Good on you for addressing this sometimes controversial topic! As a film photographer since 1975 and digital/film since 2005 I'm all to familiar with both worlds. I really believe the people who claim film scans should not be manipulated haven't been around very long. Before digital technology there were darkrooms with numerous dodging, burning, toning, and whatnot tools. I remember softening images with nylons stretched in embroidery rings, creating vignettes with a cardboard disk taped to the end of a cut wire and using my hands and fingers under the enlarger lens to move the light. Ansel Adams was known to make elaborate sketches of how he planned to manipulate print exposures in the darkroom. The zone system itself was a form of editing the results from the beginning. I scan my own negatives so I have a bit more control over the result, but every image needs a little touch here and there. This is where digital technology comes in. Keep it up! I've been following you for a few years and your enthusiasm for film keeps this old shooter motivated.
Yup, too many people don't realize that film came BEFORE digital. Editing was analog BEFORE it was digital. I always hear "I don't want my film to look too digital", not realizing that digital caught up to film, not the other way around. If people want a final product without any sort of manipulation, go shoot slide film.
What I never get with the analog or bust mentality, is there are so many factors coming into play before you get your scanned picture. Film stock, exposure, lens, chemicals used, development time, scanning machine/color inversion technique / white balance auto-applied... If I could duplicate the exact same undeveloped film roll and send it to 3 different shops around the city the results would vary widely! There is not "truth" to process and there is no resulting "true" picture. Also it's funny that most "analog or bust" people care about black frames, and probably have never printed their pictures in a dark room. Dude pictures are never meant to have a black bar, you're just making sure people know you're shooting film. The black bar is an artifact from scanning the film, which is like the opposite of an analog process. If you were true to your words, get them developed in a black room, only share them physically in galleries, never scan them with a digital sensor, never share it on instagram, then I'll believe you.
Antoine Vidal de La Blache completely agree. Also the purists like to act like they didn’t edit their photos back in the day, but it was actually a big part of the printmaking process.
I've never thought about editing my film scans even though the results isn't what i expected it to be. I've been watching so many photo editing process video, but so far, this is the most satisfying. Just look at that video, he's literally editing a great photo with a great lighting condition in that room. I have no words for those who dislike this video. But what i know instead, is that i really like this video. You're such an inspiration, Willem. I thank you from the deepest of my heart.
always a big fan of your work man. Getting your film scanned is a digital representation of what the negative should look like and the person who scans it might never fully nail it anyway. So I don't personally see the hype around leaving your scans untouched. I always edit mine!
"I'm against edit, this is not what film is about!" Well, the vast majority of film photos - including the most famous ones - are edited. Correcting lights, shadows, hue, etc. is perfectly normal and has been done for almost as long as film photography existed. Photoshoping stuff in and out of picture has been done since, at least, 1930s. All the above brings this bottomline: No matter of fetish you may have about photography, it is just a tool for you to express your vision - like painting, writing, music. And your vision can't be right or wrong, can't (and shouldn't) be contained by "rules". People's appreciation of it is another matter. Just do your thing and don't listen to assholes who says "that's not what it is about".
@@AI-Hallucination That's debatable) Could it be that you're just afraid of long lines of text, which results in a fear, aggressiveness and xenophobia towards those who writes them..? The want to fix what shouldn't be fixed, just to cut it to the frame you can comprehend..? That's alright, really)
@@PeteS_1994 yes but they effectively did a similar thing. obviously, the control wasn't to the same extent as what you can achieve digitally, but to draw a line depending on how difficult it is to edit is pretty arbitrary.
One of very few creators that I genuinely can't believe how strong their content is. Not a second wasted and not a second too much is said Single handedly got me back into photography... Thank you Willem
I agree 100% - Never edit film to look fake, over-saturated, or too contrasty. I always remember every shot I took and I attempt to recreate the look and feel of the colors from that moment. keep chug'n at it! Love the work
YOUNG MA 1 YOUNG MA 2 YOUNG MA 3 YOUNG MA 4 YOUNG MA 5 YOUNG MA 6 YOUNG MA 7 edit: Okay I just got to the end. The view out your window is PICTURESQUE. Belgium seems nice.
Hello will how are you? As a film shooter myself when I see how many edits and color correction go into those first few neighborhood photos it may look better visually but it can throw someone off wanting to shoot that type of film and expecting the same look. Those images would probably be better suited shot digitally.
When working with your split tone effect, you can hold down "option" and it toggles 100% saturation to see what color you want to pick., then, just let go of the option key and drops saturation back. to zero and you can slide it to whatever level you want. Just a little time saving tip!
