Capturing Color Images in the Digital Age
by Michael Frye

Adapting Your Techniques to the Digital Age
When we’re out photographing, most of us still use the same techniques we used ten years ago. We may end up with transparencies that look good on a light box, but are difficult to scan and print. And it never occurs to us that we could use new technology to overcome old limitations.

What kind of limitations? If you’re willing to completely alter reality, you can overcome limitations of time and space; it’s become easy to make a composite of several different images.

Photographers who are not interested in such adventures can also benefit from digital technology. Have you ever been unable to get everything in focus, even with the smallest aperture on your lens? Have you given up trying to photograph contrasty scenes because of your film’s meager exposure latitude? Then get down on your knees and be thankful that digital imaging has come of age. Limitations like these haven’t disappeared, but they’re shrinking.

Be open to new media
It used to be easy for color photographers to choose a medium. Ten years ago, most serious color photographers used transparency (slide) film, because digital cameras didn’t exist, and color negative films simply weren’t as good as their positive counterparts. Professionals had no choice, because editors, art directors, and other photo buyers wouldn’t look at anything other than transparencies.

Times have changed. Digital cameras are now viable tools for serious photographers, and negative films have improved greatly. Unfortunately, the habits of photo buyers haven’t changed with the times—most still want to see transparencies. So for professionals, transparency film is still the first choice. But photographers who don’t care about selling stock images should take a serious look at the alternatives. And even professionals may want to use negative film or a digital camera for situations where transparencies won’t work.

I won’t descend into a debate about film vs. digital capture here. Each has its advantages and disadvantages, and great prints can be made from both. Most fine art photographers I know, myself included, still use film, because it captures more information, more detail.

But if you use film, what kind should you choose? The parameters are different when your intention is to scan the film and make fine art prints than they are for projection, viewing on a light box, or conventional darkroom printing.

Negative films have a greater dynamic range than transparency films—that is, in a contrasty scene, they can hold detail in highlights and shadows better. Thus negative films might seem to be the ideal choice for scanning. But several factors—the orange color correction mask, lack of processing standards, and the wide exposure latitude—make it difficult to get accurate profiles, and accurate color, when scanning negatives. Scanned negatives are also prone to have more "noise" than transparencies—more of the grainy digital artifacts that make smooth areas appear mottled and blotchy. With the best scanners, noise shouldn’t be a problem, and new software is improving the color accuracy, but for now it is still easier to get good scans from transparencies.

Yet transparency films have a severe limitation: their meager exposure latitude. In scenes with strong contrast, it’s often impossible to record detail in both highlights and shadows. And if the information isn’t in the film, there’s no way to capture it in a scan. If the contrast of a scene exceeds the range of transparency film, you must either switch to negative film or try to combine two or more transparencies in Photoshop (more about this later).

Most digital cameras have an exposure latitude similar to transparency film, but some—especially the more expensive ones—do better. This is a vital consideration if you’re purchasing a digital camera.

I still use transparency film for most of my work. It’s what most photo buyers want to see, and has greater resolution than all but the most expensive digital cameras. But I now carry some color negative film for contrasty scenes. It’s better to get the image on negative film than not get it at all, or have to digitally combine two transparencies later.

With its rich color saturation, Fujichrome Velvia has long been the favorite film of many landscape photographers. But it is a very contrasty emulsion. If you understand its limitations, you can get great transparencies with Velvia, and great scans from those transparencies. But if your primary intent is to scan the film and make fine-art prints, then you might be better off with a less contrasty emulsion like Fujichrome Provia. You can always increase the saturation later in Photoshop.

Use Good Technique
Digital technology isn’t a cure for sloppy technique. To fully take advantage of these new tools, photographers have to master fundamentals like exposure and depth of field. A skilled Photoshop wizard can sometimes rescue a poor original, but often can’t. No matter what, the results will never be as good as if the original were sharp and properly exposed to begin with. So use a tripod, stop down your aperture for depth of field, and get the exposure right. Ansel Adams’ Zone System has never been more relevant—and useful. I recommend learning it.

Sometimes good old-fashioned technique isn’t enough, and a new approach is needed. The ability to digitally combine two or more images can break down many old limitations--but only if you’re alert to the possibilities before you snap the shutter.

Bracket Your Exposures to Capture Highlights and Shadows
Let’s say that you’re photographing a scene with strong sunlight and deep shadows, and, to make the image work, you need to capture detail in both. Don’t just take your best guess at the exposure and hope for good results. Make sure that you capture the whole range of tones, even if that means making two or more different images. With a subject that isn’t moving, and the camera locked on a tripod, it’s possible to capture several original images that are identical, except for the exposure. Make an exposure for the highlights, one for the shadows, and perhaps even one for the midtones. You can then digitally combine the images later to create a print—or transparency—that shows the full range of tones in the scene.

Of course, you’re less likely to have to go to these lengths if you’re using negative film, or a digital camera with a good dynamic range. But whatever medium you choose, you have to know its exposure latitude. Again, the Zone System is very useful for understanding this. If you’re using a digital camera you can get a preview from the camera’s LCD screen, but because these screens are so small it’s often hard to tell if you’ve captured detail in some small highlight. If in doubt, bracket several exposures to make sure that you do.

The technique for digitally combining images is complex, and deserves its own article. Since the most difficult and tedious part is precisely aligning the originals in Photoshop, digital capture does have an advantage over transparencies: all the images will have exactly the same pixel dimensions, and should be easy to align as long as the camera (and subject) didn’t move between exposures. Images scanned from film are almost always slightly distorted, and the process of stretching, distorting, and realigning them is painful.

This image is a composite of the previous two, with detail in the
highlights, midtones, and shadows. This final version looks much like
the scene did to my naked eye when I took the original photographs.

Focus issues can be resolved digitally
Sometimes, even after you’ve focused properly and stopped down to the smallest aperture on your lens, you can’t get the whole image in focus. This used to mean making an unpleasant compromise, and letting part of the photograph go soft. Now there’s another possibility: make two images and combine them later in Photoshop.
You must still use your smallest aperture for maximum depth of field. Make one image that’s focused toward the foreground, and another that favors the background. Be sure that there’s some overlap in the middle—an area that’s in focus on both images. Then combine the two images later in Photoshop.

This is one instance where it doesn’t matter which medium you use. The greater latitude of negative film is of no use, and it’s no easier to align the images if you capture them digitally then if you used film—when you change focus, you actually change the apparent size of the objects in the image file, so you’ll have to do some tweaking to get them to align properly.

Here’s one more possibility: have you ever tried to throw the background completely out of focus while making a close-up image of, say, a flower? If you use a wide-open aperture to throw the background out of focus, you won’t be able to get the whole flower sharp. If you stop down your aperture to get the whole flower in focus, distracting, partially out-of-focus objects will start to appear in the background.

By now you should be able to guess the solution: make two images, one with a small aperture to get the whole flower sharp, another with a wide-open aperture to throw the background out of focus, and then combine the two digitally.

Embrace change
To take advantage of digital technology, we must change the way we think about the whole photographic process, from beginning to end. Ansel Adams said, "The ability to anticipate—to see in the mind’s eye, so to speak—the final print while viewing the subject makes it possible to apply the numerous controls of the craft in precise ways that contribute to achieving the desired result." Well, Ansel was a photographer, not a poet, but you get the idea.

You have to visualize your goal. What do you want the print to look like? What feeling do you want it to convey? Then make sure you capture the information you need to make that print.

Copyright 2002, Michael Frye