This low resolution scan was made with a 4x5 using Ektachrome 64 then scanned on a Scitex. Ektachrome loves blue, especially in shade making this image a nightmare to process. Those of you who have decades of such slides know what I mean. I want to salvage as many as makes sense so I am motivated for a processing solution. So if any of you know of a magic bullet to salvage these, I would much appreciate knowing what it is! Thanks in advance…
and if you take this one on, welcome to my world… and good luck
You may only download this file to demonstrate how you would process the image. The file is Copyright of the photographer, and you must delete the raw file when you are done. Please post a jpg of what you created, explain what you did, and why you did it.
Bill, I have worked for many years with Velvia 50 and most recently with the newer release of Ektachrome E-100. I use both MF & LF. I find the E-100 easier for processing than V-50.
Although there is no silver bullet sadly and I can spend a lot of time on post processing.
I’m not sure your post processing methods and not sure what was done to obtain the look you have here. A couple items I do to start is to use a Threshold layer and move the sliders to setup a Black point spot and a White point spot. I set Black at 15-15-15. The White point at 242-243-244.
If the original has a noticeable Blue cast I would normally adjust the cast first between 0-100 opacity before going on to setting the Black & White points.
I use @Bill_Chambers cast removal technique for that issue.
Add Layer > Filter > Blur > Average > Open Curves Layer > Use Middle Eye Dropper On The Mask > Turn Off The First Layer Mask > Adjust Opacity To Liking > Discard Mask.
Continue with flattening image once your done with any other adjustments.
Again, you may have already done a lot of these changes and these are just some ideas and methods I do with all my film images.
The problem is a cross cast. highlights nice and warm, shadows are a brilliant blue (Ekta 64 is the worst film possible for this, E100 would have been a big improvement). Take a look at the raw file to see just how bad the problem can be.
where do I find the Bill_Chambers cast removal method?
the way I approached included a luminosity mask on a layer where I blended channels (red into blue in darken, etc…)
Thanks for your comments! it is an ongoing salvage exercise. One I could not even attempt prior to Photoshop
Bill, I’ll see if I can Bill Chambers method. I have all the stuff memorized after years of fussing with film issues.
Setting the darkest point with the Threshold layer to 15-15-15 should help eliminate some of the shadow blue colors.
Bill, I’ve looked thru all my data and could not find @Bill_Chambers “Cast Removal” process. You might try sending Bill a Message and see if he responds. Good luck.
I got the average color to remove using the methods you described… then added curves layer sampling that color (then removing the avg layer of course). It suffers from having not tamed those blue shadows and making the highlight snow yellow instead of white… and we all know about yellow snow!
I know you are advocating this as a first step… and it is and I thank you for pointing it out. certainly it is much quicker than what I do with channel blending. But your sunlit snow is a LAB (99, -4, 12) a greenish yellow whereas the shadow snow is (31, -1, -33) an absolutely brilliant blue (with hint of green)… I don’t think you can get there without a mask …
I understand, Bill. That is why I only made the cast removal and nothing more.
You’re correct about the blue in shadow area. Many would see that as a bit normal. However, I would set the darkest point in the image at the (15R) (15G) (15B). That makes the Black point pure black.
Than I would set the brightest point of snow at (242R) (243G) (244B). That makes the White point white without it being pure white.
Than for the Blue Shadow area I would just take the Eye Dropper Tool and pick a deep blue shadow area and click on it. Giving the W&B color pallet the Blue Shadow sample color. Than just do a Select > Color Range and once it has the ANTS covering lessen the Blue Shadow by Layer > Hue/Saturation or Color Balance.
Hi Bill, I am the last one to be playing around with color as I am red/green color blind, but I wanted to take a stab at this. I use Capture One for Raw Processing. It has some fantastic color management tools. I am sure Lightroom and Photoshop have some similar tools.
