LR/ACR Preset: Polaroid 600

Hey everyone, it's been a while, but it is finally time to resurrect LIDF from the ashes created by all my personal issues from the past few months. LIDF will now update on Saturdays and Wednesdays, with new articles, presets, reviews and my own rants. We will be taking a voyage more into film as we proceed, as I am now shooting film ten times more than digital. But LIDF will not be completely film based, as I will continue to feature Lightroom tips and presets on a regular basis.

Part of the reason I am shifting some focus to film on LIDF is because one needs to know about film to properly simulate the look of film. In fact you should shoot a roll or two regularly to make sure you are achieving the desired look when faking it. For more reasons to shoot film, check out my recent article over at the X-Equals blog +Improving Digital Photography with Film. As I shoot film to make more and improve existing emulation presets, I get more and more attached to the process. In fact, I am currently working on a series of articles covering a workflow for using film within Lightroom, from shooting, to scanning to processing. Watch for it in coming weeks.

I will be posting some film reviews pretty soon too. Hopefully by sharing my results with different films and providing you with links to get quality film stocks, you will be more likly to splurge on a roll or two.

But enough of all that, you probably want to get to the long-awaited new preset. Well today it is kind of a "beta" preset I am sharing. This preset was made in a few hours just today. It all started with me going out looking at yard sales, hoping to find some film gear. After an unsuccessful jaunt, no cameras or film today, I decided to drop by my local discount grocery store. You never know what these dent and bang stores may have inside their doors, and today I was rewarded with quite a haul. I mention to the shopkeep what I was seeking and she went in the back room and brought out a box of film, which I promptly bought for 12 dollars. Digging into the box, I came out with 17 rolls of 35 mm, 6 rolls of 110 and 4 rolls of APS film. All expired and of varying amounts of Kodak, Fuji and Ferrania store-brand films. But the big surprise was two lonely boxes of Polaroid 600 sitting at the bottom of the box. I have been wanting to get some 600 film to emulate, but the cost was rather prohibitive to me. Locally I can only find expired 600 integral film for about $15. But I got 2 boxes for $12, with 27 boxes of traditional filn for free!

So in celebration, I got home, shot my emulation targets and scanned in the Polaroids with my Epson V500. This is not the method I usually use for emulation. Although my system is color calibrated, I usually test my film for emulation out at a local optics lab, getting some baseline information on color response before I start my emulation.No time for that today, I have wanted a Polaroid 600 emulation in my catalog for quite some time, and now I had the needed tools to make one. So I did a quick and dirty emulation using the tools I have at home. So this is kind of a "beta" preset, as I am going to do my normal, in-depth analysis and then emulate again. But this one should get you playing with virtual Polaroid 600 until I get to a proper emulation in a few months.

This also got me back to writing LIDF. I have been building up a series of articles and reviews the past few months, and I have enough material ready to keep up a consistent schedule for a while. So with out further ado, the download....



Damn, it's nice to see my crappy download icon again!

Anyways, enjoy the new release. More will be coming soon. And if you have been suffering from a shortage of my ramblings and creations, be sure to check out X-Equals. In particular, check out my newest article +Monochrome Mojo - Mixing in Grayscale - Part 2 of 2. This article features a new collection of presets called the X-Equals Monochrome Toolkit, featuring 27 new presets to aide you in creating monochrome images that have the essence of real darkroom prints...especially when you print on real B&W photopaper, such as offered by Mpix.

Well, its good to be back. See ya next time,

Michael

PS: If you truly love Polaroid 600, support The Impossible Project, which is trying to bring back 600-compatible integral films. They have a difficult mission, check out their site for what they need and see if you can help! Also check out Polapremium, which is an on-line retailer specializing in Polaroid films (in fact they are part of The Impossible Project) supporting them by buying some Polaroid gear will also help out the Impossible Project!