Are photographic films dead? Well, yes and no!

No one can doubt the success of digital cameras – it was an overnight revolution. Technology has moved so quickly recently that film processing just couldn’t keep pace with the changes and flexibility that digital cameras offered: Instant viewing, no film processing costs and an almost endless amount of photos on the same card – film just didn’t stand a chance.

Instant viewing was an enormous shift for most photographers. Suddenly the feeling of giving birth to your most creative and artistic photos took on a new level. Gone were the days of waiting patiently for the lab to develop your photos to see if they had worked – now they were instantly available. Fantastic! No more “I wish I had” and more “let’s try that again”. That was up until most photographers realised that the magic of waiting for the right moment, skill with lighting and the general professionalism that made a difference between your next recommendation or not was suddenly eroded by the ease of use that digital offered – now everyone who owned a digital camera stood a good chance of getting some fairly decent results….  A lot of photographers went to the wall because of this.

These days the art of photography has gone. The scatter gun approach of taking as many photos as possible knowing full well that Camera Raw and Photoshop are your best pals have completely killed it off. This mass photo taking desire has permanently shifted the way in which we take photos today and while some may argue that it has allowed those less able to take great pictures others argue that it has ruined photography.

Cost has also been a major driving factor with photography. In the previous century we happily paid for film processing and developing. It was part of the excitement waiting for your holiday pictures to be processed and developed: An instant replay of your holiday after you had come back to drab Britain with its awful weather always lifted your spirits and was worth it. Not forgetting to hand your photos around to work colleagues and family members to show how cosmopolitan you had become, even if you did wear socks with your sandals on the beach!

Films had to be processed if you wanted to see what was on them. No processing - no pictures and the “keeping up with the Jones’s” meant everyone wanted to do it. Digital changed this completely – now you could email a picture of you and your family to everyone while you were still on holiday! How cool was that – “missing you” as you rub it in by sipping a margarita on the beach looking smug and tanned at the same time knowing full well it would irritate those who received it. Fantastic!

Suddenly this new freedom spread like wild fire – why are you still using film when you could be using digital? Get yourself a new digital camera…. And another, and another, and another. See, what people forgot was just like the computer industry digital camera manufacturers had already figured this out and realised quite quickly that they would soon be out of pocket if they released a perfect digital camera on the market straight away. So they milked the market for everything that it had and just like sheep we all forgot about the costs of the cameras and remembered the savings that we were making by not using “expensive” labs to process the film. Camera after camera with more megapixels and features soon easily eclipsed film processing and developing costs, but it was worth it – wasn’t it? Easily viewable on computer – “No Wait – where’s the photos of the wedding?”, or “why won’t my computer start up?”, Hmmmm, then you have to add in the cost of the camera cards, photo editing software and digital photo frames. Not so cheap now!

Not long after the digital revolution camera phones started to make an appearance. After all how often did you wish you had a camera but were unable to capture the moment because you didn’t have your camera with you? Now you too could take a photo with a mobile communication device and rejoice that you managed to take a truly awful, blurry image that was jpeged to hell with abysmal colours. Now your photo collection started to resemble a poor digital television reception but that was okay as it was “free”, except you had to pay through the nose to obtain the “must have” phone that you could show off to your mates in the pub. Shame that the quality of the photos were so bad that you would be better off deleting them rather than try and pretend that they were any where near the quality of a 6” x 4” photo from even the cheapest of film processor labs…. And now you realise that your memories have been ruined by inferior technology.

Next we even had the ability to print our own photos. Yes, you too can have the ability to print mediocre photos from your own inkjet printer with paper that is easily marked and has printer lines running through it, and the ink is more expensive than champagne per millilitre! Despite this millions fell for it. The idea that a fifty quid printer was going to somehow match the quality of a hundred thousand pound minilab didn’t seem to put people off…. (Yes they really did cost that!)

Soon we learned that the value of photography had fallen through the basement and had entered bargain bucket status. Many professional companies struggled to keep up with the changing markets - I should know I worked for a pro lab in Edinburgh which went bust. We dropped our prices, offered more value but ultimately the end result was people no longer cared about quality and just wanted quantity. We refused to compromise on quality and the end result was the company no longer trades. I’m not sad though. There are millions of high quality 6” x 4” prints that we did that will be around long after I’m dead. I don’t think you could say the same for your digital photos!

It wasn’t just us, though. I know of at least seven other labs in Edinburgh that went pear shaped with exactly the same problems. The problems didn’t stop there either. Ilford got itself in trouble and had to restructure, as did Agfa and now even the mighty Kodak has fallen. We were a Fuji lab and thankfully at the time this is being written they are still pushing for high quality prints – long may this continue.

So is film dead? Definitely not. There is a hard core of amateur photographers out there who will never give up on film. Film to them is an art form as it requires skill to take a great photo. They know that the average person will never match their ability if they are given a film camera and they love to show off their ability. They realise that long after people have thrown out their broken photo printers and realised that having your photos professionally printed really will outlive modern technology that respect for the industry will return in time.

