Lend me your eyes - working on a Tri-x simulation.

[Michael Floyd]

Yes, I know - nothing ever looks quite like film. I truly accept that.

Nevertheless, I'm giving it my best shot. I'm working on a Capture One profile for my X-pro3 images that hits the overall feeling and tone of Tri-x as well as I can. At this stage I've been looking for too long and could use some input. Thoughts, ideas, feedback, something that you're seeing stand out that I might be blind to, etc...

I shot a roll of Tri-x using a 50mm lens throughout, and for every frame I made a near identical image with a 35 on my X-pro3. ISO/aperture and SS are set the same on both cameras in each case so depth of field varies a little. The digital images have exif, the film ones don't.

Clearly there are differences in my image pairs. I can tweak one pair to be more similar however another pair then becomes less so, with the same settings. So again, I'm after overall feeling and ideally some sense of believability, or at least a minimum of falsity.

Here's the image pairs. What do you see?

-

Oh, I don't intend for this to be a test, or a commentary regarding which is best, or even a preference either way.

 

[Ergo607]

Yes, I know - nothing ever looks quite like film. I truly accept that.

Nevertheless, I'm giving it my best shot. I'm working on a Capture One profile for my X-pro3 images that hits the overall feeling and tone of Tri-x as well as I can. At this stage I've been looking for too long and could use some input. Thoughts, ideas, feedback, something that you're seeing stand out that I might be blind to, etc...

I shot a roll of Tri-x using a 50mm lens throughout, and for every frame I made a near identical image with a 35 on my X-pro3. ISO/aperture and SS are set the same on both cameras in each case so depth of field varies a little. The digital images have exif, the film ones don't.

Clearly there are differences in my image pairs. I can tweak one pair to be more similar however another pair then becomes less so, with the same settings. So again, I'm after overall feeling and ideally some sense of believability, or at least a minimum of falsity.

Here's the image pairs. What do you see?

-

Oh, I don't intend for this to be a test, or a commentary regarding which is best, or even a preference either way.

I think you did an incredible job. To me, it comes very close, and probably as close as possible. The only thing of notice is that in the film, the highlights seem to clip a little earlier, that's all.

Nice job!

 

[Dweeble]

Agree about the highlights, perhaps it also wants a touch more grain?

 

[Rodger in Edmonton]

I concur with the dampened highlights diagnosis - the appearance is more a standard 400 than the TRi X punched up highlights.

The B&W forum would be very helpful on this project - there is a lot of knowledge over there on B&W processing and the good old days of film.

B&W

Loading…

www.dpreview.com

 

[maltmoose]

I've never even shot tri x before but i like its look from many photos ive seen and have tried my best to replicate in capture one as well. No idea how close it is.

Anyway after looking at your comparisons i think you've done a good job but i need to check on a better screen, anyway i feel the xpro3 photos maybe need the following tweaked.

Slightly less contrast or some tonal change.

Slightly tonal change with the blacks.

Something tweaked with the highlights

Reduce sharpness

Something tweaked with the grain.

Dont take this as criticism, im just feeding back what i think. I'd love to have a go if you want to share a raw.

 

[Lan]

You've made a good start, but it's clear that there are differences between the two renderings. I've created an animgif which will hopefully show the difference. The tarpaulin is particularly noticeable, as is the dark wood of the deck:


AnimGIF showing both versions aligned in PS; view in Original Size to see in animated form

 

[maltmoose]

You've made a good start, but it's clear that there are differences between the two renderings. I've created an animgif which will hopefully show the difference. The tarpaulin is particularly noticeable, as is the dark wood of the deck:


AnimGIF showing both versions aligned in PS; view in Original Size to see in animated form

Cool, that really highlights the differences.

 

[charleyd]

What scanner were you using?

 

[Michael Floyd]

I think you did an incredible job. To me, it comes very close, and probably as close as possible. The only thing of notice is that in the film, the highlights seem to clip a little earlier, that's all.

Nice job!

Thanks Marc, much appreciated.

Yes, I do see what you mean with the highlights. I'll spend some more time in that area. It's a tricky one to get right.

Cheers.

 

[Michael Floyd]

Agree about the highlights, perhaps it also wants a touch more grain?

Thanks Dweeble for having a look. I agree, the grain isn't right.

I went back and forth with grain quite a few times. Unfortunately what I see rendered on the editing screen in C1 is not quite the same as what I see after exporting to jpg. So a fine adjust involves multiple exports and checks. Then of course one area looks more grainy and another less so.

I can do a more believable grain in GIMP, but it's a fair bit of fuss around. For this I'm just using the C1 grain offering, which is limited but actually pretty good.

I'll have more of a play around with the grain, perhaps I'll do a much higher resolution scan with my camera so that I can actually see what I'm trying to mimic as well.

 

[Michael Floyd]

I concur with the dampened highlights diagnosis - the appearance is more a standard 400 than the TRi X punched up highlights.

The B&W forum would be very helpful on this project - there is a lot of knowledge over there on B&W processing and the good old days of film.

B&W

https://www.dpreview.com/forums/1049

Thanks Roger,

Ok, three calls for more attention to highlights and I will definitely be taking that on board. I can certainly see what you are referring to, and I can adjust any single image to be closer to the film version. My difficulty lies in that I'm making the same adjustments to all images, as the aim is a profile, and when I improve one image, I mess up another. I'll work at it, thankyou for confirming the dampened highlights.

Ah great, I had popped my head into the B&W forum and thought it was more of an image sharing/ C&C place than somewhere for this kind of discussion. Perhaps I'll post over there linking back to here.

