Slide-film junkies take note: Kodak's Picture CD turns vis sheets
and binders into the technological equivalents of buggy whips.
by Stephen Frink
http://www.stephenfrink.com/sf-tips/kodak2/
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After researching and testing this new technology, and interviewing Kodak personnel, I now believe that print film is not only a viable alternative to slide film for underwater photographers. It may even be preferable for many.
Print vs. Slide: A New Paradigm Throughout my 20-plus years as a professional underwater photographer, I've accepted slide film's unassailable superiority as an article of faith. No more. There are some compelling new developments that challenge our Conventional Wisdom:
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CW - Slide film is very sharp, at least the 50 and 100 ISO films that underwater shooters typically use. Today's Kodak 100 or 200 ISO print films have virtually imperceptible grain even enlarged to 16x20. The resolving powers are extraordinary.
CW - Publishers prefer slide film. Only magazines not set up to receive and use digital images. In the newspaper business, print film remains the most accepted medium. The C-41 processing used for color negatives is far more likely to be available in remote geopolitical hot spots than is quality E-6 slide processing. News shooters can get their negatives processed at a local 60-minute lab in Sierra Leone and, with a scanner and laptop com-puter, have their images input into their newspaper's home computer within two hours of clicking the shutter. Special color negative films now available are designed to optimize scanning, and since most pre-press design work is done on a computer anyway, it no longer matters whether the image that goes into the system was originally a color negative or a color slide.
CW - Color negatives have too much exposure latitude. The argument was that we'd never know whether our exposures were right because we could be as much as three stops overexposed and a couple stops underexposed and still get an acceptable image. However, with the quality results produced by Kodak's Sea Processing lab, the argument sounds a bit silly: A film that's too easy to use and too likely to give great results is a bad thing?
CW - It's hard to get quality color negative processing. With slides, what you see is what you get. But with prints, your results depend on the eye of the lab technician. OK, but what if you had a unique lab where you could send your film that had special digital printers and technicians trained to artfully interpret the underwater world? This is the premise that defines Kodak Sea Processing.
CW - With slides we can throw away the bad ones, keep the good ones in vis sheets and binders, and thereby maintain a useful archive. With prints we'd just have shoeboxes full of pictures with no way to find the negative we want when we want it. But what if, along with your developed prints, you also had an index print that showed you at a glance everything on the roll? What if you could order a CD of the roll that contained your pictures in a high-resolution digital format, allowing you to import your images into your computer? And what if the CD also had integrated software that made it easy to enhance and retouch photos, organize them, e-mail them, or even make gifts from them? And what if all this magic came at a price of about $10 per roll?
Sea Processing and Picture CD: The Test I loaded my underwater cameras with Kodak Gold 100 ISO film and went diving in Key Largo. After shooting, I sent the film to Kodak's Sea Processing lab in Rochester, N.Y., for processing. They returned color-corrected 4x6 prints, index prints that showed thumbnail-sized pictures of all 36 frames on the roll, and a Kodak Picture CD for each roll. I then used the 4x6 prints as reference for my initial edit, whittling the 144 shots down to just 6 that I would use for the Picture CD computer imaging. The images you see printed in this article were reproduced directly from the Picture CD. No negatives had to be scanned, which in fact saved money in magazine production.
Step-by-Step I found using the Picture CD simple enough for virtually anyone who can turn on a computer and wiggle a mouse:
- Insert the Picture CD in the drive and click on the Kodak CD icon. A clever virtual booklet appears on-screen, providing a tour of Picture CD options on one page, and thumbnail JPEG files on the facing page. Take the tour first and you'll discover you can:
- Play with your pictures, get them organized, and share them with friends and family. Each Picture CD has the latest version of software, so you may find you can do continually more things with your images.
- Modify your pictures with Instant Fix (general correction), Adjust Brightness and Contrast, Sharpen (make details a little clearer), Trim (crop), Remove Red-Eye (for topside pictures), or the final option, Remove All Changes and go back to the original.
- Stylize pictures with effects like posterization, bas-relief, motion, or even transform color pictures to black and white. The Stylize icon allows combining two pictures into one or adding captions in a slide show format.
- Use a favorite picture to make a special card, with templates for birthday cards, invitations, change of address, birth announcements and holiday cards.
- Save the photos by downloading, then transferring them to floppy disk, zip, or even to a separate CD writer.
- Share your images via e-mail. You can e-mail shots directly from the Kodak Picture CD, or by Kodak Photonet Online, a secure Internet link where friends and family can view your pictures and even order prints, enlargements, or gifts based on your shots.
- Present your pictures at full-screen size in a slide show on your computer.
- Use a shot as wallpaper for your computer screen background.
- Print your pictures via your color inkjet printer in a variety of sizes, from wallet to 8x10 inches.
- Emboss your photo onto a coffee mug, mouse pad, T-shirt or other gifts through Kodak Photonet Online.
Trial Run 1
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First I have to find the picture on the Picture CD. Easy because the file, 6.jpg, corresponds to the number on the index print. |  |
I decide to make the image a little darker but bring up the contrast slightly to separate the statue from the blue water background. I save that effect. Then I hit the "sharpen" button, although this seems to make no difference as the image is already quite crisp. |
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Click on the picture to see what effects I want. First, I rotate it to better view it as a vertical on the screen. I look at my "enhance" options and decide to see if I can enhance the contrast. |  |
A minute later I am done, the picture improved, and saved to CD. Pretty amazing first test. But wait. Maybe I can "stylize" this shot. I try black and white. I find I can go all black and white, or there is a "paintbrush" option that allows me to make only some portions black and white. |
Trial Run 2
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| I like the contrast and sharpness on this shot, but I'd like to crop it a little. I hit the "trim" icon and see a box superimposed over the image. I can drag the borders wherever I want, and quickly transform this horizontal to a square by cropping unneeded space to the right and left. I like it and save it. Wait. It might be a little too dark. I lighten it the equivalent of 1/3rd stop and save. Unbelievable! This is almost as much fun as being wet. | |
Trial Run 3
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| I shot several images in this sequence, but only one was a horizontal. My fin showed up at the bottom of the frame and it seemed a little light overall. Let's see what "enhance" can do for this image. First, I choose "trim" to crop out my fin. Now I go to the "brightness/contrast" icon to try to hold the detail in the white sand bottom and the cloudless blue sky. I decrease both contrast and brightness on this image and save. | |
Trial Run 4
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| The only thing I'm really unhappy about with this picture is the gorgonian in the lower right corner. I decide to crop this in a modified panorama format. The "trim" icon brings up my adjustable borders, and I crop bottom, top and left sides. | |
Trial Run 5
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| The lead fish in this shot is a little too bright because it was closest to the strobe. In the brightness/ contrast mode I reduce the contrast slightly, but then the image is a little too dark so I bring up the brightness. Now, the composition could use some tweaking as well. With "trim" I hold the side borders but crop top and bottom. It now looks much better, but for fun let's see how it looks posterized. Pretty cool, but the contrast is still too high for this effect. So I go back, reduce contrast some more, and then come back to the "posterize" icon. Now I like it and finally hit the save button. | |
Special thanks to Rick Voight, Kodak's Manager for Business Development in the Consumer Imaging department, and to Randy Fredland at Kodak's Sea Processing lab, for their invaluable and timely services.