When shooting film, especially slide film, color rendition is a matter of
matching the film's "personality" with the subject at hand.
You can choose films with high or "normal" color saturation, contrast
and color response. These two photos of a colorful Christmas toy soldier in
New York's Rockefeller Center show the differences between saturation
renditions. With a digital camera you can program in color saturation, "warmth"
and even color contrast, making every frame you shoot like an individual selection
of film.

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Today's cameras are microprocessors with lenses. Most of us know how
to change color, sharpness and contrast, and even ISO settings, for every frame
we shoot, but did you know that you can also change how your camera's
dials and buttons work? By using Custom Function settings you can alter the
function of all those dials and buttons and personalize them to the way you
work, or to each unique shooting situation. When the camera comes out of the
box it has certain "default" settings, those chosen by the camera
manufacturer. While there is a certain wisdom in the defaults, they are not
necessarily the best way for your style or shooting needs.

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Now I know how stagecoach drivers felt when they saw those first rail lines
being laid over their routes. The recent announcement that Kodak would be discontinuing
their silver black and white papers didn't come as much as a shock as
an inevitability that one always hopes will not be manifest. With inventories
expected to last a few months, we're now witnessing the disappearance
of venerable brands such as Polycontrast IV, Azo and Polymax Fine Art, Kodabrome
II and Portra, even their "Digital Black and White" paper, which
was used for digital printers. According to a Kodak spokesperson, Kodak has
seen a cumulative drop in black and white paper buying of 25% per year over
the past few years and could no longer justify being in the market. We also
learned, by the way, that Kodak black and white papers had of late been produced
in Brazil, being packaged from rolls in Rochester. The spokesperson did stress,
however, that Kodak black and white film and chemistry was not on the chopping
block and that Kodak sees silver photography as still extremely viable.

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Handcolorists have been doing it for years. They began with a black and white
image and using photo oils, chiefly from the Marshall Company (distributed by
BKA Group) added selective color or entirely covered a monochrome image with
color. This was often practiced with portraits, but began to find followers
in the "fine arts" arena as well. We've seen this so-called
mixed-media trend come and go, and I don't think hand-coloring will ever
go out of style. Digital has opened up many new doors for creativity, and because
you can manipulate images with ease it allows you to emulate any look, style
or technique that you might admire. In this lesson we'll take a look at
"colorizing" an image and mixing color with black and white.

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