Introduction

Over the first century-and-a-half of photography, photographers developed many innovative techniques to alter the way their images appeared. These involved the use of filters, chemicals, special substrates, and other gadgets. Thanks to digital applications like Photoshop, we can simulate many of these techniques quickly, easily, and with no mess. And since we are working digitally, we can make multiple copies and preserve the integrity of the original in the process.

Presented below are a selection of simulated darkroom effects you can try. Most are based on ones found in Martin Evening's excellent text, Adobe Photoshop for Photographers.

Assignment

Apply a series of simulated darkrrom effetcs to one or more images.

Solarization

A popular technique with surrealists like May Ray, solarization is achieved in the darkroom by exposing a developing image to a flash of light. Darkroom solarization is difficult (if not impossible) to control and often results in failures. Photoshop however makes short work of it.

1. Open a color image and add a Black and White adjustment layer (or desaturate if your using CS2 or below) OR open a black-and-white image and convert it to RGB.
2. Create a Curves adjustment layer above the Black and White layer.
3. Choose the arbitrary map tool (the pencil) in the upper-left corner of the dialog box.
4. Hold down the shift key and click in the lower-left corner of the graph. While still holding the shift key, click the top-middle of the graph, then the lower-right corner. This should create an inverted "V" shaped path and produce a solarization effect. Click OK.
5. If you used a Black and White adjustment layer, open it back up and experiment with the color sliders; note how the solarization effect changes.
6. Click OK.

Duotone

Duotones are grayscale images printed with two plates—black ink and one color ink (tritone uses 2 colors plus black, quadtone three colors plus black, etc.). The result is a tinted image. However, unlike the tinted images we made above, duotones can make use of custom colors such as Pantone colors. Custom colors include colors you can not get with CMYK processes including metallic colors.

1. Open an image and convert it to grayscale (you may want to apply the Black and White adjustment first).
2. Convert the image again, this time to Duotone (Image > Duotone).
3. A dialog box should pop up. Change the Type setting to Duotone.
4. The boxes next to "Ink 2" should become active. Click on the right-hand box (it should be solid white). Another dialog box will open from which you can pick a custom color. Note that under "Book" you can choose from among several custom color sets. Custom colors are named and numbered to insure that the printer uses the precise color you are seeking. One word of warning: to see how your chosen color will print you should refer to a sample swatch book (available from the ink manufacturers). Choose a color and click OK.
5. Back in the Duotone Options dialog box click on the box to the left of the color swatch (you should see a diagonal line). This allows you to adjust the curve of the color.
6. Click OK.

Bleach Bypass

This is a technique that was really popular in the late 90s and early aughts.

1. Open an image in Photoshop
2. Duplicate the background layer. Hide the top layer and select the bottom one.
3. Add a Black and White adjustment layer (it should be sandwiched between the two image layers). See your values to whatever you think looks best.
4. Turn the top layer back on. Set the blending mode to Soften or Overlay. Overlay has a stronger effect, so you may need to reduce the opacity come.
5. Option: flatten the image and add a Diffused Glow (Filter > Distort > Diffuse Glow). This doesn't always look good with every image—it seems to work best for darker ones. Or you could try adding some film grain with Filter > Artistic > Film Grain (but don't get too carried away).

Cross-Processing

Cross-processing techniques simulate the effect of developing film with the 'wrong' chemical process. Two common methods used by fashion photographers are processing C-41 (standard print film) with E-6 chemicals and developing E-6 film with C-41 chemicals. This technique simulates the former.

1. Open an image in Photoshop.
2. Create a Curves adjustment layer. Adjust the three color channels as seen here.
3. Set the blending mode of the adjustment layer to Color.
4. Add a Color Fill layer (in the adjustment layer pop-up menu it's at the top: Solid Color). Change the color to a bright yellow.
5. Set the blending mode of the color layer to Color and opacity to 15%.
6. Double click on the color layer to open the Layer Style dialog box. Find the Underlying Layer slider at the very bottom on the dialog box. Option-click-and-drag on the left (black) triangle slider and pull it all the way to the right—note that the triangle should split, leaving half behind.
7. Click OK.

Lab Color Effect

1. Open an image in Photoshop.
2. Create a duplicate image (Image > Duplicate).
3. Convert the duplicate to Lab Color (Image > Mode > Lab Color).
4. Open the Channels palette. Select Channel a.
5. Choose Image > Adjustments > Equalize.
6. Select the composite image in the channels palette (labeled "Lab"). Your colors should look hideous at this point.
7. Drag the hideous image copy back to the original image and drop it on top. Align them so that both layers match.
8. Set the new layer's blending mode to Color and its opacity to 30%.
9. To minimize harsh artifacts, select the top layer and apply a Gaussian Blur with a 2.5 pixel radius.
10. Go back to the duplicate image.
11. Open the history palette and back up before you applied the Equalize. This time choose Channel b and repeat steps 5 through 9 above.
12. Experiment with the opacity levels of the two color layers.

Soft Focus

Soft focus is a technique often used by portrait photographers. You see it a lot in wedding photos, 'glamour' shots, graduation photos, etc. It can minimize wrinles and blemishes and gives the photo a dreamy quality. Of course, it can be overdone (and usually is).

1. Open an image in Photoshop.
2. Create a copy of the background layer in the layers palette.
3. Select the copy (upper layer). Add a Gaussian blur set to a radius of 10 pixels.
4. Change the blending mode to Lighten, and reduce the opacity to 50 or 60%.
5. Try switching the blending mode to Darken (Darken usually works best with less blur—3 or 4 pixel radius).

Specifications:

• Size: any (within reason)
• Due Date: Week
• Deliverables: a set of JPEG files

Grading rubric