MONOCHROME MAGIC

Monochrom Bride THE VERY FIRST ARTICLE I WROTE FOR THE (THEN) Society Photographer was on the subject of monochrome. That was more than 2 ½ years ago and a lot of water has passed under the bridge since then. Sadly not all has been good and as the article was in preparation the descent of Ilford into administration was the hot news topic. Wet chemistry based monochrome has been under pressure from digital methods for some time but the artistic merits of single colour images remain as true as ever. The words of Craig McMaster in his recently published Elements eloquently sum it up:

"The removal of colour from a familiar scene instantly introduces and abstract quality to the image - if forces us to use our imagination"

So how have things moved since that first article 30 months ago? Well judging by our competition entries, monochrome has lost none of its appeal and it also features regularly in compiled wedding albums that we see around. The technology has moved on, as ever, and we include in this feature both digital and wet chemistry products, which are new.

The Technology

Photographers have always striven to create images that are marked out as different. At one end of the scale monochrome looks different amongst a sea of full colour. At the other end of the scale artists and image makers have set fire to their work during preparation, torn it, toned it, bleached it and painted on top of it all in the search for something different. All the while there has been a hardcore who have chased technical perfection through the use of large format cameras, slow film and painstaking processing, followed by archival printing and toning. It is to this latter level of achievement that digital monochrome is frequently compared. Currently we KNOW that wet monochrome prints can last for close on 150 years, for inkjet prints we are at best projecting lived from accelerated life testing. However, by most objective measures, inkjet prints can approach the technical quality of wet print and with more creative expression available because of more powerful dodge and burn facilities in Photoshop. Furthermore, for the limited edition print maker, there can be a higher level of consistency in digital printmaking - anybody wishing to challenge that should try and make two identical lith prints!

The Wet Route Film

We are frequently challenged about our leaning towards digital so we start with the latest non-digital technology - chromogenic film. Kodak Professional BW400CN is a nominally ISO 400 emulsion designed to be printed on standard C41 colour printers onto colour paper. For photographers wishing to match their mono and colour work within an album this is a boon as the surfaces and textures will exactly match. We had Loxley Colour send our negatives through their system. The results from the lab were impressive, as neutral as the most carefully bespoke profiled inkjet system. The neutral tone Lab co-ordinates were -0.06: -2.3 which mapped to within 1/10th of a point to the base white! The metamerism index was also incredibly low under all light conditions including fluorescent. It only rose above 1 for the real cheap and nasty fluorescent lights. For all practical purposes it could be considered nonexistent. In addition Loxley also provide a contact thumbnail and a CD with 18MB scans. This opens the possibility of using the scan to build montaged pages with any other digitised shots. We tested the film under bright overhead sunlight and the contrast was a little on the high side, in old-fashioned terms we would have used a ½ paper grade softer (not an option with a C41 process). Our thanks to Chris Kay of Loxley Colour who piloted this experimental film through their system; Loxley may be visited at www.loxleycolour.net.

Options for Digital Monochrome

For digital, the process of creating the image falls into two categories, preparing the computer file and then making the print. A mixture of technologies is not precluded, Craig McMaster shoots large format film, scans and then outputs to Lyson papers using Epson Ultrachrome inks.

Image preparation

Whether you shoot digital or scan emulsions, the first tip is to use the highest bit depth that you have available to preclude problems with banding and posterisation downstream in the workflow. For digital shooting go for RAW files so that you can bring out a 16 bit colour image for conversion to mono. Converting to a different mode always loses digital information so take care when doing so - certainly beware of going back and forth from one mode to another unless you have to! Starting from a colour RGB image there are a number of routes to a mono image.You will find many ways of converting and different experts will favour different methods. Suffice to say that the best method is the one which achieves the result you prefer at the speed you need. If you only require modest control simple hit the Desaturate button. If you want full control follow the Channel Mixer or double HSB route described here. Within all of the methods you have the option of obtaining or writing an action or droplet to automatically process large numbers of images.

Toning

Mono Wet monochrome printers have always toned their prints for colour, longevity, increased Dmax or combinations of all three. There are a number of ways of achieving a tone to an image. Bear in mind that applying a single overriding tone to an image can enhance it but in addition may also mask any deficiencies in your printer profiles and grey linearistion.

