Playing with Digital Velvia

dkapp · December 22, 2004

I found some old pumps the other day that I had been meaning to visit for a few months now.

To bump the colors in the picture, I used a Digital Velvia action from Fred Miranda. I like the look it gave an otherwise "normal" shot.

Let me know what you think,
Dave

fish · December 22, 2004

dkapp wrote:

I found some old pumps the other day that I had been meaning to visit for a few months now.

To bump the colors in the picture, I used a Digital Velvia action from Fred Miranda. I like the look it gave an otherwise "normal" shot.

Let me know what you think,
Dave

Fun! I ran across a site that offered Tri-X filters and almost went for it, but the price was kinda steep for a plugin for Elements.

dkapp · December 22, 2004

fish wrote:

Fun! I ran across a site that offered Tri-X filters and almost went for it, but the price was kinda steep for a plugin for Elements.

Where did you see the Tri-X filters? I've not heard of them before. I got this one from FredMiranda.com.

How much were they asking for the set? I know Andy has posted a tutorial for his ASA 1600 series that I enjoyed.

-Dave

fish · December 22, 2004

dkapp wrote:

Where did you see the Tri-X filters?

www.silveroxide.com

Available (osx):
Agfa: 25,100,
Kodak: PanX, PlusX, TriX, TMAX, TMY, TMZ, T400CN, VP, TP, Portra 400
Ilford: FP4, HP5, Delta 100, Delta 400, PanF, XP2

http://www.silveroxide.com/MACBuyH.htm

pricey.

dkapp · December 22, 2004

fish wrote:

www.silveroxide.com

Available (osx):
Agfa: 25,100,
Kodak: PanX, PlusX, TriX, TMAX, TMY, TMZ, T400CN, VP, TP, Portra 400
Ilford: FP4, HP5, Delta 100, Delta 400, PanF, XP2

http://www.silveroxide.com/MACBuyH.htm

pricey.

Those prices are insane. You should have warned me about the terrible web site design.

With prices like that, you think they could afford to pay a web designer and get rid of that crap

I think I need to take some aspirin & try to forget what I saw.

Dave

pathfinder · December 22, 2004

dkapp wrote:

Those prices are insane. You should have warned me about the terrible web site design.

With prices like that, you think they could afford to pay a web designer and get rid of that crap

I think I need to take some aspirin & try to forget what I saw.

Dave

Are the Tri-X plug in filters or the Velvia filters really that much better than what you can concoct in PS with saturation and adding monochrome noise?

fish · December 22, 2004

dkapp wrote:

Those prices are insane. You should have warned me about the terrible web site design.

With prices like that, you think they could afford to pay a web designer and get rid of that crap

Yeah, it's pretty awful. But if the filters work well...I can look past their html mediocrity. The prices tho...well, I told you they were pricy.

pathfinder wrote:

Are the Tri-X plug in filters or the Velvia filters really that much better than what you can concoct in PS with saturation and adding monochrome noise?

don't know. how about you download the tri-x demo and see if you can dupe it?

dkapp · December 22, 2004

pathfinder wrote:

Are the Tri-X plug in filters or the Velvia filters really that much better than what you can concoct in PS with saturation and adding monochrome noise?

I'm a creature of convenience. When it comes down to it, I like to hit a button that does 95% of my work & tweak the last 5%. I think the action was $10...not too bad.

The ASA 1600 was done by hand (following Andy's tutorial).

Dave

PerezDesignGroup · December 22, 2004

Awesome pic, Dave (as usual

)

There's a free Velvia near the bottom. Dragonizer is cool as well.

http://www.atncentral.com/download.htm

dkapp · December 22, 2004

PerezDesignGroup wrote:

Awesome pic, Dave (as usual )

There's a free Velvia near the bottom. Dragonizer is cool as well.

http://www.atncentral.com/download.htm

Sweet site, thanks for the link! I'll have to spend some time there tonight.

Dave

Dee · December 22, 2004

Dave...
Are those the pumps in Walnut Creek? I'll be headed that way next week.

dkapp · December 22, 2004

Dee wrote:

Are those the pumps in Walnut Creek? I'll be headed that way next week.

Those are the ones! I'll be going back myself at some point in time. They are pretty cool to see. After looking at my pics, I decided that shooting tight was the best way to go for me. There were a lot of cars, signs, power lines & misc stuff in the way. They are located right on the corner of a busy intersection.

Have you been there before? If not, I can give you the address.

Dave

pathfinder · December 22, 2004

pathfinder wrote:

Are the Tri-X plug in filters or the Velvia filters really that much better than what you can concoct in PS with saturation and adding monochrome noise?

I pulled up a couple of gas pump shots from last year, since thats what dkapp started with, and tried the Velvia imitation and the Tri X imitation for grins.

