for the final product, but the short is primarily meant to be seen on television.

 

Thanks

 

adam

 

Yes, get it transfered to the highest quality you can afford. MiniDV is pretty much bottom of the barrel. Go with the straight to hard drive or digibeta, the hard drive route is often cheaper.

 

chris