Cheers!

 

[Michael Floyd]

I've never even shot tri x before but i like its look from many photos ive seen and have tried my best to replicate in capture one as well. No idea how close it is.

Anyway after looking at your comparisons i think you've done a good job but i need to check on a better screen, anyway i feel the xpro3 photos maybe need the following tweaked.

Slightly less contrast or some tonal change.

Slightly tonal change with the blacks.

Something tweaked with the highlights

Reduce sharpness

Something tweaked with the grain.

Dont take this as criticism, im just feeding back what i think. I'd love to have a go if you want to share a raw.

Thanks Maltmoose, No criticism taken, I appreciated your eyes and your thoughts.

By all means, have a go. Remember that the aim is a Profile, so that means the same adjustments happen to all rafs. That's the hard bit - It's easy to match two pixels exactly, it's harder to match a zoomed in area of an image, it's harder again to match a whole image, it's harder yet again to match across several images while maintaining identical settings on each. Hence my going for overall vibe and feel rather that getting hung up on every last little detail.

Raw files for the 4 images posted are here:

Loading…

www.dropbox.com

I really hope you post your results.

 

[Michael Floyd]

You've made a good start, but it's clear that there are differences between the two renderings. I've created an animgif which will hopefully show the difference. The tarpaulin is particularly noticeable, as is the dark wood of the deck:

Thanks for doing this Lan. You've very clearly shown the crux of the issue and pointed it out in words as well.

The tarp and the wet deck are too dark and too light but in opposite versions. I feel that if I could solve this, without stuffing everything else up, it would be a great leap forward.

 

[Michael Floyd]

What scanner were you using?

Hey. The film was processed and scanned by my local optics outlet, as such I don't have any details. I could certainly find out though if it would help.

What are you seeing or not seeing that causes you to ask?

 

[Dweeble]

"I can do a more believable grain in GIMP, but it's a fair bit of fuss around."

That's GIMP for you, a bit faffy but massively under-rated. Might also be worth trying darktable? That has a filmic rgb module which could get you you quite a way, although I find it usually needs opacity tweaking.

 

[JimH123]

Yes, I know - nothing ever looks quite like film. I truly accept that.

Nevertheless, I'm giving it my best shot. I'm working on a Capture One profile for my X-pro3 images that hits the overall feeling and tone of Tri-x as well as I can. At this stage I've been looking for too long and could use some input. Thoughts, ideas, feedback, something that you're seeing stand out that I might be blind to, etc...

I shot a roll of Tri-x using a 50mm lens throughout, and for every frame I made a near identical image with a 35 on my X-pro3. ISO/aperture and SS are set the same on both cameras in each case so depth of field varies a little. The digital images have exif, the film ones don't.

Clearly there are differences in my image pairs. I can tweak one pair to be more similar however another pair then becomes less so, with the same settings. So again, I'm after overall feeling and ideally some sense of believability, or at least a minimum of falsity.

Here's the image pairs. What do you see?

-

Oh, I don't intend for this to be a test, or a commentary regarding which is best, or even a preference either way.

You have done quite a good job of achieving your objective. I have been down this road and know how difficult it is. And to automate this has got to be quite a stretch.

I decided to use a different path. Took a Sony A6300 and had the CFA scrapped off which turned it into a monochrome sensor. Because the camera is not aware that it is monochrome, I have to shoot RAW since JPEG would do a demosaicing of the JPEG file and it would lose detail I don't want to lose. I then convert the RAW into a DNG file with an app called Monochrome2DNG which gives me a DNG file to work with that has avoided demosaicing. And the mono file is so easy to work with. In fact, it looks good even if I don't do anything to it.

If I had to do it again, I would pick a full frame camera such as the Sony A7ii with can use non-lossy compressed RAW since I am finding that the A6300 only has the option for lossy compressed RAW.

Here is an example. Used a red filter. Camera is full spectrum, and without a UV_IR cut filter some IR feeds through the red filter turning leaves white. All the filters available to TriX can be used with this camera.

Looking at my camera usage for the past 2 years since having this camera modified, I find that it is now my most used camera. Having fun with it.

 

[AKoblentz]

Why Tri-X simulation toned? It's pure B&W

Also, there are some differences in Color response and Dynamic Range among TRI-X 320TXP, TRI-X Pan 400, TRI-X Ortho 4163, and TRI-X 400 Professional.

You may check for reference several Tri-X simulations with different filters for use in Lightroom / ACR Eastman Kodak Black and White Films profiles or LUTs.

 

[Joachim B]

Close!

The film ones are a bit lighter in the highlights, so a curves adjustment that makes the highlights clip just a little bit an pull up the light mid-end should do the trick.

Also, there is a bit more grain in the film than in the digital version. If you use Photoshop to edit, you could add some grain, and using blend-if target that to just the midtones.

In general, film is less sharp than digital, so go easy on the sharpening, or turn it off completely.

If you are using photoshop, and your changes are adjustment layer based, you could turn the stack into a 3D-LUT, and export that to other programs like Lightroom to make it a one-click adjustment.

 

[maltmoose]

Thank you for the raw samples and scan.

Wow that was hard but got pretty close i think. I'd need more raws and original photos of various colour scenes to get closer.


Capture one processed raw emulating Tri-x scan




scan

Capture one grain is not bad but it seems to apply uniform across the photos where as the scan seems to have less grain in the shadows and more in the highlights which i cant fix in capture one without layers and stuff. Maybe nik effects or some other tools would apply better grain.

 

[charleyd]

The scanner used would make a difference in the quality Tri-X images.