It is also difficult to ignore a century of film processing and printing – just how can you compare one hundred years of film processing and printing against ten years of digital? What do you do with all those films and prints? I mean are you supposed to ignore your life prior to digital printing? Don’t you long to see your films and slides again? Well this is where film processing takes an odd turn – people actually love to reminisce and if that means finding a way to convert these older film formats into a modern digital age then that is what they are going to do.

Scanning slides, negatives and photographs allows you to view them with the exact same convenience that you would get from using a digital camera. These days the technology has come on a long way and the quality you can get from scanning a decent film is just as good as digital photography. In fact there is a lot of film out there, so in many respects film processing is dead but processed films are far from dead and will be around for many years to come.

http://www.canvasprintmaker.co.uk

National Galleries Canvas Prints

National Galleries Canvas Prints

National Galleries has a huge collection of original canvas paintings by many famous painters and is definitely well worth visiting. There is nothing more special than seeing original canvas paintings by famous artists close up. The fine detail, colours, brush strokes and techniques are to be marvelled at. You can only really appreciate the sheer size and presence that an original canvas painting has by seeing it close up in person. Just imagine if you could have a high quality canvas reproduction made for your home so that you could appreciate your favourite artists and their magnificent paintings… Well, now you can!

Canvas Prints from Paintings

Photographic reproductions on paper are nothing new but they never seem to capture the stunning brilliance of how the original masterpiece made you feel when you first saw it. Canvas prints, on the other hand, do capture the magnificence of the original painting in all its fullness. The biggest difference in reproduction technique is the material used. Paper looks good but canvas looks brilliant. Canvas is far more authentic to the original than paper will ever be. The texture of the weave, the stretcher bars used, the way the light interacts with the canvas – none of that can be achieved with paper.

Varnished Canvas Prints

A lot of old masters were coated with shellac upon completion to protect them. The shellac gave the paintings a vibrancy and sheen that often brought them to life. Canvas printing is similar in nature as the canvas prints are only brought to life when a special varnish coating is applied. The varnish not only gives lovely rich, vivid colours but also protects the canvas print. Blacks become “black” and the colour depth your canvas print takes on is absolutely astounding. The varnish also protects against abrasion, acts as an ultra violet barrier and prevents moisture damage - in fact you can wipe them clean with a damp cloth when they become dusty.

Professional Canvas Printing

Only a truly professional canvas printer is able to produce canvas prints effectively as it is difficult to apply the varnish evenly. It is also extremely time consuming taking a full twenty four hours for the varnish to dry properly. There are many copycat printers out there which claim this step is not required and all I would say to this is to take what they have produced and compare it to the original – it won’t even be close, and worse still you can’t clean it either as you will mark the un-varnished canvas print. However, comparing the varnished canvas print with the original will result in a staggeringly close resemblance to the original. In fact it’s almost too close…

For more information contact National Galleries Picture Library:

National Galleries Canvas Prints
picture.library@nationalgalleries.org

http://www.canvasprintmaker.co.uk

Correcting VHS, S-VHS, VHS-C, Video8 and Hi8 Video Playback Problems. Audio Cassette and Vinyl Record Restoration.

All video tape sources suffer from degradation and require electronic adjustment in order to correct playback problems. This ranges from colour problems, noise, horizontal lines, time base errors, drop outs and audio playback problems. Fortunately these days there are many methods to enhance video and audio playback problems.

Video Colour Correction –
Chroma, Luma, Brightness, Contrast, Saturation and Colour Bleeds

Before Video Colour Correction

After Video Colour Correction



Before and After Video Colour Correction

There are two ways to approach this. The first is colour correction on the fly using hardware colour correctors and the second is using software for post processing to enhance videos. For optimal results usually a combination of both is best.

Hardware video colour correctors are extremely useful for adjusting colour casts (unwanted colour tints), boosting saturation and fixing colour bleeds. They operate on the fly and can be adjusted as and when they are required. Hardware colour correctors allow independent red, green and blue adjustments which is useful for giving lovely rich warm wedding video colours or enhancing colour saturations made by the original camcorder. They also have the ability to correct colour bleeds which correctly aligns the colour (chroma) over the image (luma) and gives a far better video transfer. Brightness and contrast are also easily adjustable which especially helps capture the maximum detail in dark footage.

Software video colour correctors are excellent for adjusting colour precisely and enormously improve playback. They are particularly good at removing colour casts and offer far finer adjustments to colour than their hardware equivalents. The downside to software colour adjustment is the length of time for post production to process all the information. Depending on the level of complexity, the correction of a one hour video can take several hours to do! The end results are definitely worth waiting for as videos often come back to life with more saturated punchy colours, “black” blacks and “white” whites. Colour adjustment, brightness / contrast and colour saturation are all very easily corrected. They also have the advantage of fine adjustment in the highlight, midtone and shadow details independently which is extremely useful for correcting chromatic variations over different luminosity.

