LEIPZIG
Added 2021-02-26 17:10:47 +0000 UTCMy editing process for digital images is essentially based around careful destruction of the file. Digital images for me are too perfect, they're not real and they don’t carry the story very well at all. There's all sorts of important aspects of analog that need to be 'created' (destroyed) given a perfect digital file to begin with.
Focus: careful curve contrast adjustments. Analog normally has raised blacks for example and is flatter in mid tones and highlights.
Colour: very different and it took a long time of carefully analysing various film types to see what was required in shadows, highlights and mid tones.
Artefacts: analog inheritantly contains artefacts on the emulsion from the development process like scratches, dust and hair. I like these things as part of the image.
Grain: things like backlight look different with analog. There’s usually more grain there, in the highlights. This adds a certain atmosphere which is missing in a digital file. So grain, also in mistimed and shadows can be carefully ‘added’ to the digital file. It never looks the same though. Analog grain structure is a complex thing, different films have a different structure and a different amount of grain through the various tones of the image.
Having said all this it is still completely impossible to emulate analog using a digital file to begin with, despite what the preset manufacturers will tell you. The resulting image is a particular type of image - it’s a digital file that’s been hacked to look like film, but at least there is some possibility of getting some atmosphere and feel into the shot.
