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PHOTO & VIDEO > POST-PROCESSING

Making Your Digital Photo Look Like Film

by Chris Swarbrick 4 Jun 2013
DifKculty: Intermediate Length: Quick Languages: English

Post-Processing Nik Software Adobe Photoshop Colour Correction Contrast Correction

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Processing photographs is an extremely fun and important part of photography. It

can help polish a Uat looking raw Kle into something to be proud of and hang on your
wall. Making photos look unique can sometimes be very challenging, and it’s no
surprise that making photos look as if they were shot on Klm is really popular at the
moment.

It looks impressive, and can give a sense of drama and authenticity. Most
importantly, everyone has a different idea of how Klm looks, so it’s a
great opportunity to create your own style, and give each photo a unique color, tone,
grain structure and feel.

In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to process your digital photos, and turn them into
cellulose acetate marvels. We’ll analyse the different ways you can use these effects
in your photography, how you can emulate your favourite Klms, and the process
involved in getting that Klm look.

If you'd like to follow along with the tutorial, you use some of the resources for other
work, I’ve provided some assets to help you in this tutorial, including a texture, and an
action. These should help you get you going.

The Film Look

There are many kinds of Klm looks that you can achieve through post-production.
You can emulate your favourite Klm, or create a whole new look that deKnes you as a
photographer. It's this variation that makes the editing process really enjoyable.
Almost like shooting Klm, you don't exactly know what the end result will look
like until you see it.

There are countless situations where the look of Klm can have such an effect on the
emotions being portrayed and the mood. Wedding photography is an extremely
popular genre that can beneKt from having a Klm look and feel. It can be a way to
give your clients special, memorable moments that appear timeless.

Street photography is also another example of a great genre of photography that Klm
processing works well with. It gives a raw and realistic feel to photographs when
done in a certain way, as it gives photos a documentary look that really compliments
the genre.

It especially works when street photos are converted to black and white, focusing the
viewers’ attention on what’s happening in the scene and taking away any distractions
that can arise in built up areas.

Color or black and white, it's your choice to decide which direction you take and what
look you want to achieve, so let’s get started.
A Few Notes
While editing your photo, it is important to do so non-destructively, meaning you don’t
permanently alter your original photo. To do this, I’m going to use adjustment layers
and smart objects throughout this tutorial, so be sure to follow along.

It is also important that you use a photo that has been shot in a raw format, as this
gives you the greatest scope for editing. Colors will be less likely to clip, and
highlights and shadows are easier to control without bringing in any unwanted and
artiKcial looking noise and banding.

1. Picking the Right Photo

As I explained before, there are many genres that work well with the Klm look, so
experiment with a lot of different photographs when following this tutorial. I've
chosen this photo of an urban landscape. I think this is a perfect candidate for
some Klm toning due to the vibrant color and simplistic composition. I want to use
the Klm look to give the photo a timeless feel.

Make sure when picking your image that it has a reasonable spread of shadows,
midtones and highlights, as it is much easier to work with later on in the tutorial when
editing tones.

Now, import your photo into new document in Photoshop.

2. Find the Look You Want

We’re going to be using a technique to try and mimic the tone and colors of an
existing photo to get a look that’s close to an actual roll of Klm. First, Knd a photo off
the internet or from your own photo collection that has been shot on Klm, and has a
look you want to try and replicate.

I’m going to try and replicate the look of Lomography 35mm color Klm. The blue
tones are quite strong and there is a noticeable magenta tinge in the highlights.
There is also a noticeable lack of strong green tones throughout.
Next, import the photo you want to replicate into your Photoshop document, and
place it above your own photo as shown in the screenshot. Name this layer
‘Replicate’.

3. Masking
Next, to make sure you aren’t affecting the photo we want to emulate, mask it out.

To do this, use the Rectangular Maquee Tool and drag a selection around the photo
you want to emulate. Then press the Layer Mask button at the bottom of the Layers
panel.

Make sure when you start using Adjustment Layers later in the tutorial, that you
place them in between your photo and the photo you want to replicate as
demonstrated in the screenshot.
4. Exposure Adjustments
Film has an inherently wide dynamic range, so it is important to correct your
exposure slightly Krst by bringing down the highlights, and boosting the shadows.
This gives the photo a Uatter contrast, but you will be correcting this later. First,
create a new Curves Adjustment Layer by going to Layer > New Adjustment Layer >
Curves.