The main methods are as follows:
Adjust using Hue Saturation and Brightness
Adjust using large values in the Colour Balance
Convert the RGB image to Grayscale and then Duo
Tone it
Sepia tone using default Photoshop action
Sepia tone in the printer driver
Sepia tone in camera

If you want to match a print to a specific tone then using duo tones is a good way of achieving this as you can pick a specific Pantone as your toning colourant.To some extent you can also choose the hue value that you colourise to in the HSB Dialogue.

Infra Red Landsacep

Infrared films are sensitive deep into that end of the electromagnetic spectrum and have been used for scientific imaging and medical research for years. As ever with creative people, it did not take long for somebody to try it out away from the laboratory and to start producing images with a very different look to them. Most good books on Photoshop and most magazines routinely set out how to achieve an infrared look to an image. Remember that a digital detector of a camera is more sensitive to infrared and you can often utilise this quirk in creating an infrared image. The additional sensitivity is sometimes filtered out by a special filter in the camera so you have to experiment. However the image by Tony Galic which heads this feature is a classic example and was made using a Nikon Coolpix 990 with a red filter taped over the lens - a triumph of creative thinking over expansive technology the image has been taken into the permanent collection of the PPA, won the Best Wedding Portrait, was a major award winner for this year's Professional Photographers of Canada print competition and was picked as a monthly award winner by our own Terry Hansen. We let Tony describe its creation in his own words

"Andree's Day was taken two weeks prior to the Wedding Day. It's what I call a Pre-Bridal photo session. A week or two before the wedding I offer the brides a couple hours of my time to photograph them before their wedding day. This way it gives them more options for their wedding album, also it guarantees me great shots of the bride without all the stress from the actual wedding day. For wedding and portrait photography I usually use my Fuji FinePix S2 Pro but I always carry my Nikon Coolpix 990 equipped with a red filter for infra red effect for specialty shots just like this one. The camera was set on black & white and fine mode on the Program setting. The bride was standing on a big rock overlooking the water. The sky was overcast with perfect cloud formation. The setting was perfect for the subject."

Patrick Rice

International member, Patrick Rice Cr., CPP, ALPE, Hon-ALPE has written an excellent book on infrared wedding photography and we include here his thoughts on digital infrared. In recent years, I have rediscovered black & white photography as well as black & white Infrared photography. Unfortunately, in the digital world, these "outside the box" techniques are not as readily available. Through research and discussion, I discovered that I could still produce my unique style of wedding photography using one particular digital camera - the Nikon Coolpix 950.The camera has a 2.11 megapixel CCD.

One unusual feature with the Nikon Coolpix 950 - the one that got me excited about the camera - was this camera's ability to shoot true infrared images. Infrared light is the band of invisible light just beyond the red rays. Although the eye cannot see infrared light, it can be recorded with photographic film and also digitally. Infrared images are often considered "dream-like" or "ethereal" in appearance. It is very striking and distinctive type of imaging.

To understand why this camera can shoot into the Infrared range and others cannot, you must first understand how digital cameras are made and how infrared images are recorded.With digital cameras, manufacturers are always working to get the "cleanest" image capture possible to give the photographer the best image file. As manufacturers learned more about image capture, they discovered that they could get a cleaner image by blocking infrared light from being recorded. Apparently, invisible infrared light contaminates the visible light being captured on the digital media and thus degrades the image quality. The solution was to install an infrared cut off filter to block the transmission of all infrared light to the camera. In technical terms, these are referred to as "Hot Mirror" filters. As the name implies, these filters reflect heat and transmit visible light. The latest Hot Mirror filters transmit over 85% of the wavelengths between 400 - 700 nanometers (the visible light spectrum) and reflect (block) over 90% of the wavelengths between 700 - 1000 nanometers (the near infrared spectrum). This discovery was made after the release of the Nikon Coolpix 950 camera - so this particular camera does not have an effective Hot Mirror/Infrared cutoff filter in place.The Nikon Coolpix 995, 990, 880 and other models now all have the more efficient cutoff filter. The other reason that the Nikon Coolpix 950 can record into the infrared range is the fact that the camera has both a color and black & white modes for recording images. In the black & white mode, with the proper filtration, a photographer can digitally record infrared images. The Nikon Coolpix 950, as well as many other digital cameras, can photograph in the black and white mode directly.

