Red Leaf Lightroom 4 Film Emulsion Presets Download Torrent
Scat Laboy
Silver Efex brings a similar range of choices for B&W images. Some of my favorite films are represented here; Ilford Delta 100 and 400, Fuji Acros 100, and Kodak Tri-X. The interface is somewhat similar to that of Color Efex Pro, and is pretty simple to use.
VSCO is perhaps the most unique of the plugins I worked with. Available for Lightroom, Camera RAW or Aperture (I tested the Lightroom version), the plugin is implemented in Lightroom as a collection of presets and camera profiles, all of which can be accessed without ever leaving Lightroom.
It should be noted that the real strength of VSCO is, in my opinion, their combination of both camera profiles and presets. They currently have Canon and Nikon camera profiles for all three packs, and in something of a first, they also have Fuji presets for 01 and 03. A Fuji preset for 02 is apparently in the works.
After using all four apps over a few weeks, the first criteria almost fell by the wayside, since all four are pretty straightforward to use. A few factors did arise, however, that are worth mentioning.
All the other apps output TIFF files. This is just fine; Photoshop does the same when you roundtrip files from Lightroom to it and back. What you lose there is the ability to fine-tune the changes after the plugin is done exporting the finished file back to Lightroom.
In each of the image comparisons below, the original starting image is shown in the top-left. Clockwise from there, we have the adjusted images from VSCO Film, Nik Collection, Alien Skin Exposure, and DxO Filmpack.
The film I chose was Kodak Portra NC. Portra was originally available in two flavors, NC and VC, but the two lines were combined into one single Portra emulsion a while back. Portra NC is also one of the films that all four apps had in common, so I went with it over the standard version.
As I mentioned earlier, this test ended in a two-way tie for first place between VSCO Film and the Nik Collection by Google. but thing is that there is no real way to quantify a choice when it comes to applications like these.
For this review, we used the Really Nice Images Film Presets with Adobe Lightroom 5 on a late 2013 MacBook Pro with Retina display. The images were taken with various cameras and lenses, including an Olympus OM-D E-M5 and a Leica M Typ 240.
The Really Nice Images Film Presets include several presets packs that were previously available on their own. These are the Faded Film presets, the Film Essentials presets, and the Iconic Films presets. The latter are the ones that will be most interesting for those of us looking to emulate the look of specific films in our digital images, while the Faded Film presets will be appreciated by working photographers that look for an easy way to achieve a unique look.
The Faded Film presets contain just that, presets that will mimic the look of faded films. These do not necessarily try to emulate a specific type of film, but rather create a unique look as is often desired, for example, in wedding photography. The Film Essentials package contains presets that let you add fading effects, grain, vignetting, contrast and frames to any of the other presets, so you can fine-tune your results. And finally the Iconic Film package contains a number of film simulations, including Agfachrome, Kodachrome, Ilford Delta and more.
Kodak Portra is another classic, loved both by amateurs and professionals for the way that it handles skin tones. The Really Nice Images Kodak Portra 160 film emulation preset does the original emulsion justice with its slightly subdued colors and its rendering of the red and orange hues present in fair skin.
Another preset that we were particularly pleased with is the Fujifilm Superia 1600 preset. Just like the film it was modeled after, the preset renders natural colors, medium-strong contrast, limited dynamic range in the shadows and a healthy amount of grain. And just as Superia 1600 is a specialty film for low-light situations, this preset lends itself at being used with high-ISO images.
The Really Nice Images film presets are a great way to get the look of film to your digital images. Not only are the presets very well-made, with accurate representations of the films they simulate, but also is the preset pack one of the more affordable ones, considering how many different presets you get. Admittedly, the choice of actual films is rather limited as compared to softwares such as DxO FilmPack, but then again the Iconic Films package alone can be had for as little as $39.99.
This is indeed a camera with roots that go back to 1996 when the first film GR was released. It transitioned from film to digital while keeping its original concept and design: a practical & compact 28mm f2.8 camera with high class optics. This heritage and commitment to a good idea is also part of what makes it so dear to many, in an era where camera makers keep chasing new trends and updating models every 6 months.