Then, make a reverse ‘S’ shape as shown in the screenshot below in the dialogue by
clicking and dragging on the line. Different parts of the graph represent different
parts of your image. The left side represents the shadows of your image, the middle
represents the midtones, whilst the right represents the highlights. Notice how my
image is mostly made up of shadows and midtones.

I’m also boosting the exposure of my image slightly with another Adjustment Layer,
as it is slightly underexposed. Make sure you get a reasonable spread of tones
across the range.
5. Judging the Tone
The next step is to adjust the tone of your photo, and try and match it roughly to the
Klm image you want to replicate. I’m going to use Ben Secret’s method of tone and
color matching.

First, create a 50% Grey Solid Colour Layer. To do this, go into the Adjustment Layer
menu, and select Solid Color. Choose a 50% Grey, which is 128, 128, 128 in RGB
values or the Hex value 808080. Press OK, and drag this layer above everything else
in your Layer structure. Next, change the Blending Mode of the solid color layer to
Color.
6. Editing the Tone
Make sure you have the histogram tool open for this next part by going Window >
Histogram. Using the Rectangular Marquee tool, make a selection around the photo
you want to replicate and look at the histogram.

Have a look at how the highlights and shadows are structured, and create a new
Curves Adjustment Layer just above your other one in the layer structure. Use Curves
to alter your own photo to try and get a similar Tone structure by clicking and
dragging the graph line to alter the shadows, midtones and highlights. Use the
Rectangular Marquee Tool over both photos to judge how close you are getting.

Notice how in my example, the image I want to replicate is quite Uat in contrast, and
the shadows and highlights aren’t very strong. In my image, I’ve achieved this by
boosting the shadows, and pulling down the highlights.
7. Judging the Color
Now the photos are similar in tone, you can concentrate on the achieving a similar
color.

First, change the Blending Mode of the Color Fill layer you made earlier to
Luminosity. This shows you an accurate representation of the colors of the photos.
Here, you can judge what colors to add, and what to take away in comparison. To do
this, another Curves Adjustment Layer will be used to edit the individual Red, Green
and Blue channels independently.

Notice how in my photo, the shadows are a brown/green color, and in the photo I’m
trying to replicate, there’s a lot of blue and magenta tones. I’ve circled them in the
screenshot to show you what I mean.

In other areas of the photo I want to replicate, the midtones have a slight purple cast
to them, and the Highlights have a green/brown color.
8. Editing the Color
To begin, create a new Curves Adjustment Layer. Start by adjusting the shadows of
your image to match the one you want to replicate, and go through each channel:
Red, Green, and Blue.

To edit these colors, drag the end points of each color channel and adjust them by
sliding them either vertically or horizontally.

In my example, a lot more blue needs to be added to the shadows, so I’ve pushed up
the shadow base point in the blue channel, until the Output value is around 30. Then
I’ve used more points to alter the Curve, and gradually pulled it back towards normal
values towards the highlights region. I’ve then switched to the green channel and
decreased the amount of green in the shadows, and then switched to the red channel
and decreased the amount of red in the shadows.

Next, do the same for midtones and highlights, adjusting different parts of the curve
in each color channel. It is an experimental process at Krst, but you will gain an
understanding of curves and how colors mix between channels.

Notice how there is much more of a similarity between the color of the 2 photos now.
You can see this clearly in the color map. Now, delete the Fill Color layer as you don’t
need it anymore.

9. Vibrance and Saturation

Next, add a new Vibrance Adjustment layer. The Vibrance slider is used to adjust
only the weaker colors in the photograph without affecting other colors that are
already quite punchy and saturated. However, the Saturation slider affects the image
as a whole, and all colors will be adjusted. Tweak these values to suit the look you’re
trying to create.

In my example, the overall image is too saturated, but some of the weaker colors
need to be stronger. I’m decreasing the value of the Saturation slider by around 10,
whilst boosting the Vibrance slider by around 20. This gives the colors of my image a
much more even look, and matches the Klm I’m trying to replicate a lot better.
10. Texture and Contrast
The next parts of the tutorial are for Knishing process. You can start to get a little
more creative and have some fun. To start off the Knishing process and make the
image look more authentic, the use of texture is a great way to add age. The method
I’m going to show you also gives the photo a really Uat contrast in the shadows.

