Monday Update: New release at PresetsHeaven

Over the weekend, Pierre over at PresetsHeaven released another package of my presets. If you hop over there you can grab theLIDF Fuji & Ilford B&W Collection, containing all the Ilford and Fuji Black & White Film Emulations I have released on LifeInDigitalFilm over the past few months. If you have been grabbing them here as I release them you have most everything in the set, however there is a PresetsHeaven exclusive preset hiding in the download that you can only get over there.

The exclusive preset is an emulation of an expired roll of Fuji Neopan 100 Acros that passed its prime in 2005. Acros is my favorite B&W film, and you can only get my emulations of it at either PresetsHeaven for the expired version or In my cold Storage Collection for a fresh version of the film. Pierre was kind enough to make sample images for me, and as I am not at home, I cannot post one for you to view. So hop on over there and grab the exclusive preset HERE.

The past week has been my most active week on LifeInDigitalFilm so far. Had a few releases and a few articles, so if you haven't been by in a while, take a few minutes to get caught up. Flashing back to last Monday I released an article about using Snapshots in Lightroom, allowing you to have multiple incarnations of the same file, without cluttering up your catalog with redundant images. An added feature of using snapshots is that you can write the metadata to the RAW file, and if you open that same file in Adobe Camera Raw, your snapshots will be saved in the presets tab inside ACR, allowing you access to all your modifications in ACR. Jump back to that article HERE.

Tuesday I released an article coving making monochrome images with Lightroom. It is a general overview, but I threw in a few tips on using my B&W presets for those of you who use them a lot. Check it out HERE.

Yesterday, I posted a list of my favorite Flickr groups, letting you see where I go to see what is going on in the photo world. If you are a member of Flickr you should really check them out HERE.

The rest of the week was filled with preset releases:

Wednesday: Classic Film Classic Pan 200 (also had a featurette about Twitter)

Thursday: Daguerreotype (my attempt to simulate the historic photography process)

Friday: Classic Film Classic Pan 400

Sautrady: Kodak Ektachrome 100VS

So I have to say it was a rather productive week. Trying to keep it up, which is why there is a review post today.

Also of note, don't forget to join Presetting Lightroom on Flickr and get in on the photo contest there. One copy of HDRsoft's Photomatix Pro with the Lightroom plug-in is up for grabs. Click HERE to hop over to the group and join and get in on the contest. You have until Feb 28 to make your entry. Don't forget to persue the preset collection there, over 200 free presets to grab and use!

Also, I want to thank everyone who has purchase LIDF Cold Storage. Should be getting my hosting soon, and then any funds made from the collection will be used to aquire and process more film to be emulated. As long as people keep buying the package, I will be able to keep getting more film and processing it in many different ways. Every purchase pushes LifeInDigitalFilm just a little bit further towards becoming the ultimate source for simulating film. If you haven't already, sonsider purchasing Cold Storage and get the 12 exclusive presets avilable therein, including the Kodak Porta 160 NC and VC presets! More info HERE.

On the note of LIDF keeping the emulations coming, I have a poll up on the site asking if I should bother adapting my presets for use on JPEG and TIFF files. So far the response has been overwhelming for keeping my presets RAW only. If you need support for JPEG images, make sure to speak up, because as it stands now it would be a waste of my time to develop JPEG versions.

Finally, just wanted to let you know I just got 3 rolls of Agfa RSX II back from the lab with scans. Had a roll each of 50, 100 and 200 speed. Aquired the film from a local photographer who has made the switch to digital, so it was kept cold even though it has expired. Been working on simulating them over the weekend, so hopefully they should be ready for release sometime this week.

Stay tuned,
Michael