Chemvert is a new stand-alone, subscription-free scanning software for macOS, compatible with all major scanners and digital camera RAW formats.
This weekend, I got to try Chemlooks’ 163MB software demo with my Nikon Coolscan TIFF scans.
The most impressive part of this app is that, unlike NLP, it doesn’t need any Adobe product to work. It is entirely stand-alone, and it’s possible to complete the inversion and do the most necessary adjustments right there.
I’ve added new spaces on Analog.Cafe, where I’ll be organizing some of my thoughts on film photography.
You’ll probably notice #editorial🔥 the most since it’s where I write about product launches and share announcements like this. Comments under this tag may end up in your RSS feed, Community Letters¹, or you may hear about them from me on Mastodon and Bluesky.
There’s a lot you can do to clean up even the worst examples of scratches on film.
I’ve recently fixed an image that came out appallingly bad. I needed it for my review article (analog.cafe/r/peak-design-…) and couldn’t re-shoot it in time.
Cleaning this frame up was a gruelling process, but I wanted to document it on video to give some context for what the process may be like for whoever is about to attempt something similar.
This photo of the Kowa E camera I reviewed recently is my first attempt at focus stacking with Photoshop.
The process is very simple if you have the app. There are just two steps:
1) Edit > Auto-Align Layers
2) Edit > Auto-Blend Layers
Focus stacking is a technique of combining multiple images of the same thing taken at various focus settings. This is useful for photos of objects taken up close with large apertures as those factors combined create a very narrow depth of field (more about it here…
Just watched grainydays (Jason) push Portra 800 +1 to EI 1600. He didn’t seem to like his results, but I think this film is still worth a push if needed. If you do that, I advise using better scanning techniques and beware of the sharp falloff in the shadows.
I’ve been testing ORWO Wolfen NC 500 for months, trying to understand how to use this film best. It demonstrated promising results in promotional samples ( analog.cafe/r/film-photogr… ) and in some examples mentioned by other reviewers.
But the testers’ feedback is very inconsistent — this film seems to have impressed them at one point and disappointed at another.
This film seems to shine in specific light/scenes/applications.
When using the Spot Healing Brush tool in Photoshop, I default to the “Content-Aware” type brush. However, if you’ve got scratches that run parallel to gradients or edges of objects, it’s best to switch to the “Proximity Match” type. This will preserve your gradients better.
Dmitri edited on Sep 24, ‘24
Dmitri
Dmitri edited on Apr 27, ‘24
Dmitri edited on Mar 13, ‘24
Dmitri edited on Apr 27, ‘24
Dmitri edited on Apr 27, ‘24
Dmitri edited on Mar 13, ‘24
Dmitri edited on Mar 13, ‘24