Didn't know that, that's huge. I almost never use it because I hate the way it's implemented, having to mess with the sat slider to see what you're effecting.
hold alt while changing the hue of the highlights and shadows! it lets you preview the color before adjusting the saturation so you dont have to turn it up to 100 just to know what color you are at.
I love that you shot Young MA (saw your preset for her shoot!), we randomly came across her on a random Spotify playlist a few years ago, such a small world
The thing I've found helps the most to get an image to look the way you want is to scan it yourself at 16 bits/channel. Not only can you make it look roughly how you want in the first pass, but you essentially have a RAW file to work from if you save it as tif.
While your style of editing is a big contrast from mine I do appreciate this video video because I love seeing how others edit their pics and potentially learning new tricks. I recently got Lightroom to replace the bulk of my editing workflow therefore it was nice to learn about the color profile feature. Love the videos, keep it up.
You can use the Sync button at the bottom of the adjustments panel to copy your settings from one image to all selected images. Much faster than copying and pasting each image...
Anyone against editing doesn’t realize that scanning film in general is editing. Scan the same negative on a frontier and a noritsu and both will look different. Negative film NEEDS to be edited to get a usable image. Anyone against editing should only be shooting slide film.
I fully agree with Willem's rejection of those arguing against editing scanned images. Those scans present image modifications based on the scanner technology used and the programming of the scanner, so there is not reasonable basis to argue that the scans reflect the images contemplated by the film photographer. Further editing ofWillem's image will be required by his devotion to over-exposure of his color negative images, resulting in loss of saturation and compression of highlight tones, as shown in his post-processing of the Chinese Restaurant image.
Anyone who refuses to edit film scans has obviously never printed their own images in a darkroom. Just cause we have computers to edit what we used a darkroom to do originally doesn't make editing film digitally any less valid and art form.
Leave them as the original scan & do not crop until you get to the posting phase. So editing and everything has that space for detail and spreading the color correction.
I know and I agree - it just became very popular over the recent years. My point was: the video is edited in a weird (funny) way where Willem gives up mid sentence 😁
Lovely stuff! Really nice to see somebody else's workflow to sort of confirm that the stuff you're doing yourself isn't totally ludicrous. I'm sure you're aware, but you might want to play around with vibrance rather than saturation on portraits as its designed to affect skin tones (and colours in the image that are already heavily saturated) less.
Nice to see how you edit. I used to be on the side where I didn't edit my film photos. But sinds a while I do edit them. By that I can make them a bit more my "style".
Anyone who says editing film scans is against "film rules" (whatever that means), has obviously never seen how color photos are printed in a darkroom lol. Also, anyone who tries to tell an artist what they should or shouldn't do with their work needs to mind their own business. Love u Willem
Good stuff, nice minimal edits! I wondered if you use the J key to aid when you're adjusting the exposure sliders at the top - I've found it helps to visually see when these start to clip.
Have you ever messed around with Negative Lab Pro in Lightroom? I started using it for when I scan my own negatives and I absolutely love it. Highly recommend it for the next time you're scanning your film yourself.
Thank you for another video Willem. Come visit Porto in your way back 😇. Question: why does the scans have such a “low” res? Can’t it be scanned with more resolution?
@Bobby Brady Thank you so much for answering. Really appreciate you taking time to do that. Got it. I though that with medium format, you'd print to scan, silly me :-)
Willem: I'm going to start by cropping the borders.
Everyone else: **GASP**
henri would be mad af for sure
Good on you for addressing this sometimes controversial topic! As a film photographer since 1975 and digital/film since 2005 I'm all to familiar with both worlds. I really believe the people who claim film scans should not be manipulated haven't been around very long. Before digital technology there were darkrooms with numerous dodging, burning, toning, and whatnot tools. I remember softening images with nylons stretched in embroidery rings, creating vignettes with a cardboard disk taped to the end of a cut wire and using my hands and fingers under the enlarger lens to move the light. Ansel Adams was known to make elaborate sketches of how he planned to manipulate print exposures in the darkroom. The zone system itself was a form of editing the results from the beginning. I scan my own negatives so I have a bit more control over the result, but every image needs a little touch here and there. This is where digital technology comes in. Keep it up! I've been following you for a few years and your enthusiasm for film keeps this old shooter motivated.
Yup, too many people don't realize that film came BEFORE digital. Editing was analog BEFORE it was digital. I always hear "I don't want my film to look too digital", not realizing that digital caught up to film, not the other way around. If people want a final product without any sort of manipulation, go shoot slide film.