Anyway, I brought the image into C1 and used the advanced color editor. I used the color picker to pick a representative blue area, then expanded the area in the tool to cover more blue. Then adjusted the hue, saturation, and lightness. I did a similar selection of the yellow snow at the top and reduced the saturation there as well. In my view, there should still be a little blue in the shadows and a little yellow in the whites since the sun is shining on them.
actually it’s a pretty good start… you got about half way there. LAB values in the shadow are (62,-2,-20) which is not a brilliant blue but certainly not neutral. Highlight snow is a touch yellow but not bad. certainly by eye it looks much better… at least by my eye which is not color blind
I have C1 and will have a look at it since that might be easier although I tend not to use it. It’s photoshop for me (better the devil you know)
thanks. you’ve given me something to explore. In truth looking at mine now, I see I have neutral snow in both shadow and highlight but I overdid the saturation on the reds… which I can fix
Bill, I poked at the image with old PS5 that I use and after MANY changes came up with this version. As I tend to use an axe to start and finish with tweezers I could not recall all of the changes. However, as a film only photographer it’s a hunt & peck mode for me to correct the film & scanning ills. If it makes you feel better I share in your pain. It’s an acquired taste I guess…
(Oops; I forgot to convert to sRGB. Here’s another attempt; I deleted the prior.)
Sometimes I’ll use the a and b channels of lab as a basis for masks to go after specific colors. (I’ll combine with a luminosity mask or just adjust certain luminosities with a curves layer (set to color) that lets you move the color in different areas of luminosity.) That can be helpful because it can let you target what is most blue (or yellow, or magenta, or green) regardless of luminosity.
I wouldn’t expect the snow in the shadows to be neutral, so I didn’t try to get it there. You could certainly nudge it more in that direction if preferred though.
I’ll probably take a look at this tomorrow and say “Oh my lord, what have I done…”, but nevertheless here’s a rough stab at it in that vein.
So taking a look at all these for color choices (forget the gamma which is a matter of taste anyhow), I looked at a)bright snow, b) shadowed snow, c) very dark areas and d) trees.
For bright snow we can all agree it should be near neutral (could be a tiny bit blue) and that pretty much is true for everyone but David (maybe trying to get some golden from sun?)
For shadowed snow, which I admit could be reflecting sky if you were standing there looking at it so it must be on the blue side of neutral and not purple – meaning not getting red reflection blended), they all range from extremely blue in everyone’s except mine (and I think I could stand a little more blue based on what I’m seeing in the others).
For dark point, Paul and I got the most neutral but this is not a big thing.
For trees which are pines so therefore tent to less yellow than many other trees, good greens for John, Paul and mine. David’s were a bit too green.
This is not a contest but a chance for me to learn so I thank you all for your time and comments. The goal of this is to see how to handle that deep Ektachrome blue and I would say we all did it using various techniques except I guess Paul didn’t keep record but I liked alot. I have taken note of them and plan to use them in future, at least to test out the approach. Thanks for all the tips and it is eye opening to see the different interpretations, all of which are good.
I contacted Bill Chambers about his method but he has not gotten back to me.
Bill, you’re welcome. Never any contest approach at all. For me, every image I work on, it’s a personal challenge to help me work thru items that “appear” off to my eye. So, it’s almost always a learning event in the end…
Maybe I’m crazy but this didn’t seem to be too complex to me, I made some simple adjustments in ACR to the white balance and small HSL tweaks to get to something natural looking pretty quickly. I also played with the contrast in the tone curve a bit. It’s not perfect, but a great starting point. Highlights are warm, shadows are cool just as you would expect.
it’s not that easy IMHO. on your result, put your eyedropper on the bright snow to see it a greenish yellow… the dark snow is an almost totally saturated purple. the dark colors are greenish yellow, and the trees are not green enough…
do not take this as criticism, just as a way of increasing your sensitivity to the cross cast in this image
but this didn’t seem to be too complex to me, I made some simple adjustments in ACR to the white balance and small HSL tweaks to get to something natural looking pretty quickly. I also played with the contrast in the tone curve a bit. It’s not perfect, but a great starting point. Highlights are warm, shadows are cool just as you would expect.