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What defines the look of these pictures?


Jacob Moeller

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Thanks Ed, I actually did misunderstand. I thought he meant someone shooting a large format slide, which is something I'd never heard of. But, yeah, I suppose it could have been an interpositive. I've never heard of one for a large format camera.

 

Hi,

 

Interpositive is something different. It's actually a negative stock exposed by an image from a negative (in motion picture printing). Reversal (E6) film comes out as print-contrast positive when processed. In fact in the old days (up to 90's I guess or so) reversal film (slide film, transparency film, E6, chrome film, these are some of the terms used for it) was the "industry standard" for professional photography (advertising, magazines, etc.); mostly used in medium format and sheet film sizes, but also in 35mm. Negative film was also sometimes used for pro photography, especially for wedding photography (ease of creating prints for customers, and also greater latitude for shooting black and white dresses), but "slide film" was the king back then.

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I've heard it refer to a print derived from another print for stills through some form of physical contact of unexposed film with a print. But yes, you are correct in that for motion picture footage it refers to the intermediate print between the original negative, and a new work negative to create other prints.

 

I'm rusty.

 

 

No, that's called an internegative. There were special internegative film stocks used for making prints from slides. You'd copy the transparency using this internegative stock (similar to how you'd make an internegative from an interpositive in motion picture printing) and then print that on photo paper. There were alternatives though (cibachrome for example).

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hi first of all....thats a lovely goal to have for a film. and a challenging one too.

since we cant shoot film nowww...am not even getting there of what it was shot on....processed on and other

kind of realistic details which existed for that time period. now the job is what do we do with the present digital scenario.

hmmm.....

and...look which u have given as examples....3 photographs ..in my eyes....are 'completely different ' looks.

the 1st pic has rich bright colours but the overall image hasnt lost the 'whites'. its brilliantly clear whites....whereas the 2nd pic has no clean whites at all. its muddied and white has a lot of green added to it. sooo that itself is one HUGE difference among the two given images. even the lensing is so different. u have to decide on one of these references as ur looks

ok wat can we try.....

1. trial and error method. try different tests and see each and every trial works. thats the mind set needed to begin with

2. beg ur costume designer to get the right colours of those 'period'....including the right texture of the fabric

3. shoot the images from angles which receives the max amount of light....to get the brightest colours possible keeping in mind the exposures for ur sky....and water and generally all backgrounds. if ur BG and FG gets the closer exposure the overall image is gonna look saturated.. and it will lend to uniform grading in the post

4.try shooting with as much ND's as possible. try loosing the detail in the BG. and then if u add grain structures in the post it will be more exaggerated in the out of focus images and less pronounced on the images in focus.

5. may be Desat and blow up only the highlights by two stops. retain the whites as white.

6. for the 2nd image loose the whites...and add a little green over all. smudge the highlights. use soft effects filters...classic soft or sfx 1 or 2

7. hmmmmm...:) thinking.... if i get more ideas will feed.

...ok ....all the above stuff are very random thoughts of mine. nothing is a rule of thumb till u see it on screen. keep experimenting. cheers!

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No, that's called an internegative. There were special internegative film stocks used for making prints from slides. You'd copy the transparency using this internegative stock (similar to how you'd make an internegative from an interpositive in motion picture printing) and then print that on photo paper. There were alternatives though (cibachrome for example).

 

Hmm, I guess I was taught wrong. Thanks for the clarification.

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Try and force a curve sholder to the highlights of the image. This goes for the second two images. The first one has "healthier" highlights. What I'm saying here is, create a nonlinearity to the highlights, instead of just changing the slope of the entire curve. The third image has some contrast masking in it (it's looks like it's from some rotogravure print material) which tended to produce edge effects. It's a bit difficult to be specific, because these 3 images all have unique artefacts, and they aren't exactly of the "same look". This is an example of what I'm talking about:

 

http://www.imageupload.co.uk/images/2014/09/15/DSC04304.jpg

 

Ah yes, that example looks very good! This is definitely the kind of feel I was thinking of. You did that just now (then) on a recently taken photo?

 

 

hi first of all....thats a lovely goal to have for a film. and a challenging one too.

since we cant shoot film nowww...am not even getting there of what it was shot on....processed on and other

kind of realistic details which existed for that time period. now the job is what do we do with the present digital scenario.

hmmm.....

and...look which u have given as examples....3 photographs ..in my eyes....are 'completely different ' looks.

the 1st pic has rich bright colours but the overall image hasnt lost the 'whites'. its brilliantly clear whites....whereas the 2nd pic has no clean whites at all. its muddied and white has a lot of green added to it. sooo that itself is one HUGE difference among the two given images. even the lensing is so different. u have to decide on one of these references as ur looks

ok wat can we try.....

1. trial and error method. try different tests and see each and every trial works. thats the mind set needed to begin with

2. beg ur costume designer to get the right colours of those 'period'....including the right texture of the fabric

3. shoot the images from angles which receives the max amount of light....to get the brightest colours possible keeping in mind the exposures for ur sky....and water and generally all backgrounds. if ur BG and FG gets the closer exposure the overall image is gonna look saturated.. and it will lend to uniform grading in the post

4.try shooting with as much ND's as possible. try loosing the detail in the BG. and then if u add grain structures in the post it will be more exaggerated in the out of focus images and less pronounced on the images in focus.

5. may be Desat and blow up only the highlights by two stops. retain the whites as white.

6. for the 2nd image loose the whites...and add a little green over all. smudge the highlights. use soft effects filters...classic soft or sfx 1 or 2

7. hmmmmm... :) thinking.... if i get more ideas will feed.

...ok ....all the above stuff are very random thoughts of mine. nothing is a rule of thumb till u see it on screen. keep experimenting. cheers!

 

 

Many of you have commented that these images don't exactly have the "same look" and what do I know! With your comments I see now, that these actually do not have as much in common, as I would have thought. But yes, i'm really just using these to edge closer to what i want to achieve (and how), and your comments have definitely helped alot.

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Well the obvious thing that defines those 3 pictures is the period, they all come from what looks like the early 60s, but one is a photo from Life magazine, one is a family snap, and the other is a postcard. So the technical processes of creation and thus the whole "look" of each of these images is completely different from one another, but the common evocation is of a period, no? I'd explore the technology of the era that created them.

Edited by Dom Jaeger
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People have made a lot of good points here, but I would like to add a few things.

 

1. While it is good to be able to express what you like about a photo, I think showing images to your team as a way to talk about the look is a vary valid option. I often create a look book to help express what I want to achieve, first I will use this in my conversations with the director, and then will often share some or all of it with others on my crew, especially the gaffer and colorist. We work in a visual medium and I find that is the best place to start the conversation!

 

2. While the three pictures do have different looks there is one thing they seem to have in common. They come from a time when color reproduction was not as accurate as it is today, so for instants there was a color for blue and a color for green but not as many hews in between them, this is a bit of an oversimplification of course, but that idea might be helpful when it comes to color grading.

 

3. When it comes to adding grain to they image, I heard of an interesting technique which was used on the short film Curfew. They printed it back to film to add the grain back in. While not the only way it did seem like a fun interesting idea.

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