Ballerina Project photo editing questions

I've been a long time fan of the "Ballerina Project", a series of photos by a NYC photographer over the last 10 years or so documenting ballet dancers out side of the studio. Very beautiful stuff.

The photographer shot film for many years before at least partially switching to digital 6 or so years ago.

I absolutely love the "look" of his photos (especially the color ones) and am looking for an understanding on how to achieve it.

The colors are muted but present, the contrast is fairly flat but has depth. See below.

Any thoughts on how to emulate the color and contrast in these?

https://78.media.tumbl​r.com …vmazmXv1qdx47so​1_1280.jpg
https://i.pinimg.com …86c783abb26f509​b17a6f.jpg
https://i.pinimg.com …2c85e4252f97b98​ef9988.jpg
https://78.media.tumbl​r.com …z9scvUO1qdx47so​1_1280.jpg
https://78.media.tumbl​r.com …c0zzwqE1qdx47so​1_1280.jpg
https://78.media.tumbl​r.com …6yihEAq1qdx47so​1_1280.jpg
https://78.media.tumbl​r.com …0amkhTG1qdx47so​1_1280.jpg

Gee, I don't think you're allowed to post other people's photos on the forum. Links only.

My apologies! They are links now.

One thing that might contribute to the colors you are seeing is that (contrary to the best practice for web posting and rather strangely for an experienced professional photographer) the linked images are in Adobe RGB space. If you are using a non-color managed browser, or one that does not do CM well (like Internet Explorer) and/or an uncalibrated monitor, the photos will appear as you describe them - flat and lacking saturation.

Taking note of Elie's post I made sure to switch my system from auto configuring the colour space, it switches to sRGB for web browsers but it is still colour managed, to AdobeRGB and when viewing in 99% aRGB all of those images look to have a very normal amount of saturation and contrast. There is one image with a red dress, and I think that shade of red is over the limits of sRGb's gamut.

What I will say is that in none of those shots has the subject been in direct sunlight. Some were on overcast days, and that sort of lighting will tend to reduce both contrast and saturation in an image. The others shot in shadow with some blue sky and direct sunlight on the background can tend to give the subject a slightly cold look.

About the only thing I would say about the processing is that he has avoided the temptation to warm things up a bit, and of course not to over do the saturation, as you see in many digital images. I think the camera manufacturers tend to go for lots of saturation in conversions that are designed for "ready to use" JPEG output. I remember having an Instamatic in the early 70's before I got to use my dad's SLR in around 73/74. The prints from that would be much like this, not supersaturated like we get now. Oh and most of the "film" effects you see for digital go right over the top, and reproduce what a thirty or fourty year old image looks like, not as they were when new.

Alan

weezintrumpeteer wrote in post #18537584
The colors are muted but present, the contrast is fairly flat but has depth. See below.
Any thoughts on how to emulate the color and contrast in these?

The black point has been raised and the white point has been lowered. This has also been done differently in different color channels.

https://s9.postimg.org​/xu86e55st/subdued.jpg

Google cross-processing with curves. Lots of tutorials available.

example: https://youtu.be/tShqY​kqTQog?t=40

EDIT: Here is one of your sample images that I "reverse engineered" to restore the vividness of the colors. It's cross-processing in reverse:
https://s9.postimg.org​/ipc2ghrul/reverse.jpg

tzalman wrote in post #18537633
One thing that might contribute to the colors you are seeing is that (contrary to the best practice for web posting and rather strangely for an experienced professional photographer) the linked images are in Adobe RGB space. If you are using a non-color managed browser, or one that does not do CM well (like Internet Explorer) and/or an uncalibrated monitor, the photos will appear as you describe them - flat and lacking saturation.

Interesting, I can see what you mean. Thanks!

BigAl007 wrote in post #18537753
Taking note of Elie's post I made sure to switch my system from auto configuring the colour space, it switches to sRGB for web browsers but it is still colour managed, to AdobeRGB and when viewing in 99% aRGB all of those images look to have a very normal amount of saturation and contrast. There is one image with a red dress, and I think that shade of red is over the limits of sRGb's gamut.

What I will say is that in none of those shots has the subject been in direct sunlight. Some were on overcast days, and that sort of lighting will tend to reduce both contrast and saturation in an image. The others shot in shadow with some blue sky and direct sunlight on the background can tend to give the subject a slightly cold look.

About the only thing I would say about the processing is that he has avoided the temptation to warm things up a bit, and of course not to over do the saturation, as you see in many digital images. I think the camera manufacturers tend to go for lots of saturation in conversions that are designed for "ready to use" JPEG output. I remember having an Instamatic in the early 70's before I got to use my dad's SLR in around 73/74. The prints from that would be much like this, not supersaturated like we get now. Oh and most of the "film" effects you see for digital go right over the top, and reproduce what a thirty or fourty year old image looks like, not as they were when new.

Alan

Yes, I completely agree about the modern interpretation of film. Most of the presets I see (VSCO, etc) completely over-bake the contrast and saturation and it drives me nuts.

You're right about the majority of them having the subject in the shade. The one exception is the photo of the girl on the roof with the sun behind her (you can see the shadow), however, the photographer is on the shady side. Good point!

Peano wrote in post #18537914
The black point has been raised and the white point has been lowered. This has also been done differently in different color channels.

https://s9.postimg.org​/xu86e55st/subdued.jpg

Google cross-processing with curves. Lots of tutorials available.

example: https://youtu.be/tShqY​kqTQog?t=40

EDIT: Here is one of your sample images that I "reverse engineered" to restore the vividness of the colors. It's cross-processing in reverse:
https://s9.postimg.org​/ipc2ghrul/reverse.jpg

Very interesting. So are you saying that I just need to raise the black point and lower the white point, or something additional? It looks like "cross processing" involves tweaking the curves of all three channels.

weezintrumpeteer wrote in post #18538351
So are you saying that I just need to raise the black point and lower the white point, or something additional? It looks like "cross processing" involves tweaking the curves of all three channels.

Lowering white point and raising black point just makes the highlights a little darker and the shadows a little lighter. So, yes, you often need to tweak individual color channels -- for instance to subdue bright reds or vivid skin tones.

EDIT: When analyzing target images that you want to emulate, check RGB values at the brightest highlight and darkest shadow. That will show the differences in the separate channels.

Thanks for the follow up, I really appreciate it. It does seem like all of those images have the black point raised a bit, and the white point lowered.

I tried just that on a few of my images and I think I'm 85% of the way there to what I'm after. So that helped quite a bit! Thank you.