I will try to write a little bit about my own color workflow but honestly, it is very fluid and different for each image. What is the same is that whatever camera I'm using - I want the camera to do as little as possible in terms of saturation / sharpness etc. If the camera has RAW capability than I will go with that. With the jpg / A640 it is set to neutral which I think is even less saturated than normal mode.
The fun begins by trying to imagine different looks for the image. In the "Thirsty" image (for example) there are about 15 layers, each with a squarish piece of the image - some pieces burned with multiply, some dodged with screen; and trying to make some pieces more or less prominent by the pieces around it. In other words - and I've mentioned this before - the color work is like painting and less real than the b&w work. Why that should be - I'm not sure.
I have a lot of choices with the Exposure plug-in in terms of film-looks - but some images are part Kodachrome, part Ecktachrome... It's like playing with a puzzle.
The image below of Dunkin' Donuts - is pretty straight foward. After the usual noise reduction is run, the image was converted to Kodachrome 64. Then pieces that I wanted to stand out - the windows - a bit of the parking sign - about 10 different pieces - were screened so they'd stand out in the darkness.
I don't think that I've used the Saturation adjustment layer at all - though I don't know why not. But saturation and de-saturation is achieved by using color / multiply blending and sometimes by making use of a b&w conversion layer for desaturation or to pump up the blacks.
What I'm trying to say is that it's like working on a mosaic - esp. the urban landscape which is all squares and rectangles with an occassional circle tossed in.
Why choose Kodachrome 64 for Dunkin' Donuts and not the EES which I was using for the Coney Island stuff? I don't know myself but the Kodachrome has a pinkish glow that seemed right for Donuts!
Did you ever stand in front of a bare room while a designer showed you paint swatches? That's sort of what it's like. You hold up swatches and try and imagine what an entire room with that puce swatch will do for you. In the case of The Poe Cottage shot - I wanted a moldy, greenish, decrepit look. For Thirsty - the more garish the better. It is, after all - freak shows and Coney Island.
2 comments:
Jeff -
I did consider and use various color films a few years ago. Uneven results.
a) wasn't thrilled with the local consumer labs; sometimes film was scratched; sometimes dusty; sometimes dropped on the floor. Good labs are downtown - and expensive, i.e. dip and dunk.
b) i very much like the idea of being able to pick my film style during the post processing; and scanning is a pain; and my results with digital color are better than what I ever did with color film. I think I feel more free to experiment with digital than with film.
c) I need my new toys sometimes to keep me interested.
Jeff - I almost did the same thing - but then made this odd u-turn towards digital consumer cameras.
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