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B&W photos with no red

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Giugiaro

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I've been looking over the years to make modern photos to look old when turned into Black and White. The simple method is to simply remove completely the saturation of the photo and maybe change the contrast a bit.

This method is... OK, but the photos still have that "depth" that good quality B&W photos and modern photos have. Skies also aren't full white unless we sort of ruin everything else on the photo.

Recently I came across the reason why development laboratories had a red light: Apparently old commercial film wasn't very sensitive to the red spectrum of colour, so this colour could be used for lighting without disturbing the exposed film.

When looking at old photos, indeed the red mostly appears black when the skies are pure white.

loc_vapor_601_614_p.jpg

Source: CP

So I decided to experiment with colour curves to remove the red from the colour photo before removing the saturation.

This is the colour photo:

36093056095_e86f0c6351_c.jpg

This is how it looks with normal B&W (No Saturation)

36093056095_e86f0c6351_c_nbw.jpg

And this is the result with the red removed from the photo prior to removing the Saturation.
Notice how reds become dark and similar to the black painted boiler, like the original old picture above.
Since red was removed, around a third of light was removed, so exposure had to be compensated.

36093056095_e86f0c6351_c_nrbw.jpg

Also, given that full colour sensitive film could be mistakenly developed under red light, I experimented with what would happen if a photo negative got red bleached:

36093056095_e86f0c6351_c_frbw.jpg


What do you think of the results?
 
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pdeaves

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I find that slightly blurring (de-sharpenning?) is helpful in making the 'old look', too. An old camera is limited in getting the image to film, which is then effectively copied to make the positive print, losing a little definition on the way.
 

John Webb

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At school in the early 1960s, my chemistry master gave me two boxes of 10" by 8" glass plate negatives taken by his father, a photographer on the LB&SC railway.
The uneven response of older types of B/W film to different colours is the reason many new locos were painted in a works livery of grey and white paints before being photographed.
Most of the locos on these plates, mainly the first of a class, had been photographed this way.

These plates were passed onto the NRM some years ago.
 

Bevan Price

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With some software, you can also simulate various digital effects, etc. when converting colour photos to "black & white". For example, some B&W photographers sometimes used yellow or orange filters to alter the contrast. These were some simulations I did several years ago:
http://www.bevanprice.me.uk/DigitalArt.htm
 

thejuggler

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If you want black and white photos try and find a camera with it as an option in the settings. You will get much better results.
 

70014IronDuke

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I've been looking over the years to make modern photos to look old when turned into Black and White. The simple method is to simply remove completely the saturation of the photo and maybe change the contrast a bit.

This method is... OK, but the photos still have that "depth" that good quality B&W photos and modern photos have. Skies also aren't full white unless we sort of ruin everything else on the photo.

Recently I came across the reason why development laboratories had a red light: Apparently old commercial film wasn't very sensitive to the red spectrum of colour, so this colour could be used for lighting without disturbing the exposed film....

Not quite*, Guigiaro.

Bom dia.

Dark rooms had a red (or orange-yellow) light because photographic PAPER was not sensitive to such light. So if you were printing B&W photos, you could keep this 'safety' light on and work with that.

However, you had to load (into the development tank) and develop film in total darkness. To have done this in even a red light would have totally ruined the original image on the negative.

I put a * in here because, I suppose it is possible that long, long ago film was not sensitive to red light, but I started developing and printing B&W n the mid-1960s, and I can assure you that film was already sensitive to red light by then, and had to be developed in total darkness.
 

Giugiaro

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Sorry, I heard that statement from a Youtube video about film photography history, but still wasn't able to retrieve that specific one.

I know that the sensibility of red is a thing in older photos. Portuguese steam locomotives commonly use a red-painted top. In an album for the 150th anniversary of the Portuguese railways, the red on the tops become progressively brighter between 1940 and 1950.
 

Giugiaro

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Sorry, I heard that statement from a Youtube video about film photography history, but still wasn't able to retrieve that specific one.

Well, I wouldn't ever be able to find the video again if I tried to.

This is the source behind that "B&W Film wasn't sensitive to Red":

 

70014IronDuke

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Well, I wouldn't ever be able to find the video again if I tried to.

This is the source behind that "B&W Film wasn't sensitive to Red":


Except he doesn't actually say that, does he?

He says: "In the early days of photography .... film wasn't sensitive to red light."

I accept, however, that he could, indeed should, have stressed that more, because for many people with only a vague understanding of the processes involved (including you) he's effectively mixing two things up - relatively modern photographic printing, and the paper involved (which is insensitive to red light) and the characteristics of very, very early film, before the creation of panchromatic films.

He would have communicated better if he'd said: In the very early days .... - and added later. "Don't mix this up with modern photographic printing ... "

People in here frequently complain about poor, inaccurate media reporting - now you see how it so easily happens.
 

70014IronDuke

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@70014IronDuke , I know that, since I already said:

I think you missed my point.

You wrote: This is the source behind that "B&W Film wasn't sensitive to Red"

It is no such source. The man in the videos says EARLY black and white film wasn't sensitive to read.

(But it is understandable that you missed it, I agree.)
 
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