The key to infrared recording of images is to use an infrared pass filter to block some or all of the visible light from being recorded. With Kodak Infrared film, I primarily use a number 25 red filter (basic red) in front of the lens and get very good results.Trees, grass and other foliage are recorded as very light gray or white and blue skies can be nearly black with this film and filter.The Nikon Coolpix cameras have a 28mm threaded ring on the front of the camera's zoom lens. I purchased a 28 - 37mm step-up ring from CKCPower.com along with a 37 - 49mm step-up ring (very common - you can buy these at any camera store) and then attached a 49mm number 25 red filter to it. When I first started experimenting with the Nikon Coolpix 950 in trying to record into the Infrared spectrum, I used this same number 25 filter but achieved only adequate results. The images I were recording with the digital camera just did not have the same "snap" that I was accustomed to with Kodak Infrared film. The next logical step was to use a filter that blocked more of the visible spectrum and was more responsive in the Infrared range. Opaque filters block all of the light rays shorter than 700nm and only allow the Infrared light to pass. In appearance, the filters look black and cannot be seen through. I used a 49mm number 87 (Opaque) glass filter on my step-up ring configuration. The results rivaled that of Kodak Infrared film! This was exciting and has changed my entire outlook on Infrared image recording.

How it works. As mentioned above, the Nikon Coolpix 950 camera is not equipped with an effective Infrared-blocking filter and thus records both visible and infrared light. The camera lens is fitted with an auxiliary infrared pass filter to block almost all of the visible light that would normally be recorded, while still recording the infrared light. The flash setting on the camera is disabled. Exposures are made automatically by the camera using the Auto Matrix-Metering mode of the Nikon Coolpix 950 camera. All photographs are taken with the camera on a tripod. I recently purchased a number 87 Kodak Wratten material square filter. I purchased a 28mm (the Nikon Coolpix 950 lens thread size) UV filter from CKCPower.com and cut out a slightly larger circle than the filter of the number 87 Wratten filter and inserted it into the lip of the UV filter .The Wratten material is flexible enough to stay in place without falling out. To my knowledge, there are no commercially available number 87 filters in a 28mm filter size. The near Infrared spectrum of light starts at about 700 nanometers and goes to about 1000 nanometers. Visible light ranges from about 400 nanometers to 700 nanometers. The number 87 filter only passes light from about 800 nanometers to past 1000 nanometers. Thus, the number 87 filter is not recording the visible spectrum of light at all - only the infrared spectrum is being recorded with the camera. Exposures are relatively slow using this filter with the Nikon Coolpix 950 - they range from about 1/15s to ½s in the sunlight, even longer in overcast conditions - which makes it difficult to record in focus images of people because of subject movement. Like with infrared film, I generally place my subjects in the sunlight to accentuate the effect of the image.

Because opaque filters like the number 87 cannot be seen through, I compose my images using the camera's small viewfinder window and not the larger LCD display which is seeing through the lens itself. The image in the viewfinder corresponds to the image being recorded, even changing as the lens zooms in and out for different focal lengths. This 28mm opaque filter is even more beneficial when you consider that now ALL of the Nikon adapter lenses can be used to record digital infrared images. Thus, I can use the Nikon fisheye lens, wide-angle lens and telephoto lens attachments. The creative possibilities are limitless!

If you are searching for the "look" of infrared, but do not want to create it with a digital camera as explained above, I found another alternative. A photographer I heard about named Fred Miranda offers an inexpensive downloadable Infrared action to roughly simulate an Infrared image. I purchased his action as a download directly from his website www.fredmiranda.com for only $8.50. After loading the action into my PhotoShop actions menu, I was able to quickly and easily convert any digital image into an infrared-like image. There are some subtle differences between using an infrared action and actually recording a scene in infrared with proper filtration. Most notably, the infrared action does not render clothing in the same way as Kodak Infrared film or digital infrared capture. One of the qualities of true infrared that I have found very appealing is the differences in infrared reflectance of different materials. Black tuxedos with synthetic trim are very striking because the jackets and pants may record black, while the piping and trim are nearly white. Tuxedos that are made entirely of synthetic materials will record in grey or even white.

The possibilities are endless and the results speak for themselves .The ability to still provide my clients with Infrared images from their wedding day makes the digital transition possible for my studio. I feel it is important for photographers to embrace the changes in technology and look for new and better ways to give your clients a unique product. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me at Prfisheye@aol.com

Image Output

There are a number of choices for output into monochrome. The choice can depend upon the intentions for the final image. If for example the image has to sit in a wedding album which is conventionally printed then it might be better to have your lab process the mono as well to maintain the texture and surface properties.

