Thanks for sharing that.
There are Photoshop plugins that let you add specific grain patterns.
One is Grain Surgery.
Convert to Black and White Pro looks to be excellent converter that
allows easy alteration of tonality with just a slider. Has a free
trial. Review here:
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/software/must-have.shtml
Winsor
Long Beach, California, USA
On Jan 30, 2006, at 12:33 PM, AG Schnozz wrote:
> Friday I took some pictures that I envisioned as B&W. Last night
> I got around to experimenting with a couple of those to see if
> they'd go anywhere. I shot the same scene with the E-1 as well
> as my A1.
>
> Veddy int'resting.
>
> The tonal adjustments were "extreme" to say the least. We're
> talking very heavy-handed processing to achieve a "look" that
> was as far from "realistic" as possible. In the darkroom, it
> would have involved a double whammy of paper-flashing and
> split-grade processing. In Photoshop (or during RAW conversion)
> it was quite a bit easier--but not quite as much fun. :)
>
> Without a doubt, the A1 produced a film-grain look that was
> nearly identical to T400CN. You'd be hard pressed to tell the
> difference in the final print. The E-1 produced a look which I
> still can't figure out, but merges the cleanliness of
> medium-format with a slight edginess of silver-film.
>
> Then came the fun.
>
> I didn't want "grainless" or "noiseless" as I was attempting to
> achieve a look. Well, doing some testing, this is what seemed
> to work well and will be a basis of further experimentation.
>
> 1. Process the image to your desired tonal extremes. Let the
> blacks and whites go just a touch farther into 0%, 100% than you
> normally would. Don't worry about noise/grain, just let it go.
>
> 2. Upsize the image to your desired print size. Do the scaling
> with Bicubic.
>
> 3. Duplicate the image onto another layer.
>
> 4. Apply noise to that layer. I stayed with monochrome noise.
> Not much, just enough to irritate you.
>
> 5. Apply a very light blur to that duplicated layer.
>
> 6. Blend the duplicated layer at about 25-30%.
>
> 7. Flatten image.
>
> The end result is an image with an "organic" look to it and the
> extreme blacks and whites now have a texture to them that looks
> real instead of white-washed. The results are more B&W'ish than
> anything I've ever achieved through normal processes. I applied
> these steps after the initial conversion to monochrome (and
> whatever goofy things you do there). My biggest problem with
> digital B&W is the lack of "finesse" in the highlights and
> shadows. Most films have a nice toe and shoulder that gives
> details that is lost in digital capture. This additive noise
> process mimicks the lost detail and can actually reveal details
> that are maybe one or two brightness steps different by bringing
> them back from the threshold.
>
> If I can get a globbier noise pattern, I might be able to mimick
> real B&W films. The grain in a B&W film creates (extremely)
> localized diffraction artifacts which are not captured in the
> film scanning process or digital capture.
>
> Much more work to go, but at least I'm making headway.
>
> AG
>
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