Colour from B&W

[daveh]

I have previously mentioned, particularly to Didon, about getting a colour print from black and white film. Here is my first attempt of doing this digitally. Of course there is no point at all to this, other than it demonstrates the basic principles.


1) Camera set to monochrome, 3 separate photos taken
a) first exposure with red filter placed in front of lens


b) second exposure - green


c) third exposure - blue


2) process 'film'. In this case import the above into photoshop

3) combine the three shots by exposing each to the colour print paper, with the original filter in place. Using photoshop it was a case of converting each to an RGB file and adding in the relevant colour filter, then combining the three using the HDR automerge function.




4) final result (detail) - colours not great but they are there.


There was a bit of a breeze and this has caused some colour fringing.

[mickeyobe]

I have taken some liberties in Photoshop.
Saturation, brightness, contrast.



Mickey

[daveh]

Mickey, I played around with it myself as well, and came up with all sorts of results. Some were better, some worse. However, I went back to the original combination on the basis that it was probably the nearest I would get if I did it all by analogue means. As I've said before, I did try this out thirty odd years ago soon after I first started doing colour enlarging. I've probably still got my first attempts stuck in a box somewhere.

[mickeyobe]

Dave,

I had to try out the instructions you gave me a week or so ago.
They work.
Thanks.

Your experiment has just confirmed that it is possible to go back in time.

Mickey

[daveh]

Mickey, yes. Having tried it, as I've said, some years back I knew it would work. However, I don't know about you, but I start to wonder if I might have imagined it all along - and in fact it's all a load of tosh. I did try additive colour printing (from colour negative) as well as subtractive printing. As you have said several times, "it's so much easier with digital."

Dave.