When it comes to inkjet output there are yet further options to choose from, depending on how the ink set is formulated. Most colour printers use a basic colour set of cyan, magenta and yellow. Depending on the technology, black, grey, light cyan, light magenta, orange, green, red or blue may also be added, although never all of them (at present, currently the limit is 8 colour). These additional inks are used to increase the size of the gamut (not a benefit to a monochrome print) and to smooth the transitions down the tonal range. The down side is that the mixture of colours is adjusted along the tone scale, progressively replacing cyan, magenta and yellow with greys and black - the so called grey replacement. Whilst this is OK for a well-profiled printer, it can lead to variations in the tone colour of the neutrals as the depth of the grey changes. Sadly the eye is also most sensitive to changes of this type. Metamerism can also rear its head (see later). In order to alleviate some of these problems the specialist suppliers such as Permajet, Lyson, Mwords, MIS, Cone and Marrut provide a range of solutions which use all black/grey or near-neutral inks for dedicated monochrome printing and lightly toned printing. Some of these need RGB images, some can utilise both colour and greyscale images. All produce superior monochrome results to unprofiled desktop colour printers with an added benefit of greater light fastness to boot. The Epson Ultrachrome ink set with its light grey and a choice of two blacks is capable of creating monochromes which rival the best of the specialist mono ink sets and the utility Epson Gray Balancer software may be used to apply light toning effects or final tweaks to the neutrality.

Right: A scan of the Imageprint RIP output onto Hahnemühle Photo Rag using Epson Ultrachrome inks. A warm variant is on the left and a cool neutral variant on the right. It is noteworthy that there is no scanner metamerism as well as no observer metamerism - the inkjet prints have scanned to the same tones as they were measured on the spectro and maintained their relationship to the non-metameric Kodak calibration scale. This is quite a severe test for other inkjet prints!

Imageprint 5.6

This is a specialist RIP imported by Mwords. Whilst it is not the least expensive solution for creating monochrome it is certainly very effective. As well as a fully featured RIP for colour, profiles are provided for accurate, reduced metamerism monochrome output. This is achieved with Epson Ultrachrome inks by reducing the content of the yellow to the grey mix. Yellow is the bad actor as far as metamerism is concerned. It drops the metameric index to a miniscule 0.6 delta E when changing from D65 daylight to tungsten light for a 50% grey. This is backed by no detectable shift when you walk about the house with a real print - it really works!

Lith Toning toning

Ithe search to be different wet monochrome printers have sometimes resorted to using lithographic chemicals to develop the printing paper. This is a real black magic type of process, hugely unpredictable, very time consuming (35min to an hour sometimes!) and great fun if you are not paying for your time. An additional effect you get is peppering of the image structure, a kind of darker tone noise on the image. The actual tone of the image can be adjusted from a delightful delicate pink through to a full soot and whitewash effect so beloved of the former Iron Curtain states. This effect is best achieved digitally by adjusting the curves and applying some noise. It has the advantage of great predictability.

In the example shown below the image was scanned from a 120-format monochrome negative to make an RGB file. This was desiderated but left in RGB and then the curves shown below were applied followed by an application of the Noise filter to taste.

The effect is identical to a lith processed wet print which is what was used to generate the curves but the result is more predictable and certainly much quicker to produce.

MONOCHROME Russell Brown's Mono Method

This is the method developed by Russell Brown, Adobe's Creative Director. It is regarded by many as the best way to achieve control over the transformation to monochrome. If you examine the composite screen grab below, note that adjusting the Hue has altered the balance between the monochrome densities of the riders’ lycra suits.

1. Open RGB image
2. Make an Adjustment Layer for Hue/Sat/Brightness, but
don't do a thing, just click OK. [A]
3. Set mode of this layer to "Colour"
4. Make another Adjustment Layer - Hue/Sat/Brightness. [B]
Move Saturation to -100 (no colour). Close this layer
5. Double click on middle Adjustment Layer (the one set to
Colour mode). Start moving the Hue slider. You can move
the Sat and Lightness a bit too.
6. Fine tune effect by clicking on specific colours (eg Red) and
move Hue Slider.

You'll see that you get total control over visually altering all the mix of colours, you don't have to mess with Channel Mixer and try to keep the values at 100. In addition, the above technique supports Layer Masks. When you are all done, flatten the image and print according to your chosen method.

