Shooting chromes for artwork reproduction

[Robert Brummitt]

Well, i use to use Fuji Astia 4x5 & 8x10 with strobes. That gave me a very nice but rich color transparency. If the client wanted "pop" then Provia. And if some real strong colors and contrast? Velvia.
The one thing you need to be aware is oil paintings. They can give of glare where the brush strokes are. I then used polarizes on the lights and the lens. Lots of tests! Water colors, cryrons and pencil drawings were easy.
Now, I don't even know if Astia or Provia is still made. But they were the best! I did a comparison between Fuji to Kodak and my printers and I and the clients all agreed that Fuji had it down pat.
you may also check into Fuji's color negative. It was so easy to work with.
Boy, I miss mt color lab days!

[Uri A]

Thanks Robert!

I shoot Kodak neg all the time, but for color repro ...it's gotta be chromes: I don't wanna sweat over matching colors on a scan all day

But yes, Provia looks OK (and cheap, and reliably available) so I think I'll go the RDP route.

Many thanks for your (and everybody else's input!)

[Uri A]

Oh, and good call on the highlights in the oils!! That's EXACTLY what foiled me some years ago - good to be reminded!

[Drew Wiley]

For color accuracy my no. 1 choice would be Astia. No.2 would be E100G. Good luck finding
either of those in 8x10. Probably some 4x5 still around. A decade ago I would have used
tunsten-balanced Astia (CDUII), but any of that still around has probably expired. RTP
was also quite good for accuracy. Provia would be a last resort.

[vinny]

For me, it would be no trouble at all. The purpose is not to photograph the scene, but to determine colour matching and intensity between two light sources. The transmission differences between the two lenses might be negligible, or a lot, but measuring through the taking lens would remove that variable.

I don't think you're following me. Put a 135mm, 150mm or 210mm lens on your dslr at the same working distance as your 4x5 camera's film plane and you'll only see a small portion of the artwork, not enough to see potential errors. Kinda like shooting 4x5 polaroids on the back of a 16x20 camera.

[Brian C. Miller]

(1) For chromes, what current emulsion would you use for purely color correct rendition under (decent studio calibrated) flash light, to capture maximum detail in all areas of the original? E100G is under the death warrant at B&H - would you shoot Provia 100? I haven't shot a chrome in 8 years, but back in my day it seemed pretty green & cool....

E100G is history, so all that's left is Provia. Just profile the film using a target for scanning accuracy, and you should be fine. Or you can stockpile the remaining E100G. Another option is use negative material, and include a color target in each image. After all, this is large format, with plenty of room to spare, and the target can be cropped out at the end of the process.

(2) back in the day, we used to make sure our 2 heads were flashing the same colour temp to make sure we weren't getting any gremlins in the color at scanning stage. For reasons that escape me, color temp meters (which I would've assumed went the way of the scrimshaw artist's carving tools) are still fetching $600+ on eBay. Does anybody have a method for checking the equality (and accuracy) of one's 2 heads short of splurging this amount of cash???

Since you only want to check if the colors are equal, you can use your DSLR and a color target.

[jb7]

I don't think you're following me. Put a 135mm, 150mm or 210mm lens on your dslr at the same working distance as your 4x5 camera's film plane and you'll only see a small portion of the artwork, not enough to see potential errors. Kinda like shooting 4x5 polaroids on the back of a 16x20 camera.

Vinny, I'm probably not following you, but I was making a suggestion to try to help with the second question Uri posed-

"(2) back in the day, we used to make sure our 2 heads were flashing the same colour temp to make sure we weren't getting any gremlins in the color at scanning stage. For reasons that escape me, color temp meters (which I would've assumed went the way of the scrimshaw artist's carving tools) are still fetching $600+ on eBay. Does anybody have a method for checking the equality (and accuracy) of one's 2 heads short of splurging this amount of cash???"

The reason for using the taking lens, rather than the DSLR lens, was to take account of the colour rendition of the glass, which can vary between lenses. I never suggested that he used the DSLR to proof the entire picture. That was never the question...

[rdenney]

I just did a gig like this. I didn't use 4x5, but shot the film portion using a Pentax 6x7 with a 135mm Takumar macro lens. I used negative film, however, so that I would not be adding contrast to the paintings. I had Fuji 160C in the freezer, so that's what I used. I was afraid Reala and Ektar (my main stock in roll film) would be too saturated.

My lighting was two M11 heads on my Speedotron system, running 800WS each. That provided enough light to overpower the influence of any dim ambient lighting.

The paintings were oils, but with minimal linseed oil so the sheen was not excessive. I did get a touch of specular highlights on a couple of the paintings, but fortunately not enough to cause a problem. I didn't have to use (and test) the polarizers that had I brought along with me.

In addition to the film, I also shot it all on my Canon 5D, using the 50mm Compact Macro lens.

But here's the key: I made the first photo with each technology of a painting that I owned, and included in that picture a reflective IT8 target (5x7"--came with the Monaco EZ-Color with my Epson 750) and a gray card. That gave me ground truth for matching color and brightness with the negative. Frankly, that was no more difficult than overcoming a slide film's natural color cast, especially given the paucity of transparency emulsions currently avaiable.

The digital images turned out fine. I spent about an hour matching color, and then applied the same matching strategy (programmed as an action) to all the images. And the machine prints from the film look spot-on, so I must have hit the center of the target reasonably well. I have not yet scanned the film, but I will be able to profile the scanner in Vuescan for that film and lighting using the IT8 target in the test shot.

The film scans will allow the artist to make reproductions of original size (ranging from 8x10 to maybe 24x28), but for the notecards, books, and website targets, the digital files will be fine. I won't scan the film until she needs something bigger, except maybe as a test.

Rick "happy with the results" Denney

[Lenny Eiger]

I've been shooting flat art since I was a kid. For watercolor use chrome, for other types of paintings use neg if you can. Bracket the exposures on the chromes a third of a stop or two up and down. With neg maybe a half a stop each way. Choose the best exposure and scan it.

I would suggest a drum scanner, of course. If you don't have one, just make the client pay for it. If you are sending a neg, send them a digital shot of the image so they can see where the colors should lay...

When you get to the photoshop part learn how to use channel masking. Remember that film can't reproduce all the colors exactly and you will have to do some work - that's normal. Profiling won't help, the amount of tuning it will save you is minimal. Finally, I find including a set of color swatches or a grey card is entirely and totally useless.

Don't make this too hard... it's actually pretty easy. Just expect the masking and the extra test prints to get this right...


Lenny

[Uri A]

I find including a set of color swatches or a grey card is entirely and totally useless.

Lenny

Thanks Lenny, but if you shoot neg and have no swatches and don't have the artwork in front of you when you scan, how will you get the color right?