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davidmknoble
Guest
Black and white photography has long had its following. I suspect it could be because of the way the light plays off the silver in a print, or simply because you don't get distracted by the colors and can focus on the image. In any event, color digital photography will most likely takeover film at some point in the future, so I have created a set of Lightroom Development Presets that emulate existing popular black and white filters. You can find those filters and adjust them to your liking from the article in this forum titled 'Finding Lightroom Develop Presets' or by visiting my blog at Outdoor Images Fine Art.
Hopefully you are also interested in how I created these development presets and in the process may learn a little more about the inner workings of Lightroom. So, if you'd like to see the basis for these filters, read on.
Chris Brandon, a member of the Lightroom Forums, created a post on Lightroom Spectral Values. He estimated the wavelength of each of the color sliders in the Lightroom Development module. Here is the list he came up with. These measurements are in nanometers.
Color----Wavelength
Red------7''
Orange---59'
Yellow---578
Green----56'
Aqua-----5''
Blue-----48'
While we will not go into the physics of light for this post and while these are estimates, we use this information to help us determine what sliders to change and how much to change them. This combination will help us create a preset that is similar to a black and white filter.
Molecular Expressions specializes in Microscopy. Mortimer Abramowitz and Michael W. Davidson wrote an article on Kodak Wratten Filters for Black & White Photomicrography. It turns out that these filters use the same numbers and have the same wavelength transmissions whether it is for photomicrography or traditional photography. Light characteristics and film characteristics remain the same, so the results of their work applies to us in Lightroom as well.
Below is a table of the wavelengths of light that are transmitted through each of the listed black and white filters. Note that there are other wavelengths at each end that are transmitted, but less than 1'% of the light gets through. Because we have a limited number of color adjustments that we can make, this precision is tolerable.
Filter------------Wavelengths Passed (nanometers)
'8 Yellow-----------48'+
15 Deep Yellow------51'+
22 Deep Orange------56'+
25 Red--------------59'+
29 Deep Red---------61'+
44 Blue Green-------44' - 54'
47 Blue-------------41' - 5''
47B Deep Blue-------4'' - 47'
58 Green------------5'' - 58'
We used the information in their article, coupled with Chris' work to create the presets. In order to translate these specific wavelengths to use Lightroom's fairly broad adjustments, we made some assumptions to help us estimate the amount of slider to adjust for light transmission.
We assumed that the peak wavelength transmission for a filter was around +75 on the slider. We further assumed that the transmission of a filter was a curve, albeit a steep curve and used values around +2' to +4' at the edges of the transmission range. Finally, we took wavelengths that were furthest from the transmission range and reduced the amount of development in the -2' to -4' range. For some filters, most notably the 'Deep' color filters, we used reductions in light transmission as high as -7'.
While this isn't scientifically accurate to the exact wavelength used in traditional film photography, it is certainly aesthetically accurate. We tested the filters on a variety of color images and the ranges and changes appear to be inline with our black and white film experience.
Just as some filters are very strong in contrast and light transmission which produces an undesirable negative, there will be some of the stronger filters which are not meant for most Lightroom situations. However, we included them to be complete.
Hopefully you are also interested in how I created these development presets and in the process may learn a little more about the inner workings of Lightroom. So, if you'd like to see the basis for these filters, read on.
Chris Brandon, a member of the Lightroom Forums, created a post on Lightroom Spectral Values. He estimated the wavelength of each of the color sliders in the Lightroom Development module. Here is the list he came up with. These measurements are in nanometers.
Color----Wavelength
Red------7''
Orange---59'
Yellow---578
Green----56'
Aqua-----5''
Blue-----48'
While we will not go into the physics of light for this post and while these are estimates, we use this information to help us determine what sliders to change and how much to change them. This combination will help us create a preset that is similar to a black and white filter.
Molecular Expressions specializes in Microscopy. Mortimer Abramowitz and Michael W. Davidson wrote an article on Kodak Wratten Filters for Black & White Photomicrography. It turns out that these filters use the same numbers and have the same wavelength transmissions whether it is for photomicrography or traditional photography. Light characteristics and film characteristics remain the same, so the results of their work applies to us in Lightroom as well.
Below is a table of the wavelengths of light that are transmitted through each of the listed black and white filters. Note that there are other wavelengths at each end that are transmitted, but less than 1'% of the light gets through. Because we have a limited number of color adjustments that we can make, this precision is tolerable.
Filter------------Wavelengths Passed (nanometers)
'8 Yellow-----------48'+
15 Deep Yellow------51'+
22 Deep Orange------56'+
25 Red--------------59'+
29 Deep Red---------61'+
44 Blue Green-------44' - 54'
47 Blue-------------41' - 5''
47B Deep Blue-------4'' - 47'
58 Green------------5'' - 58'
We used the information in their article, coupled with Chris' work to create the presets. In order to translate these specific wavelengths to use Lightroom's fairly broad adjustments, we made some assumptions to help us estimate the amount of slider to adjust for light transmission.
We assumed that the peak wavelength transmission for a filter was around +75 on the slider. We further assumed that the transmission of a filter was a curve, albeit a steep curve and used values around +2' to +4' at the edges of the transmission range. Finally, we took wavelengths that were furthest from the transmission range and reduced the amount of development in the -2' to -4' range. For some filters, most notably the 'Deep' color filters, we used reductions in light transmission as high as -7'.
While this isn't scientifically accurate to the exact wavelength used in traditional film photography, it is certainly aesthetically accurate. We tested the filters on a variety of color images and the ranges and changes appear to be inline with our black and white film experience.
Just as some filters are very strong in contrast and light transmission which produces an undesirable negative, there will be some of the stronger filters which are not meant for most Lightroom situations. However, we included them to be complete.
