Help With A Film Simulation

smoke665

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I've watched several videos on color matching and trying to narrow down a technique to use in Ps to duplicate something similar to Portra 400. This was the first round.

Image 1-Original
View attachment 169888

Image 2 - With simulation and noise applied.
View attachment 169889

It's been so long since I shot film, and all the examples I've found are starting to run together in my mind. I need some fresh eyes to evaluate please. For those that still shoot Portra, is this a good representation? If not, suggestions on direction to go?
 
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No, not really...

I don't know what to tell ya, other than to go put some Portra in a film camera! lol but why add noise? I use the same lenses on my digital camera and my film rangefinders so I get comparable quality. Pictures can get more grainy or noisy shooting late day, in lower light, etc.

The first one of her wonderful expression actually looks slightly magenta to me (left side in the background).
 
but why add noise?

I wish I had a good answer for that. LOL It was added as an after thought, possibly because the colors weren't looking right as I remembered.

actually looks slightly magenta to me (left side in the background).

The first was the original. Just basic adjustments, applied on import.

The biggest problem I'm having is finding a consistent sample of an image to sample. A Google search of images Portra 400 images turned up a wide range of color, everything from cool to warm.
 
I don't know if I have anything Portra scanned in, because I send out color film and get CDs back. And now that I think of it, I don't keep track if I used Portra or other Kodak anyway. Guess I'm no help! lol
 
Portra has a natural color palette. Very saturated. Low contrast. I would suggest looking at Portra flickr samples and once you get the look you want, save it as a pre-set. The closest simulation I have seen is offered in Alienskin Exposure 4, it's real close. It has both 160 and 400.
 
Portra has a natural color palette. Very saturated. Low contrast.

What I'm finding is less saturation especially in the reds. Skin tones seem to lean toward slightly blue/green??? I'll check out Flickr and Alien. For now I'm working in Ps to sample the colors from good example that I can transfer into my target image in Ps. The process works fairly well, if I can find a decent sample. Here's another take on a slightly different sampling. Any better
View attachment 169899
 
Looks similar to my mental picture of a color neg. film shot...but I am not the best judge....

maybe reduce the slight yellow and green casts?
 
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Looks similar to my mental picture of a color neg. film shot...but I am not the best judge....

maybe reduce the slight yellow and green casts?

Yeah my mental picture has fogged over in the last 40+ years, and I haven't been able to separate a universal sample from the examples I've found. As it will always be a simulation, I might need to concentrate more on the similarities and work toward a pleasing finish, that can be applied to my images rather then an exact duplicate. Thanks for the feedback, different eyes, different opinions are what I needed.
 
Aren't there any colour grading filters in PS for this already under colour lookup? If I use such, usually change the blend mode to colour and drop it until I look happy.
 
Aren't there any colour grading filters in PS for this already under colour lookup? If I use such, usually change the blend mode to colour and drop it until I look happy.

I didn't find anything specifically. The last example has a color lookup layer with a warm look, but I'm embarrassed to say I only changed the opacity and never tried changing blend mode of that layer. I'll try that.
 
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changing to colour when using the colour lookup helps out for me, it reduces to entire contrast push which I finned sometimes a little harsh, There's also a wealth of free LUT's you can download, I have a load from some site I can't recall right now, I think it was Lutify.com.. here's an example of some colour grading with different "Commercial" effects I was playing with from Lutify:

Babe_Driving.JPG
 
@D7K Thanks for the link, I'll explore it as well. LUT's are something I've used on occasion and like all the tools available I sometimes forget unless I use it on a regular basis.
 
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@D7K Thanks for the link, I'll explore it as well. LUT's are something I've used on occasion and like all the tools available I sometimes forget unless I use it on a regular basis.
I very rarely use them but sometimes, they can help me (and my eyes) to see things as little better, and sometimes for artistic effect as you mention!
 
Perhaps I don't understand the point of these presets, but to me they appear to lose a lot of fidelity from the original. At least the monochrome conversions that I looked at.

(edit) I think they all do. I checked out some more examples. They definitely lose fidelity.

(second edit) Some are also introducing digital noise as well.
 
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