“I know that roads aren’t blue like that, they’re gray” - a wise man.
Thank you sir
"make roads gray again"
Beale Street in Memphis I'm sure is quite blue. 🤔😋
Grey
If you hold alt/option while changing the hue of split tone you can see the color without cranking the saturation :)
Thanks for the tip!
I’m sure it’s illegal in some country to post vids this informative regularly. Be careful where you go my dude, and keep being awesome.
imagine telling someone they CAN'T do whatever they want with their work
Very satisfying to imagine the "analog-or-bust" purist gasp at, well, everything in this video but especially the border edit haha
What I never get with the analog or bust mentality, is there are so many factors coming into play before you get your scanned picture. Film stock, exposure, lens, chemicals used, development time, scanning machine/color inversion technique / white balance auto-applied... If I could duplicate the exact same undeveloped film roll and send it to 3 different shops around the city the results would vary widely! There is not "truth" to process and there is no resulting "true" picture.
Also it's funny that most "analog or bust" people care about black frames, and probably have never printed their pictures in a dark room. Dude pictures are never meant to have a black bar, you're just making sure people know you're shooting film. The black bar is an artifact from scanning the film, which is like the opposite of an analog process. If you were true to your words, get them developed in a black room, only share them physically in galleries, never scan them with a digital sensor, never share it on instagram, then I'll believe you.
Antoine Vidal de La Blache completely agree. Also the purists like to act like they didn’t edit their photos back in the day, but it was actually a big part of the printmaking process.
I've never thought about editing my film scans even though the results isn't what i expected it to be.
I've been watching so many photo editing process video, but so far, this is the most satisfying.
Just look at that video, he's literally editing a great photo with a great lighting condition in that room.
I have no words for those who dislike this video. But what i know instead, is that i really like this video.
You're such an inspiration, Willem. I thank you from the deepest of my heart.
always a big fan of your work man. Getting your film scanned is a digital representation of what the negative should look like and the person who scans it might never fully nail it anyway. So I don't personally see the hype around leaving your scans untouched. I always edit mine!
Fully agreed :)
"I'm against edit, this is not what film is about!"
Well, the vast majority of film photos - including the most famous ones - are edited.
Correcting lights, shadows, hue, etc. is perfectly normal and has been done for almost as long as film photography existed.
Photoshoping stuff in and out of picture has been done since, at least, 1930s.
All the above brings this bottomline:
No matter of fetish you may have about photography, it is just a tool for you to express your vision - like painting, writing, music. And your vision can't be right or wrong, can't (and shouldn't) be contained by "rules". People's appreciation of it is another matter. Just do your thing and don't listen to assholes who says "that's not what it is about".
Mate you need help
amen
@@AI-Hallucination That's debatable)
Could it be that you're just afraid of long lines of text, which results in a fear, aggressiveness and xenophobia towards those who writes them..? The want to fix what shouldn't be fixed, just to cut it to the frame you can comprehend..? That's alright, really)
They were edited in the darkroom though?
@@PeteS_1994 yes but they effectively did a similar thing. obviously, the control wasn't to the same extent as what you can achieve digitally, but to draw a line depending on how difficult it is to edit is pretty arbitrary.
One of very few creators that I genuinely can't believe how strong their content is. Not a second wasted and not a second too much is said
Single handedly got me back into photography...
Thank you Willem
Always love seeing your workflow. It’s great you’re so open about your process.
god Belgium looks so cozy and peaceful
It actually is!
What? No waffles?
Green: *exists*
Willem: hey, you’re not allowed to do that
Blue hour: exists
Film lab: hey you're not allowed to do that
Lmao
""Why We Still Love Film: Analog Photography in the Digital Age | NBC Left Field"" I saw you. I was already your fan. Awesome!!
He’s BACK
This is Adian's Art it’s a miracle
I was starting to fear the worse but he’s alive and in Belgium
Editing - in the dark or lightroom - is what photography is all about. The quality of your negative makes that job easy or challenging.
I agree 100% - Never edit film to look fake, over-saturated, or too contrasty. I always remember every shot I took and I attempt to recreate the look and feel of the colors from that moment.
keep chug'n at it!
Love the work
That portrait of Matt is so good! If you ever get him on the C41 podcast that would be sweet! I love his approach to documenting life and family.
The first color grading was biblical! Keep up the good work, your inspiring a ton of people, keep going and growing!