Line 6 in particular allows massive control over the way the RGB colours map to greyscale. In the images below [1] is with the Hue slider at zero, [2] is with the Hue set to the left (ie magenta, see insert) and [3] is with the slider to the right (ie green, see insert). Dragging the slider the full distance to the left or the right creates an identical effect in each image.

Permajet Monochrome Pro 1290

We look now at an exciting new product from Permajet, their Monochrome Pro 1290.This has been launched to suit the Epson 1290 printer but other variants are already under development. It takes the already excellent VT Blax to a yet higher level and exhibits particularly low metamerism.

Metamerism is a term which is frequently talked about, frequently mispronounced and ever present in some degree in all imaging situations. Two colours which match each other in one type of lighting (say daylight) but not in another (say tungsten light) are said to be a metameric pair. The difference in the colour perceived by the eye is the result of the two colour in the metameric pair being made up of a different mix of wavelengths.

The eye is most sensitive to differences in neutrals (greys) close to the mid tones. As such the observer detects and is more disturbed by lack of neutrality then many other colour defects. This is particularly so in monochrome work and sadly one of the most frequent shifts is from a warm "purple" neutral in tungsten light to an ugly olive green in daylight. This is just the colour that traditional monochrome printers have avoided when picking their toning and development conditions in silver halide printing. Ansel Adams in particular did not like any shift towards olive.

Colour and Metamerism of Monochrome Pro

For a full tone range monchrome print there are a number of factors to consider each of which contribute to the perception of its tonality.

Base Tone

The actual colour is something of a misnomer for a monochrome image but colour it certainly has.The variable toning of all the specialist multi ink monochrome products address this need with their subtly tinted greys. Figure 1 shows the actual colours for Monochrome Pro obtained with the default settings to create the cool, neutral, carbon and sepia variants - all colours in between could be created by custom tweaking.

Tone Variation across the range

Images vary from black to white with preferably as many tones as possible in between to achieve subtlety in this tonality. As we mentioned earlier, it is difficult to maintain the same base colour down the tone scale when using a 5,6 or 7 ink CMYK system unless the printer is bespoke profiled. Constant or gradually changing base tone down the scale is a measure of quality. Figure 2 shows the variation of base tone in a Monochrome Pro image. Note that the Permajet O Monochome yster paper has a cool blue base tone and that this is smoothly and progressively brought to a slightly cool neutral with the application of gradually increasing amounts of ink as the print tone darkens.

Metamerism

Coloured surfaces reflect and absorb light from different parts of the spectrum in different ways, that is the fundamental characteristic by which we see them as red or green or whatever colour we chose to describe them by. White light is a mix of the spectral colours and it is the variation in the mixtures that gives different types of light (e.g. fluorescent versus daylight) their different characters). Measurements of metamerism in prints look at the way that the different parts of the spectrum as reflected back to the eye. A grey can be made of a single pigment which reflects back equally over all parts of the spectrum. However the same perceived grey can be created by a varying mix of colours that create the same overall effect on the eyes. However this cosy system breaks down if the dyes are metameric and then the colour seems to change if different illuminating lights are used. The near perfect grey of a Kodak grey scale has a flat (lin Monochrome ear) response when plotted on a graph. A grey created by a multi colour inkjet is more complex and the response curve is no longer flat but wanders up and down. The more it crosses the flat response line the more metameric is the colour. This is shown graphically in figure 3 for the mid tone (50% Lab lightness value - the so called 18% grey).

This quality of low metamerism is maintained down the tone scale and Monochrome Pro can be seen to be extensively out performing the reference material across al the important parts of the tone range.

Perma Jet MONOCHROME

Above Left: Monochrome pro is able to vary the tone over quite a
wide range covering the traditionally available warm, cool and sepia
tones loved by the silver halide monochrome specialists.

Above Right: The relative proportions of lightly toned inks are varied by
changing the curve on an RGB image.The on-screen result looks
unusual but the print works out just fine!

The SWPP 2008 Convention was an outstanding success,
we have 191 days to get ready for the 2009 convention - which starts on January 14, 2009

Photo Quote: As I became aware that all things have unique spatial and temporal qualities which visually define and relate them, I began to perceive the things I was photographing not as objects but as events. Working to develop my skills of perceiving and symbolizing these event qualities, I discovered the principle of opposites. When, for example, I photographed the smooth, luminous body of a woman behind a dirty cobwebbed window, I found that the qualities of each event were enhanced and the universal forces which they manifested were more powerfully evoked. - Wynn Bullock