Jimmying the Gray Scale

[Leon Rodriguez]

Here's something I've been thinking about doing for an upcoming shot. Check my thinking and correct me if I'm wrong, please.

 

If I jimmy the gray scale with a pale green filter and then time back to a correct skin tone, I am in effect removing green fom everthing else or adding green to everything else?

 

In my mind I'm seeing a green tint on the whole spectrum except for skin. Correct or not?

[Chris Keth]

Here's something I've been thinking about doing for an upcoming shot.  Check my thinking and correct me if I'm wrong, please. 

 

If I jimmy the gray scale with a pale green filter and then time back to a correct skin tone,  I am in effect removing green fom everthing else or adding green to everything else?

 

In my mind I'm seeing a green tint on the whole spectrum except for skin.  Correct or not?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

I think you would be subtracting it from everything, ending up right where you started. You'd be shooting with a green tint so to remove that and go to correct skintones you'd be removing green from everything.

 

So I think using a slightly magenta filter then correcting for proper skintone would leave you with proper skintone and everything slightly green.

Edited November 20, 2004 by Mr. Bunnies

[David Mullen ASC]

I'm not sure I understand the question. If you shoot a gray scale under a green light or through a green filter, the timer either has to add more magenta or subtract green to correct the scale back to gray. Either way, the following scene shot without the green filter will look magenta instead -- magenta overall. But the negative will be normal; the magenta look was added in timing.

 

Now if you're talking about shooting the scene itself under green lighting or with a green filter and timing out the green to affect skintones, I think what you'll find is that the corrected skintones in the print look a little palid, maybe a little grainier, because the red layer was underexposed and had to be printed up.

[Leon Rodriguez]

Right, I wasn't thinking this through. I was wrong. Hmmm, What I'm trying to do is punch up the greens without subtracting it out of my skintones. I want to keep the green gels off the lamps but end up with these greenish tints on the walls.

 

I may just have to light it that way and flag off a better skintone lighting zone for faces. I was trying to keep from restricting the actor's movement though.

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

Don't mean to hijack with a side issue, but I've finally found some fluorescents that actually look green on video but normal to the eye - like the way film normally works, although all the fluorescent lighting I have reads non-green on video and green on film.

 

Working lights at a nightclub in Glasgow called The Arches. Green as hell, even when I balanced to them. Panasonic's "FLUORESCENT" present did mute it a bit.

 

Phil

[David Mullen ASC]

Sounds like you want to light the faces with magenta and then time it back to normal, forcing the background to get greener. It's just a question of whether it is easier to gel the key light magenta or the background light green.

[Nate Yolles]

I've been wanting to do something which would give the same effect as what Mr. Mullen just described only acomplished differently. I want to light the actor/actress with a color and then use its complimentary color on lens. So that the actor would be under white light and the background would be the color of the camera filter.

[Leon Rodriguez]

Yeah, thanks. I'm back on track. I like Nate's idea too. I'm going to try them and see how controllable it is. I'll report the results back as a follow up.

Edited November 21, 2004 by Leon Rodriguez

[John Pytlak RIP]

Perhaps a spectrally selective filter, similar to a Didymium filter, could be used to enhance certain colors:

 

http://www.tiffen.com/camera_filters.htm#Didymium%20Filters

 

Didymium Filters

    The Tiffen "ENHANCING Filter" is a combination of rare earth elements in glass.  It completely removes a portion of the spectrum in the orange region.  The effect is to increase the color saturation intensity of certain brown, orange, and reddish objects by eliminating the muddy tones and maximizing the crimson and scarlet components.  Its most frequent use is for obtaining strongly saturated fall foliage.  The effect is minimal on objects of other colors.  Skin tones might be overly warm.  Even after subsequent color timing or correction to balance out any unwanted bias in these other areas, the effect on reddish objects will still be apparent

 

http://microscopy.fsu.edu/primer/lightandc...iltershome.html

 

http://www.cs.mtu.edu/~shene/DigiCam/User-...er-enhance.html

 

Enhancing, Intensifying and Didymium filters are all the same and serve the same purpose: enhancing the warm colors in a scene (i.e., red, orange and brown) to provide more color saturation and contrast without significantly affecting cooler colors (e.g., green). As a result, enhancing filters are very effective with landscapes to enhancing foliage and rocky features. However, since this is a filter with color, it can also introduce noticeable color shift is other, especially white, areas.

 

The following are images taken with and without enhancing filters. Compare the color shift in red, green, and blue colors caused by the use of an enhance filter. The differences are obvious.