making filter decisions?

[stradibarrius]

What filter would you recommend to bring the "blonde" color of the spruce and maple to life? I would like to be able to see more of the fingure in the wood.9783397834

[Gem Singer]

Hi,Barry,

With B&W film, I would use a yellow 2 filter.

[stradibarrius]

Thanks...someone on another forum suggested a green filter but I didn't think the green would really do much with this type subject in B&W.

[Holdenrichards]

Actually I was going to say green. Green works well with subtle tones on or in whites.

[N Dhananjay]

Filters are a way to control local contrast. The figure in a wood like maple tends to be low to begin with and one might argue that that is exactly what gives it its characteristic look. However, assuming you want to increase the contrast to make the figure stand out more.... The light wood is yellow in color and will be lightened by yellow filters and darkened by blue/cyan. The darker areas of the wood are brown which is a notoriously difficult color to determine the hue. Basically, destaurated yellows, reds and greens can all look brown. My own sense is that maple tends to have a brown that leans towards the green side of the spectrum - note that this is a huge and unwarranted generalization, different planks can exhibit quite different colors. Green is obviously lightened by green and darkened by something in the red/magenta side.

So to emphasize the figure (i.e., lighten the yellow and darken the green (?), I would say something in the yellow/magenta range of filters would be appropriate. The one which works best is going to be difficult to predict precisely. Yellow would lighten the yellow but not darken the green as much, whereas magenta would darken the green appreciably while lightening the yellow less. Much will depend on the specific specimen you have got.

Cheers, DJ

[AJ Edmondson]

You can get a fairly decent approximation by viewing through s Wratten 90 filter (sort of a tobacco-color) and the various colored filters... though you would probably need to use fairly strong lighting.

Joel

[Jim Noel]

Strong lighting is not needed, in fact it would be a detriment. Long exposures tend to increase contrast, which is what is desired in this case.

[JeRuFo]

With such a limited palette all you can do is see what colors are in your shot and if you can lighten or darken one of them with a filter. You can probably only affect all the wood with a color filter. I would look in the direction of a lighting and development combination rather than a filter.

[C. D. Keth]

Strong lighting is not needed, in fact it would be a detriment. Long exposures tend to increase contrast, which is what is desired in this case.

I think he meant for viewing, to see through a wratten 90 and your choice of other filter(s).

[Jim Jones]

Avoid surface reflections. A polarizer may help with some lighting.

[AJ Edmondson]

Thanks for the clarification Chris. I did indeed mean when viewing through the combined filters.

Joel

[Brian Ellis]

The standard b&w filters (yellow, orange, etc.) are contrast/color separation filters. If the spruce and maple are more or less the same color those filters will do nothing except affect your exposure time. You need to have some fairly distinct color in the instrument other than "blonde" to enhance contrast with a filter. E.g. if there's say two colors, red and blonde, of more or less the same value and you want to make the blonde stand out from the red you might use a red filter to lighten the red. Or you might use a yellow filter to lighten the blonde.

It's a little hard to give useful advice without actually seeing the colors, at least for me, because I don't know what colors "spruce" and "maple" are or exactly what you mean by bringing them to life (I've assumed you mean separating them from each other). It would help if you could post a color version of the violin.

[stradibarrius]

97994
Brian I think you answer is closer to the question I was trying to ask. I may have not ask the question correctly.
here is a shot of some maple with no finish, raw wood. I would like to be able to increase the contrast between the "tiger stripes" in the maple using film. I can do it digitally but I want to learn how to do it with film.

[JeRuFo]

I think your only option is to get very low contrast lighting and increasing your development.

[Brian Ellis]

97994
Brian I think you answer is closer to the question I was trying to ask. I may have not ask the question correctly.
here is a shot of some maple with no finish, raw wood. I would like to be able to increase the contrast between the "tiger stripes" in the maple using film. I can do it digitally but I want to learn how to do it with film.

Since the hues in the two sets of lines are so similar, just somewhat different values (i.e. light and dark) I think it's going to be hard to do what you want to do by using a filter. I doubt that increasing development time would have much effect either because there's not that much difference between the dark and the light lines, from your picture I'd guess no more than maybe two stops. Increasing development time will brighten highlights without affecting shadows but your two colors are so relatively close to each other (i.e. you basically have two mid-tones rather than deep shadows and bright highlights) that increasing development time might just make the negative denser without affecting contrast. But it might be worth a try. I don't know enough about studio lighting to know whether there's a way to do it with lights or not.

If I still used a darkroom I'd probably try to do what you want to do by printing this area of the print (or the entire print, depending on what the rest of the violin looks like) with a #4 or 5 filter (or equivalent if you have a color head or a variable contrast head on your enlarger). That would tend to darken the dark lines while having a lesser effect on the lighter lines. Of course doing what you want to do would be easy in Photoshop because you could just alter the curve but you already know that.

Sorry to not be of more help. Perhaps others will have better suggestions.

[Peter Gomena]

I originally thought a yellow-green filter would help, but seeing the color photograph made me change my mind. It looks as though you have different values of the same color, so filtering for color contrast is not going to help. As others have said, lighting flat and increasing contrast might help. Orthochromatic film might help also. You're going to have to experiment. A polarizing filter will help cut reflections, but it also may make the wood look a little dead. That may be remedied by expanded development.

[Gem Singer]

Barry,

Assuming that you are going to use B&W film, what type of lighting are you planning on using?

Daylight, strobe, incandescent, or a mixture?

[stradibarrius]

Gem I will be using B&W film and in my little studio I have 3 hot lights with different types of diffusers.

[Gem Singer]

Barry,

Try to keep the lighting down so you don't blow out the highlights. You won't need a filter on the camera lens.

When I recommended a yellow-2 filter, I thought you were shooting in daylight.

This kind of shot is where Pyrocat-HD developer really shines.

[KOG]

Not really a filter, but if the wood is unfinished - you can wet the wood with water or alcohol and that will show the wood grain a lot better. Check with the maker first, and try some wood samples before committing to the process. It's not as crazy as it seems, as most woodfinishers raise the grain with water before the final light sanding. (Don't forget to work fast!)

Kevin

[JW Dewdney]

Avoid surface reflections. A polarizer may help with some lighting.

a polarizer will help you cut through the surface finish and see more '3D figuring' - at least in theory - try it!

personally i wouldn't touch a color contrast filter because the whole surface is pretty much the same color - it's only going to separate the wood from the background material. I'd go with a polarizer and SOFT lighting - contrary to what someone else said...

not sure i'd want to show much more figure than you already have however... it's already VERY strong to my eye...

[Larry H-L]

KOG has it right. If they will let you, wipe it down with alcohol, it will really help.

[Larry Gebhardt]

Since most of your contrast in the image is created by the lighting I think you could light the scene a bit more softly. You can then increase development time to increase the overall contrast back to where you have it. This will raise the local contrast in the wood. Simply adding a soft box to fill in the shadows a bit and then increasing development by 30% is what I would try.

Also, with some woods I've noticed that the rays in the wood rays are more visible at different lighting angles. You could try a polarizer with polarized light. It's possible that could bring out some contrast. I haven't tried it and it's just a theory.

[stradibarrius]

Thanks for these suggestions. I think maybe the softer light and longer development makes the most sense. I'm going to try it anyway. I will learn something either way it turns out.