Any B&W Picture Profiles out there?

T

tankbullock

Active member
I have been looking around for any Black and White Picture Profiles for the F3 but have drawn a blank.

Doug Jenson did put some really nice shots up on Vimeo but never released the settings.

I can work my way around the picture profiles ok but with such a mountain of options, I don't really feel that well equipped to build one from scratch. I will have a whack if need be but just wondered if anyone had anything they could share as a good starting point.

Many thanks.
 
Well I'm trying to build a profile myself but for some reason, when I try to just get the image desaturated I am still left with a slightly saturated image.

I may be missing something blatant/obvious but I thought Matrix on and level turned to -99 would desaturate the image. I have also tried turning the other colour level bars (below phase) to -99 but I can't get rid of the final 10% of colour.

Any guidance would be hugely appreciated.
 
Definitely do NOT do black and white inside the camera, always do it in post, you have much more flexibility!
 
It is only for some tests, not for a finished product. We are Grading everything from SLOG ultimately, but for some camera tests and maybe a few home videos I want to build a nice punchy BxW profile that I can use.

If only I wasn't such a menu-dweeb I might have worked out how to of at least remove colour. Like I said before any help would be great, I will gladly share my profile once built.
 
It is so easy to remove color in post. Why bother? If turning matrix level to -99 doesn't do it I don't think there are any other tools.
 
tankbullock said:
. I have also tried turning the other colour level bars (below phase) to -99 but I can't get rid of the final 10% of colour.
Click to expand...

You are correct, you can't get rid of 100% of the color with a Picture Profile and still get a nice looking image. Deep reds are the hardest to get rid of, and if you do, then the picture looks flat. In the B&W examples I have posted at Vimeo, I still had to dial down the saturation with FCP7's 3-way color corrector to get rid of that last 5% of color.

http://vimeo.com/39140086

However, don't believe anyone who says you can do the same thing in post by shooting in color and making it black and white later. Not true. There are things you can do with a picture profile that cannot be duplicated in post. I know, because I have done extensive testing and I know what is possible and what is not possible. Ask yourself this, if you can take color and turn it to black and white and get the same look, why did Kodak continue to sell millions of rolls of B&W film to professional photographers after color was introduced? The answer is because good B&W is not just the absence of color. There's more to it than that.
 
That's really beautiful Doug,
What did you find lacking in the typical "post" method and what was your general concept for doing it in PP's?
 
Thank you, I'm glad you liked it. Parts of that video work for me, and others don't. It is a work in progress and I need to find time to experiment more with the new S-LOG gamma that is available from the Picture Profile menus via the new firmware I'd had on my camera since NAB. Not enough time in the day.
 
Doug Jensen said:
You are correct, you can't get rid of 100% of the color with a Picture Profile and still get a nice looking image. Deep reds are the hardest to get rid of, and if you do, then the picture looks flat. In the B&W examples I have posted at Vimeo, I still had to dial down the saturation with FCP7's 3-way color corrector to get rid of that last 5% of color.

http://vimeo.com/39140086

However, don't believe anyone who says you can do the same thing in post by shooting in color and making it black and white later. Not true. There are things you can do with a picture profile that cannot be duplicated in post. I know, because I have done extensive testing and I know what is possible and what is not possible. Ask yourself this, if you can take color and turn it to black and white and get the same look, why did Kodak continue to sell millions of rolls of B&W film to professional photographers after color was introduced? The answer is because good B&W is not just the absence of color. There's more to it than that.
Click to expand...

Doug, I'd be interested to know why you feel this way, what tests you've done, and what results you've achieved. My background is primarily as a commercial and fine art photographer with a great deal of experience in both film and digital (90% of my fine art work is still shot on large format black and white film, hand processed and printed in my darkroom). In addition, I teach on the subject matter at the International Center of Photography in NYC, including how to make fine art black and white prints from digital files. I may a fair bit of my living of off fine art B&W prints. I could go on but I think you get the point (not trying to be a pompous jerk, just pointing out that I have about 25 years of experience with B&W film). When it comes to still photography, I would always, always shoot raw and deal with the B&W conversion in post. You are absolutely correct when you say that a lot more goes into making a good B&W image than simply desaturating a color image, I could not agree more. But why do you feel you are able to achieve better results in-camera than you are able to in post? I just shot some S-Log footage for a music video and portions of it we had graded to B&W (going for a high contrast, super grainy, Tri-X look reminiscent of the east village punk rock scene of the 1970's). I think it came out great, but I would be interested to know your findings and how you arrived at them, as I'm always looking for better ways to do something.
 
I know my PP is better because I can use matrix to control selective colors that respond differently in black and white (sort like adding a red or yellow glass fliter to a film camera), push contrast more, and modify the sharpening in ways that wouldn't have the same results in color. However, if you got the results you wanted by shooting in color and adjusting in post, then who am I to argue with that? I was not trying to achieve a "super grainy, Tri-X look" with the picture profile. I think that would be impossible to do in camera.

The bottom line is to what works best for you. There's more than one way to skin a cat.
 
This all reminds me of a time many years ago (okay maybe only like 20). Shooting BetaCamSP and a producer wanted the spot in Black and White and requested that we bring "plenty of black and white tape stock" to the shoot..... good times. good times.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top