YOUNG MA 1
YOUNG MA 2
YOUNG MA 3
YOUNG MA 4
YOUNG MA 5
YOUNG MA 6
YOUNG MA 7
edit: Okay I just got to the end. The view out your window is PICTURESQUE. Belgium seems nice.
man, whenever I have a doubt or a problem about film, you post a video right after. you're reading my mind
“YOUNG MA 7” preset. Nice.
so great he doesn't make everything contrast as fuck
I'm getting into film photography and your channel is so helpful! Thank you for posting such great content! 💙
Miranda happy to see you shooting film Welcome to the film community 🤟
Hello will how are you? As a film shooter myself when I see how many edits and color correction go into those first few neighborhood photos it may look better visually but it can throw someone off wanting to shoot that type of film and expecting the same look. Those images would probably be better suited shot digitally.
Thanks Willem. The split toning portion was a huge game changer for me.
Let's hear it for the upright adjustments! Probably one of my favorite LR tools, as well.
I just sent my first rolls of film off to be developed. This video couldn’t come at a more perfect time!
I LOVE the lighting in this video
I love your channel and how genuine you are!! it’s so refreshing!! I just started my channel and you inspire me sm🥰
Your work has inspired me to try out 35mm film photography, your videos are super informative keep them coming 👍👍
Same.
It’s all about the artist vision ... film or digital, edited or not. We shouldn’t judge one another. Enjoyed your video.
I've been using Lightroom for years and I've learned so much from just watching this lol
Please make more of these often, I could watch forever
wow I was actually in the camp of not editing my film photos... but after watching this... I may have to start. Changes are subtle but needed
When working with your split tone effect, you can hold down "option" and it toggles 100% saturation to see what color you want to pick., then, just let go of the option key and drops saturation back. to zero and you can slide it to whatever level you want. Just a little time saving tip!
Didn't know that, that's huge. I almost never use it because I hate the way it's implemented, having to mess with the sat slider to see what you're effecting.
Alexander Schwab only too happy to help!
hold alt while changing the hue of the highlights and shadows! it lets you preview the color before adjusting the saturation so you dont have to turn it up to 100 just to know what color you are at.
I love that you shot Young MA (saw your preset for her shoot!), we randomly came across her on a random Spotify playlist a few years ago, such a small world
I saw you on the Kodak vlog. You're becoming a star in analogue photography! You're on the rise....
Thank the film gods- I’ve been watching your 2 other editing films religiously
The thing I've found helps the most to get an image to look the way you want is to scan it yourself at 16 bits/channel. Not only can you make it look roughly how you want in the first pass, but you essentially have a RAW file to work from if you save it as tif.
While your style of editing is a big contrast from mine I do appreciate this video video because I love seeing how others edit their pics and potentially learning new tricks. I recently got Lightroom to replace the bulk of my editing workflow therefore it was nice to learn about the color profile feature. Love the videos, keep it up.
So good to see other photographers workflow when it comes to film, great video
Congratulations for the NBC video my man, greetings from Cancún, México
excellent work man. Glad to see that you tweek the colours and perspective with your shots.
Great Willem! Please tell us more how and what settings you use to export your photos to instagram. And how you frame your pictures. Love your work!
You can google Instagram export settings, but not much is really done to them tbh and many people use the same settings found online.
i could listen to you forever
You can use the Sync button at the bottom of the adjustments panel to copy your settings from one image to all selected images. Much faster than copying and pasting each image...
Anyone against editing doesn’t realize that scanning film in general is editing. Scan the same negative on a frontier and a noritsu and both will look different. Negative film NEEDS to be edited to get a usable image. Anyone against editing should only be shooting slide film.
Itek 1 not only between two scanners but between individual techs lol. You’ll get different results almost every time
Walter Lodzinski 💯 yup. Most don’t even realize how much editing is done in a darkroom...
I fully agree with Willem's rejection of those arguing against editing scanned images. Those scans present image modifications based on the scanner technology used and the programming of the scanner, so there is not reasonable basis to argue that the scans reflect the images contemplated by the film photographer. Further editing ofWillem's image will be required by his devotion to over-exposure of his color negative images, resulting in loss of saturation and compression of highlight tones, as shown in his post-processing of the Chinese Restaurant image.
I really enjoy your videos. You have helped me grow so much as a photographer. Thank you!
My favourite norse bacc at it again, nice video man 🥺
Willems videos are like fresh pizza slices for breakfast! Keep it up dude!
Beautiful space in the background of this video. Great video, learned something!
Great edit tutorial and examples, Willem. Keep up the amazing work.
Lovely! Thanks for reminding me of my love for photo, great editing!
Anyone who refuses to edit film scans has obviously never printed their own images in a darkroom. Just cause we have computers to edit what we used a darkroom to do originally doesn't make editing film digitally any less valid and art form.
