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Colour image from Black and white film -


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I saw a video on colouring a B&W film image by taking three separate images of the same object/scene, one with a red filter, one with green filter and one with blue filter. The video then says that you load the relevant colour  images into their own channels on photoshop. That bit was quickly passed over with no explanation. Can anyone please tell me if that is possible in Affinity? How does one load the images into channels?

 

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Here's a YouTube video tutorial showing how to colorize a B&W image in Affinity Photo

There's many more on YouTube.. Search Results

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I think this Wikipedia article explains the principal, if I understand correctly what you are trying to do!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_photography#Early_experiments

I'm afraid I have no idea how you could insert each image into a separate colour channel (hopefully someone else may know if this is possible in AP.) It may be possible to get a similar effect using layers and blend modes. The problem, of course, is in taking the three (identical) images, using the correct filters, to combine, in the first place!

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Interesting topic. I know, there is a function in GIMP to do this easily (menu "Colour" > "Components" > "Compose"), but I don't really know if it is possible in Affinity Photo. Like PaulEC, I would suppose that it should somehow work with Blend or Mix Modes and an additional colour filter (probably "Recolour"). But my tests haven't been really successful. Would be easier with CMYK, I think.

@PaulEC: The three images are not really identical. Depending on which colour channel was dominant in the source image, the three images were decomposed from, there will be more or less grey and black in the single images - representing the values of the single channels (R, G and B).

Will make some more tests. Maybe I will find a solution.

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5 minutes ago, iconoclast said:

Would be easier with CMYK, I think.

I did something like this with an RGB image a few years ago, but not using Affinity Photo. I seem to remember using the ‘Screen’ blend mode with each of the primary colours and the corresponding B&W image, giving me three new images that could be combined to create a full colour version.

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More info here, includes a video on how to do it in Photoshop

https://shootitwithfilm.com/trichromatic-photography/

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33 minutes ago, iconoclast said:

@PaulEC: The three images are not really identical. Depending on which colour channel was dominant in the source image, the three images were decomposed from, there will be more or less grey and black in the single images - representing the values of the single channels (R, G and B).

Sorry, I wasn't clear, (I shouldn't have said "identical"!) I meant that they need to be taken from the same position, without the subject moving. In other words, taken identically, but with a different colour filter for each image. In practise you either need to take three pics in succession from a fixed position, use three cameras as close as possible to each other, taking the three pictures at the same time, or have a specialist camera with at least three lenses, each with a different colour filter.

The reason for using RGB is that, originally, the three images were superimposed by projecting them onto a screen, using three projectors.

I was really thinking about ways of reproducing the images using similar methods to those originally used. If you go purely digital, to get a similar result, then there are, I am sure, other ways get those results.

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3 hours ago, Sandi said:

Can anyone please tell me if that is possible in Affinity? How does one load the images into channels?

  1. It depends on the format the 3 images are (rgb, or grey). Assuming rgb.
  2. create stack of 3 images
  3. move images outside stack, remove now empty stack layer
  4. set blend mode to add for all 3 layers
  5. Add channel mixer adjustment to each image
  6. for red image, select green channel, set green to 0.
  7. Repeat for blue channel.
  8. repeat 6+7 for other layers, cycling channels accordingly
  9.  

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In Case the color filters during capture weren’t pure RGB, (e.g. orange), you can use a different method.

  • add a fill layer in color of filter (e.g. orange)
  • import orange filtered image 
  • rasterize image to mask
  • Nest mask to fill layer
  • change blend mode to add

repeat for other 2 color filtered images

 

There are other ways, e.g. using blend ranges instead of converting to mask.

Or use channels panel to directly transfer channels into one layer.

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Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky was a pioneer of this approach, a more modern version is the Harris shutter effect
The attached macro works by taking a stack of three images, then the macro will produce another layer taking the red channel from one layer, the green from another and the blue from the third. You can use it to to build a colour image from greyscale images taken with r, g, b filters but note that the channels have to be in blue, green, red order
The attached file contains red, green and blue layers obtained from a colour photo by right clicking on each Background channel and creating a greyscale layer
The file is greyscale so first convert it to rgb then run the macro

Channels.jpg

ParkGrey.psd HarrisShutter.afmacro

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Well, what could be an easier solution than a macro?! 😄 Very cool! Thanks for that!

By the way, also the famous Astro-Photographer David Malin (his "Horse Head Nebula" is hanging on one of my walls) creates his marvelous photos in a similar way.

