Getting that "Film Look" with Digital

If you want accurate color, you need a balanced system, then create a custom color profile.

What do you use to "shoot almost all digitally now"? What film has "natural colors"? Perhaps you could share examples of what you are getting and what you would like to attain.

If you don't like the colors and subtle gradation of tones in a digital image, you probably aren't using a decent DSLR, raw imaging mode, Photoshop, screen and printer profiling and/or a decent inkjet printer. Sorry about the grain - you need 35mm film for that. I'm sure you wouldn't like medium format film (or digital) in that regard.

As a start, compress the highlights and don't oversharpen. Uncompressed and oversharpened highlights are the most common obvious giveways that a photo was done digitally. Consider adding grain-like artifacts if you must, but film photographers have been trying to minimize grain for over a hundred years.

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>>I miss the natural look of films<<

Film look 'natural' because we are used to that look. If you had started with another medium (like ditial) you'd be saying "I miss the natural look of digital".

What I mean is: when we get into new formats and/or tools it's best to learn how to use them for what they are capable of producing. Take it to the limit. The moment we want to 'imitate' one for the other makes it a moot point, IMO.

In technical terms it has to do with contrast and saturation. If you learn how to use curves you'll be able to imitate the look you seek. In addition, you can save the parameters and apply them to all you pictures.

Getting natural skin tones with digital is certainly possible. But I also find the 'problem' a little silly, given that you can still shoot film, too. By all means shoot digital, but if you miss film, shoot film!

I use Alien Skin but you can't just use the presets. You have to tweak them...

Unless you are adding to an existing set of film pictures in order to hang them on the same wall, software that "emulates" the look of film is somewhat of a snake-oil product.

Digital has the capacity of rendering much more accurate and therefore "natural" skin tones than film ever had. But it is true, digital does have problems. One of them is linear capture of digital. Film logarithmically compresses the highlights, which is akin to the way human eyes see the world. Digital, on the other hand, often has the sharp "cut-off" look in the highlights. But this problem can be alleviated by shooting in RAW mode and then using software like Bibble that has an excellent set of tone curves that compress highlights, combined with Highlight Recovery tool that litarally "paints in" the blown out highlights. I found that this gives a very subtle, specfific look to my pictures that some may call film-like.

Shot against the light on a Digital Rebel, processed in Bibble. Paris 2005, Copyright Eugene Scherba

Actually, the film look is very possible with digital if that is your goal. However, you really need to focus on one film emulsion "look" at a time. Velvia has a set of parameters easily duplicated - as does Tri-X, etc. Basically, you need a strong understanding of PS CS2 and lots of time to practice the nuances. You also need to know WHY film looked the way it did. For example, Tri-X had a very long toe and the grain had exceptional accutance. It also had extended DR if developed correctly. Without understanding all this, duplicating this look would be impossible. This of course, would leave the beginner out of the picture.