The first frame was shot with a CoolPix 995 in sRGB. I upped the saturation a little and darkened the background some as my attempt at a Kodachrome look

I then converted it to B&W and added some monochrome noise to render this...

Another gas pump shot with a 10D and a cheap walkabout lens 28-200 zoom

And then I converted a frame I shot a few minutes later to B&W with noise - It was good to convert this image because it had bad chromatic aberration that I corrected before B&W conversion.

dkapp · December 23, 2004

pathfinder wrote:

I pulled up a couple of gas pump shots from last year, since thats what dkapp started with, and tried the Velvia imitation and the Tri X imitation for grins.

The first frame was shot with a CoolPix 995 in sRGB. I upped the saturation a little and darkened the background some as my attempt at a Kodachrome look

I then converted it to B&W and added some monochrome noise to render this...

Another gas pump shot with a 10D and a cheap walkabout lens 28-200 zoom

And then I converted a frame I shot a few minutes later to B&W with noise - It was good to convert this image because it had bad chromatic aberration that I corrected before B&W conversion.

I like what you've done with these. How hard were the conversions? Did you follow the Andy ASA 1600 tutorial to get started?

Thanks for sharing these. I like the feel of the b&w and it sure can save a picture that had went south in color

I've done this a few times myself.

Dave

damonff · December 23, 2004

Love the b/w with the man walking by the pump...

wxwax · December 23, 2004

PerezDesignGroup wrote:

Awesome pic, Dave (as usual )

There's a free Velvia near the bottom. Dragonizer is cool as well.

http://www.atncentral.com/download.htm

Very cool. Part of me wants to learn to do it all myself in PS, but I can see the appeal of these Actions.

Dee · December 23, 2004

Walnut Creek Antique gas pumps
Have you been there before? If not, I can give you the address.

I have Olympic Blvd at Tice Valley Road as the address, but any tips and suggestions would be welcome. Where is the light coming from? I saw these posted on dpreview and that photographer got a pretty good photo of all of them.

How did you find out about them? I saw the photo, and sent an e-mail to the photographer and he graciously told me where they were. A google search showed nothing :-(

Care to post a reject or two showing all the clutter stuff? I like the treatment you did to bring out the colors.

Are they at a gas station? Or how did them manage to all be in one place like that?

dkapp · December 23, 2004

Dee wrote:

I have Olympic Blvd at Tice Valley Road as the address, but any tips and suggestions would be welcome. Where is the light coming from? I saw these posted on dpreview and that photographer got a pretty good photo of all of them.

How did you find out about them? I saw the photo, and sent an e-mail to the photographer and he graciously told me where they were. A google search showed nothing :-(

Care to post a reject or two showing all the clutter stuff? I like the treatment you did to bring out the colors.

Are they at a gas station? Or how did them manage to all be in one place like that?

A friend turned me onto this a long time ago after moving out here. He knew I was into textures, colors, worn & rusted objects. I did some web searching, and found this page. It took forever to find, but turned up after a Walnut Creek, CA search on pbase.

I then saw the gas station name in the sign & googled it & came up with the actual physical address. I don't know my way around outside the city, so mapquest is my best friend.

Saranap Filling Station
1601 Tice Valley Blvd
Walnut Creek, CA 9459

That picture pretty much shows the gas station side of the picture. The other side is a busy 4-way intersection. I deleted the other pics already, so this and one other are the only survivors.

I hope you get some good ones out there. Post your pics when you get back!

Dave

Dee · December 23, 2004

Mike Lowry's photo of the antique gas pumps

dkapp wrote:

Those are the ones! I'll be going back myself at some point in time. They are pretty cool to see. After looking at my pics, I decided that shooting tight was the best way to go for me. There were a lot of cars, signs, power lines & misc stuff in the way. They are located right on the corner of a busy intersection. Dave

Here's the link to the first photo I saw of them:
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1009&message=10129844

pathfinder · December 26, 2004

I was out driving north on HW 41 to Parke county to shoot covered bridges in the snow and saw a few things along the road as I drove by. I had to stop and turn around - thought these images belonged here in your thread about the antique gas pumps, Dave.

And in the same yard...

I never answered your question about the B&W conversion - After converting to B&W I just added monochrome noise to taste by clicking Filter >Add Noise > click Gaussian and monochromatic and adjust the slider to taste.

I did not follow Andy's 1600 tutorial - I use Greg Gorham's B&W conversion as described here http://www.gormanphotography.com/gorman.html and then click on the B&W conversion tutorial PDF file. After converting I just added noise to taste like I said. Adding noise to an image increases it size in jpgs very rapidly. The color image was about 1.2 MB at a jpg quality of 10, but I had to drop to a jpg quality of 6 and still had 2.8 MB after B&W conversion and adding the noise.

B&W conversion via Gorhams's technique yields this

And adding noise

Playing with Digital Velvia

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