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2 hours ago, Sandi said:

I cannot seem to find information on how to combine three RGB individual prints to make a false type colour image.

Maybe one of this tutorials video help. Both use B&W layers as kind of colour channels + colorize them.

The video in this post is meant for "Riso" Printing, a process which requires B&W output for its spot colour inks. So it's kind of vice versa but maybe useful, too. (start e.g. at 8:00 min)

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5 hours ago, Sandi said:

...one with a red filter, one with green filter and one with blue filter...

Fill with Red (255 0 0), Green (0 255 0) and Blue (0 0 255) in darken blend mode.
Change the top two layers to lighten.

channels.jpg.3f6e242f79af18e57d593fd8391832a0.jpg

2 hours ago, Alfred said:

...I seem to remember using the ‘Screen’ blend mode with each of the primary colours and the corresponding B&W image, giving me three new images that could be combined to create a full colour version.

Yes. Screen also works.

5 hours ago, Sandi said:

I saw a video on colouring a B&W film image by taking three separate images of the same object/scene...

Let's just hope your 3 images are perfectly aligned, otherwise you'll get color aberrations. Fingers crossed.

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The most important thing is the quality of the three filters. I did this back in the day with Panchromatice B&W negative film and the results were quite ... odd to disappointing. All down to the less than pure Green and pure Blue filters I had.

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I have never mastered color management, period, so I cannot help with that.

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Thankyou everyone for all your help. I have managed to get some sort of colour image but as I did not want to waste new film or load up one of my bigger  cameras I resorted to the good old toy camera - The Holga!. There is no cable release and with the wind, even though on a tripod, there is shake in the image. The film I used had expired 10 years ago, it was very windy and I was holding floppy filters by hand, so the resultant image is by no means a winner but it sort of worked. At least now I know roughly how to get there following a combination of all the above suggestions. So thankyou again and once my new (new to me) Pentax 645 arrives I will try again with fresh film, no wind etc.

 

 

Untitled.jpg.513347a782aa37d8a3405b3921b36bb8.jpg

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thank you for sharing.


Could you upload the 3 source images to allow us playing with the files?

can you create 3 shots of a grey gradient (from black to white) shot with a digital camera, using the color filters,  and full manual fixed settings for exposure, white balance, etc, both in RAW and out-of-camera JPG using the most „natural“ or „neutral“ setting?

If no gradient available, a 18% grey solid fill will do (or use a suitable light source with diffusor)
 

from that shots, i want to extract the „exact“ HSL color of the filters.

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Thank you again.

I’m a bit confused.

  • Did you take 3 images with the filters in front of the lens using B&W film?
  • or did you took 3 scans from one single B&W film slide, using color filters ?

The color filtered images look almost identical in lightness, which should not be the case. E.g. green would be much brighter than red or blue for grass.
The result is only a bit random green/blue noise at edges inside the image - edges which are only artifacts created in the process.

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Special interest into procedural texture filter, edit alpha channel, RGB/16 and RGB/32 color formats, stacking, finding root causes for misbehaving files, finding creative solutions for unsolvable tasks, finding bugs in Apps.

My posts focus on technical aspects and leave out most of social grease like „maybe“, „in my opinion“, „I might be wrong“ etc. just add copy/paste all these softeners from this signature to make reading more comfortable for you. Otherwise I’m a fine person which respects you and everyone and wants to be respected.

 

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When I did this back in the day I took B&W film and had the camera on a tripod. One exposure (with no compensation (usually I would increase the exposure) for the filter) with the Red another with the Green and the third with the Blue filter screwed onto the lens. Film is processed and then I used a home made registration negative holder ( a month's worth of fiddly work) to expose the colour print paper in my enlarger. 

Hell of a lot of work and expense to get "interesting" results. More of an experiment to see if it would work, did after a fashion.

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I have never mastered color management, period, so I cannot help with that.

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2 hours ago, NotMyFault said:
  • did you took 3 scans from one single B&W film slide, using color filters ?

The color filtered images look almost identical in lightness, which should not be the case. E.g. green would be much brighter than red or blue for grass.

I also have this impression, – sky & gras appear too similar in blue vs. red to be taken from coloured nature with filters on a grayscale film. Here a quick result simply done in APub with the 3 uploaded RGB jpgs. I just applied a fill colour to each and set their blend mode to Darken for more contrast. The red image file appears too dark in the sky, the 3 layer thumbnails look quite the same in their luminosity.

1334310795_3bwwithfillcolor.thumb.jpg.c14d08edc8554b550e06f6ffa8967626.jpg

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