First, scan a piece of black or dark grey card at a reasonably high resolution (300dpi
or above). The more scratched and dusty it is, the better, as this will only add to the
look of your Knal photo. I’ve provided my own scan as a Kle in the assets to use in
your own photos.

Next, import the scan into your Photoshop document, and place it above all your
adjustment layers. Set the Blending Mode to Lighten, and adjust the Opacity of this
layer to suit to control the strength of the effect. I’ve adjusted the Opacity to 50% as it
was too strong at 100%.
11. Film Dust and Additional Scratching
To add another layer of authenticity on top of the texture, I’ve added a dust and
scratch texture created by DeviantArt user ChangDang.

Remember to give credit to the author when using it online, and always ask from
explicit permission if you want to use it commercially.

Add the texture to your Photoshop document and resize it to cover the whole image
by pressing Ctrl-T. Try and scale it proportionally to keep the shapes of the dust and
scratches the same by holding the Shift while resizing. Now, set the Blending Mode
to Lighten, and see the dust and grain appear. The textured effect looks fantastic in
my opinion!

If the effect is too much for your taste, you can use a Layer Mask to paint out areas
of the texture you don’t like. You can also use the Opacity slider to adjust how strong
the effect is overall.
12. Grain
Film has a natural grain that is very hard to replicate authentically. The Noise ^lter is
good enough for this job however, and I'm going to use it to add a natural looking
grain.

First, duplicate your original photo layer by pressing Ctrl-J. This is being created
purely as a fail-safe. Then with the new layer selected, go to Filter > Convert for
Smart Filters. This makes all Klters applied to this layer editable at any time, and
does not permanently affect your original image.

Next, go to Filter > Noise > Add Noise. For the amount, choose around 7% for a Kne
grain, or more if you want a very gritty look. Make sure in the Distribution section the
Gaussian button is checked, and at the bottom of the dialogue box, the
Monochromatic box is also checked. This makes it look more like a Kne Klm grain,
rather than patchy sensor noise.
13. Vignetting
Finally, for a Knishing touch, a vignette is also an excellent way to not only complete
the look, but focus the viewers’ attention on the subject. With the duplicate photo
layer selected (the one you just applied noise to) go to Filter > Lens Correction.

Click on the Custom tab, and look for the section titled Vignette. This is normally
used to correct any vignetting issues when processing raw Kles, but we want to
artiKcially add it. Drag the Amount slider down to a negative value. Around –45 to -50
is a strong enough effect.

Under the Midpoint section, use the slider to control how the vignette falls off
towards the edges, and press OK when you’re Knished.

Finally, hide the layer called you called Replicate, and save your image!
Alternative Methods, Software and Plug-ins
An alternative way to process your photos to look like Klm is to use standalone
software, plugins and presets.

Though not as unique as creating your own effects and experimenting, using them
can be a great time saver for when you want a fast way of producing decent results.
They offer great Uexibility in allowing you to tweak the effect completely too. There
are a variety of packages that can do this for you, but I'll show you two of my
personal favourites.

A popular preset package called Film 03 comes from Visual Supply Company.

Available for Lightroom and Camera Raw, Film 03 is an excellent, editable set of
presets that also includes a series of effects and camera proKles, which is available
for $119. I think it's one of the best sets of Klm emulation presets I have personally
used, and the results speak for themselves.
 VSCO Film 03

Another alternative is the Nik Software plug-in suite from Google. Available for
Photoshop, Lightroom and Aperture, the Nik Software suite offers a variety of editing
options and is available for a reasonable $149.

Color Efex Pro 4 and Silver Efex Pro 2 are the stand out plug-ins from the pack, and
offer extensive editing capabilities to help you achieve the Klm look. Silver Efex, in
particular, has a selection of black and white Klm presets mimicking various
manufacturers such as Ilford, Kodak, and Fuji. These are all editable and offer Kne
control over the grain structure, softness, and overall tints and tones.
 Silver Efex Pro 2

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Conclusion
I hope this tutorial has helped you understand how you can create an authentic Klm
look to use on your photos. You should also now know what situations you can use
them in.

Be sure to experiment with these effects and make your own versions of your
favourite Klms, or create an entirely new look!
Thanks for reading! I'd love to see some of your own Klm inspired photographs, so be
sure to put a link in the comments below

If you have any suggestions to share, please comment!

Final Image
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Chris Swarbrick

My name is Chris and I am a student in the UK. I am a currently at university

studying for a degree in Interactive Digital Media and have a passion for
photography.

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