Colour Noise



Video Noise

There are two types of colour noise – chroma noise and luma noise. Both chroma and luma noise can be removed in a variety of ways. In most cases this can be achieved with video noise reduction filters but in some cases individual frames may have to be replaced.

Video noise usually happens at low lighting conditions and always becomes more apparent as the video is lightened and contrast adjusted.

Video Noise Removed

Video noise can also be present in old analogue television broadcasts and is usually down to poor reception.

Horizontal Video Line Drop Outs

Before Horizontal Video Line Removal

After Horizontal Video Line Removal

Perhaps one of the most annoying problems with old video and camcorder tapes is random horizontal lines appearing through your video playback. As it is random it tends to distract more from your viewing pleasure than it would otherwise if it was consistent. Fortunately it is possible to diminish these lines so they are less distracting. There are motion compensated horizontal line filters available which can diminish and in some cases completely remove these lines. The result is a much better playback which is far less distracting to watch.



Video Time Base Correction 

Before Video Time Base Correction

All decent video to DVD transfer companies should use time base correctors as standard. If they have never heard of time base correction or claim they do not need it then you are not getting the best transfer possible.

After Video Time Base Correction

Analogue video is split up into horizontal lines which are interlaced between odd and even lines making two fields (odd and even lines) that become one frame of video. It was a clever way of halving the bandwidth required for transmission broadcasts without losing quality by reducing the number of lines in the transmission as you are only updating half the frame at any one time.



Zoomed Before Time Base Correction

Problems occur when storing video copies of these transmissions and also your camcorder recordings. As each alternate line is stored on tape the head alignment can be slightly out of sync with the previous line laid down on tape.

As they are read back, re-assembled into one frame some lines are slightly too far to the left and others are too far to the right. This results in “wobbly” vertical and diagonal lines on the video playback.

Zoomed After Time Base Correction

A video time base corrector will examine each horizontal line and assess whether to move the line to the left or to the right in order that vertical and horizontal lines are not skewed or wonky.

Time base correction is only available in high end video transfer equipment and comes with the equivalent price tag! Any decent company transferring videos and camcorder tapes should be using time base correctors as standard. 

Video Drop Outs



Video drop outs occur for several reasons but are caused primarily by the videos heads being dirty or a stretched video tape. Firstly make sure that you check the tracking which might just need a simple adjustment. If the recording VCR / camcorder has dirty heads then this will result in a bad recording with the picture momentarily disappearing. If it is the playback VCR / camcorder that has dirty heads then cleaning the heads with some isopropyl alcohol is all that is required to obtain maximum playback quality.

Assuming it is not the VCR player or camcorder that is playing back incorrectly then you will need some post video processing to restore the video. Long length drop outs lasting several seconds long are virtually impossible to remove automatically but can be removed manually. This is very time consuming and expensive as a result. Short length dropouts can be automatically filtered out by freezing the previous last good frame. It can lead to a jumpy video but is far better than losing the picture altogether. Medium length video dropout restoration can be hit or miss. Nice clean drop outs without rolling pictures can usually be blended between the damaged frames to help prevent your eye from being distracted but if there is any picture rolling round then this can be difficult to do automatically and the only option is to manually replace the frames which is very time consuming.

Clipping Video

Sometimes sections of video are just not required and require to be removed. Examples of this are fuzz / rolling picture / broken up picture / black video (lens cap still on) / blue video / accidentally recording the ground and your feet as you forget to turn off the camcorder! It is possible to remove these video clips ensuring that you only receive the video that you want. Simple edits are done as a matter of course but specific clipping of video takes time and requires clients to show the exact clip of the video that is to be removed. This is chargeable on an hourly basis.

Cropping Video

Video tape and camcorder playback often has annoying edge defects or specific colour shifting near the top or bottom of a video but not anywhere else. Often the easiest way to correct this is to crop off the part of the video with the defect. You can mask it by putting black borders on but it is far better to crop into the video and then resize it back up to full frame. This is particularly useful for removing black borders around old analogue video and camcorder transfers. Especially if you are displaying them on web pages where they become very obvious.



Audio Playback Problems

Sometimes audio can be a problem with video playback. Fortunately there is a lot of software out there to help out. The most common problem with audio in video playback is mono output on one channel. This can be the result from old VCR’s or camcorders which do not support stereo recording to dirty audio heads. It is possible to edit the audio so that it is mono on both channels as opposed to just one. Quiet camcorder recordings can be boosted in volume to make them easier to listen to. You can even remove hiss or hum (50Hz / 60 Hz mains). Simple bass or treble boosting can also make a big difference to audio playback resulting in much, much richer sounds.

With audio cassettes sometimes warble can be a problem and although this is difficult to remove completely it can certainly be diminished to the point it no longer becomes irritating to listen to. This is, of course, dependent on the degree of warble!

Like wise clicks, hisses and pops on old vinyl records can be cleaned and restored. The process is never perfect but it certainly makes a huge difference to your old recordings.


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