Getting Film Simulations for Free

I sometimes have that bit of nostalgia for that film look. I shot film from my school days until after I got married. We've influenced younger generations to think and feel that organic film colours is something to want. 

Movies are often heavily colour graded, like Christoper Nolan's Interstellar.  The quirky palettes of Wes Anderson continue that trend.  Every photo guru is keen to sell unique Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom presets. There are also, well established colour grading software like DxOLab's Filmpack. Photo editing software often throw in presets or LUTs or Actions (recorded steps).

It is very tempting to put money down and get some yummy film simulations. But. There's always a But. But what if you could have fun and fool around with that idea for free? It might not turn out to be your artistic centre to use such a tool or you might run hot and then cool off. One way to dip your toes in the water is to use Raw Therapee with the HALDCUT Film Simulation Pack. Here's how:

1. Download and install Raw Therapee. There are downloads for Linux, 64 bit Windows, 64 bit MacOS. If you don't want to contaminate your Windows computer by installing Raw Therapee, Portable Apps has a version of Raw Therapee that you can unpack without embedding itself into Windows Registry and Windows folders. 
2. Download and unpack the HALDCUT Film Simulation files into a folder of your choice.
3. Start up Raw Therapee and go into Preferences to nominate where that HALDCUT folder is.
4. Restart Raw Therapee
5. Load an image into Raw Therapee and then go to the Color > Film Simulation panel to start using the Film Simulations
6. Save the resulting image.

SOOC JPEG from Kodak P880

Image after applying HALDCUT Agfa film simulation

Revisiting The Then

There's an old saying "That was then but this is now..." or something to that effect. In the 1960s to 80s, the amateur photographer was simply that. There was no internet. Glossy magazines cost money and if you lived outside of the UK (Amateur Photographer) or US, disconnected from your environs and your life. Yes, there might be the odd Photographic Society and exhibition, a few people striving for ARPS or FRPS but the average amateur simply slung his rangefinder or SLR and just went taking photos of content that was interesting to himself . Photo Fine Art schools were for the privileged, not the broad masses and not in the country you lived in.

The camera you used was moderately priced. There would be a few grasping their Leica or Nikon but the average enthusiast would be using one of the middle class, Japanese makes - remember Petri, Miranda, Asahi Pentax, Minolta (before it fell into Konica), Cosina and so on. Some people used 120 size film not because they were artists, but because that type of camera wasn't out of the ordinary and they liked looking down at their belly button. Most were 35mm users - we didn't even call them full frame though there were cropped film sizes like 127 and 110.

Lenses might be original brand (in which case they would be the ubiquitous 50mm (plus/minus) or you could splurge on an additional heady 28mm f/2.8 at the wide or 135mm f/2.8 at the telephoto. You might walk around with the one lens because you didn't think of buying another. And if you bought extra lenses, they might not be tack sharp Carl Zeiss, they would be some Komuranon or similar. We didn't talk about bokeh because most things were blurred. We were just happy that anything turned out sharp and used f/8. We couldn't chimp. We certainly didn't mercilessly pixel peep at 1:1

What about technique? We knew about leading lines and.... that was about it. I don't remember that we used visual puns of juxtaposition. Things were pretty straightforward. Yes, I'll say it. It was all simpler then.

Now, whilst the rest of the world chases astrophotography, high dynamic range blending, high speed sync with TTL flash, super intelligent continuous autofocus tracking and high-speed burst rates on sports, there's nothing to stop you from slowing down, turning back the clock. It's all up to you.

Pengurus Stesen

Fisherman reeling in the Prosperity (Huat Huat)

When Image Quality isn't the Focus

One night, while waiting for a family member on a rainy wintery night, I tried a cinematic shot or two.

Currently, my favourite alley

As the eye darts around, different people on their night out

The great thing about having friends who enjoy photography is that you have someone to share your images and your creativity with.  +Paul Pavlinovich hatched on the Film Noir motive and got a few of us out on a short but very enjoyable night photo walk.

The two men make such a picture, but ok, if you like the glasses in bokeh...

Suits in Conversation

My favourite alley, this time with kitchen staff on a break

The mist of warm food and a warm room

A warm, nice last image for this set.

Conventional and conservative wisdom repeatedly emphasises "Image Quality" above all other aspects of the image. I decided to shoot this series with old gear, with an emphasis on nice tones, potentially old style focus fall off but not necessarily exceptional ISO noise, autofocus or viewfinder. I needed the images to be attractive but was quite happy to put IQ considerations in the back seat. I enjoyed the exercise and the results.

The Use of Style to Convey a Narrative

I'm usually not conflicted in deciding between a Monochrome vs Colour interpretation in my photos. I prefer natural or visually believable colour to preserve the essence that colour conveys. I choose a Black and White interpretation when colour is intrusive or detracts in conveying shape and texture. This is one instance, when I think either works because they do convey different messages.

The Monochrome Version

Straight Out Of The Camera JPEG from the Panasonic G2 set to Dynamic Black and White Profile

I feel the texture of the fabric and the back of the Dragon Head's puppeteer, the exaggerated stance of the guy holding the cymbals and the frozen-in-time women are emphasised by this treatment

The Colour Version

Processed from raw through Adobe Lightroom 5.3 with highlight recovery and tonal adjustments then the Nostalgia - Agfa RSX film emulation filter applied.

The colours have been grossly saturated in the film simulaiton - it gives me an old-time feel of the organic, mixed colour structure of film. The reds and yellows convey the Chinese New Year sentiment and again, the people in the scene are frozen in time for eternity, taking part in this photo.

I initially thought that this would be one of the forgotten shots but now I've got two to show.