To say it all, Leica built its modern fortune on this myth. A couple of very important photographers used it in the past, and thousands of irrelevant photographers are buying a Leica today because they think this will make them and their random snapshots special.
The Ricoh GR is much more than a Moriyama cosplay accessory. It is a marvelous versatile camera with superb optics. It is compact and yet it features an APS-C sensor. Its ergonomics and user interface are unmatched.
Instagram is filled with self proclaimed influencers and honest young lovers of film shooting with the Mju2 even today, while the LC-A was the genesis of Lomography movement & company, which is what brought us the filters hype and everything that came with it, Instagram included.
For this reason the Ricoh GR is a sort of dream came true. It has everything I could ever want in a camera. My favorite focal length, superb optics, great image quality, perfect ergonomics and interface, it fits in my pocket, it sends the photos to my mobile devices and it lets me compose with a big bright LCD.
My GR is always set in Hi-Contrast B&W, Black & White or Positive Film and I shoot DNG + JPG for this reason. The filter allows me to study the scene with the tones and contrasts I have in mind. Most of the time I love the jpeg result and I do few to no edits, but I still have the DNG raw file if I need.
The Ricoh is also a very nice landscape camera, being the 28mm a focal that works quite fine with this subject. Putting the 21mm converter on it makes it even better. The quantity and quality of details is amazing, especially if you keep ISO low and put the camera on a nice tripod.
I experimented with various shooting modes and I am feeling more comfortable with Manual mode and occasionally with the TAv mode: when in TAv I just spot meter and change aperture and shutter speed if needed. The camera sets the ISO for me, using the Hi-Auto value ranging from 100 to a maximum ISO of 3200.
I briefly mentioned before that there is a 21mm converter: it is called GW-3 and it is a 0.75x converter. Mount it on the GR and it indeed becomes my third favorite focal length, 21mm (the second is 50mm as you may have guessed).
The quality of the GW-3 is impressive, both as construction and as optical features. It is a heavy piece of glass and metal. I am not a fan of focal length converters but this is an exception. It makes the GR even better for landscape and architecture or for experimental portraits, without reducing the native image quality and famous lens sharpness.
What about the dust? If you know anything about this camera, you heard about the fact that it could have issues with dust entering and going on the sensor. This depends on the fact that the lens is collapsible and it sucks dust when closing down. There are a couple of strategies for managing this:
My advice is to just be reasonably careful and shoot and enjoy the camera. Dust is generally removable with a singe click in Photoshop or Lightroom anyway. A bit of dust is not an issue. The issue is when there is a LOT of dust! In that case you should send the camera to get cleaned in some tech lab that offers the service, or if you are brave (crazy?) enough you can try to open the GR and clean it yourself. There are videos on YouTube showing how to do it.
The lens of the GR is a work of art. It is one of the sharpest and more pleasing 28mm lenses existing. We are in Leica Summilux territory, and I am quite familiar with Leica glass. This 28mm is just amazing and it shows what you can do when you build a very cohesive and well thought camera.
What about the battery life? It depends on your usage but I found it to be decent. Just buy a bunch of batteries and you are good to go for long photo sessions. I have both original and third parties batteries and they both behave fine. They are charged inside the camera, plugging it to the electricity with a wall charger.
Nowadays everyone has a smartphone in their pockets, and these smartphones are very often quite capable cameras, thanks to computational photography patching the issues of a very small sensor and low quality optics. The detractors of a pro compact like the GR are usually bringing to this argument against it.
Where smartphones seem to be better is in the High ISO department, which is quite ironic if we think of sensor size etc. The GR has no software for improving the photos, while modern smartphones are adopting various techniques (mostly combining frames with different exposures and advanced noise reduction) for making a terrible photo seem nice on a small screen (or a distant billboard..). You could do the same with the GR, shooting multiple exposures with bracketing, joining them as HDR on a computer, using a software like DXO Prime for removing noise, etc. The smartphone does it all for you as you shoot, and the tradeoff for such convenience is the lower quality of the final shot.
The next iteration of the GR, called GR III, introduced a new sensor and lens design that are supposedly helping with High ISO photography. It also has ibis, thanks to Pentax technology. I will get one and carefully test it as soon as possible, so you can expect a Ricoh GR III review very soon.
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