Quick question: What resolution (dpi) and file size do you order your scans to be in, in order to have some room to edit them later?
Leave them as the original scan & do not crop until you get to the posting phase. So editing and everything has that space for detail and spreading the color correction.
This is the perfect video for today. I wanted to do some editing, and then got the notification for this one. Amazing job!
Keep killing it man! 🙌🏼
Discovered your channel today. Loving the videos Willem, keep up the great work 👊🏼
Kept wondering whether your actually are a fellow flatlander, just found your channel. This is some genuine awesome content. Bedankt Willem!
Well... I usually don’t edit my photos but especially your portrait edits convinced me to do it maybe in the future. 🤔🤗 looking forward to your 35mm.
Waiting for the Fuji xpro-2 review ! Great video as always ❤️
Was working on some photos last night, and I feel like I'm still struggling to get out of BW and shoot color. This was really helpful today, Willem
Would looove to see a video on how you expose your work. Thanks for all the dopeness
just when I needed it most !
13:18
"It's that traditional teal and orange look that's really popular... and..."
*walks around the house...*
"...I think it needs more contrast!" 😁
I know and I agree - it just became very popular over the recent years.
My point was: the video is edited in a weird (funny) way where Willem gives up mid sentence 😁
Lovely stuff! Really nice to see somebody else's workflow to sort of confirm that the stuff you're doing yourself isn't totally ludicrous. I'm sure you're aware, but you might want to play around with vibrance rather than saturation on portraits as its designed to affect skin tones (and colours in the image that are already heavily saturated) less.
Hannes Johansson agreed. Usually I drop saturation to -7 on my film shots and then bump the vibrance to +12 - 15ish
Nice to see how you edit. I used to be on the side where I didn't edit my film photos. But sinds a while I do edit them. By that I can make them a bit more my "style".
Anyone who says editing film scans is against "film rules" (whatever that means), has obviously never seen how color photos are printed in a darkroom lol. Also, anyone who tries to tell an artist what they should or shouldn't do with their work needs to mind their own business. Love u Willem
So helpful man! Love your channel and art
missed you last week 😭 glad you're back !
Finally we get this
Such a sick video Willem! Such an inspiration, per usual:)
very useful sharing, appeciate
Just another video to learn and chill, love it :)
Curious how you export your images for instagram and print following editing in Lightroom.
I love the look at 14:34
just saw your interview with NBC Left Field thats crazy! good job man
this was so satisfying to watch.
Love this series thanks a bunch!
Good stuff, nice minimal edits! I wondered if you use the J key to aid when you're adjusting the exposure sliders at the top - I've found it helps to visually see when these start to clip.
really nice work willem. Love your work :D
Have you ever messed around with Negative Lab Pro in Lightroom? I started using it for when I scan my own negatives and I absolutely love it. Highly recommend it for the next time you're scanning your film yourself.
I haven’t! Will do 🙏🏼
Why must you tease us with the RZ67 in the background then proceed to show your window view AND NOT TAKE A PICTURE !!!
Great video as always Willem 🙂
I LEARNT A WHOLE LOT HERE!!! THANKS!!!
Yep, the master at work...
Hey, if you're at home... well..., you know... ??
Grts
Hey Willem!! I really like how the streetlights look in your night photos, how do make it so the light is diffused, and not star-like?
reallyyy dope tutorial, thanks man
really good...! very helpful! more of this pleas
the video I've been waiting for!! ty
Nice light from window back of you :) And a good chanel also!
been waiting for this vid for a while loved it
was hoping for the photo in the thumbnail though :/
Got here when there are no dislikes - hopefully that stays forever :)
Arthur B still no dislikes by now 🙌🏻
Aaa 2 dislikes now :(
6 now
Bobby Brady I don’t get why anyone would dislike this
Bobby Brady Christ you must be a joy at parties
Have you ever used a Loupedeck to edit with in LR? It definitely made my editing faster. It works with color grading in Premiere as well.
Thank you for another video Willem. Come visit Porto in your way back 😇. Question: why does the scans have such a “low” res? Can’t it be scanned with more resolution?
@Bobby Brady Understood. Would the scan then be from the negative or from the print?
@Bobby Brady Thank you so much for answering. Really appreciate you taking time to do that. Got it. I though that with medium format, you'd print to scan, silly me :-)
you probably know this but cmd+sync is a nice little shortcut to copy the settings from one image to another to people who don't
U AND UR VIDEOS ARE AMAZINNNNG🤩