Custom colour elaboration procedure

[Orio]

I am at work these days in Lightroom and Photoshop, with the purpose of developing a personal workflow
that can help me customize the colours in my photos in a direction that I can call my own, and that is not
replicable by anyone else by just clicking on plugins or presets.

This particular workflow included some sophisticated Photoshop procedures, and it's not simply about using only the
Saturation or Vibrance or single colour channels (although it might seem so at first sight)

In this specific case, I'm not even sure if the result is really what I want the image to be in the end
(the original has more depth due to the colder colours that are gone in the processed version, and I like depth).
But better or worse was not the point here, the point was to see if I was able to "drive" colour tones closer in the palette,
to create a more harmonious (less clashing) perception.

It is my opinion that what makes the film strong (and the digital weak) is not the grain, the scratches, the colour
dominants, all the superficial effects that you can find in many "film plugins". What makes film strong is that digital
photography records all the colour nuances, the good ones but also those that end up clashing with each other,
while film, even the best film, sort of "drives" the tones closer to each other in a very personal way.
So I wanted to go in that direction, without tacky easy effects.

Here's one of my efforts, it's a photo I took a few years ago when testing my Voigtländer Septon 2/50 lens.
First you have the original, then you have the processed version.
Let me know what you think, the changes are subtle, no special effects
(I'm not going to join the histerical hype for Instagram... )
I know, it would have been better if I placed the photo side by side, but the posting limit of 1024 pixels in this forum
prevents me from doing so.

original:


optimized (for my personal view):

[kds315*]

Well done!!

[Excalibur]

Well Orio you have confused me in what you are trying to achieve......If I had a digital camera and wanted to get the look of film, I would choose the film I liked, then take a shot with a film camera, then with the same lens take a digital shot, and then use your planned preset macro\plugins to match the shot or maybe even improve on it to your taste.
But then, you will not see a true film shot on a computer screen as it would be a pixel representation.......................

[GeorgeSalt]

I think we'd need to know your intent to say whether you've achieved it or not.

And I'm unsure what you could have done that couldn't have been done with a preset, or that couldn't have got you 95% of the way there with a preset (which is the best use for presets, getting you almost where you want to be).,

[Orio]

Excalibur, I don't want to make an imitation of film, I want the digital images to have this particular quality that film has, closeness of different tones, this while keeping the other qualities of digital
(signal to noise ratio, variable ISO, easyness of edit, etc).
I don't want the grain, I don't want the expired look, I don't want the slides curve, etc etc etc... I don't want the other characteristics of film. When I want those, I shoot film.
But most of all, I want my colours. I want that people, when looking at my images, recognizes my colours palette and inter-colours relations.
If possible, I don't want my images to look like any other Canon 5D Mark II images.

[visualopsins]

I might call this technique "Softening (or smoothing) of adjacent color micro-contrast with color-shifting 'toward' a chosen pallet."

Audio analogy would be to make digital CD sound more like Vinyl -- not harsh, and, without clicks & pops -- all the good, none of the bad.

[poilu]

I find the original better
on the new version, soft shadows look like a extra layer of blue painting on the yellow wall
except gray that are changed to blue and yellow saturated, I don't see any difference

[Orio]

Thanks for the feedback!
Poilu, you have a point. Although I have to say, I don't dislike it.

[Excalibur]

[iangreenhalgh1]

I don't see much difference, except the processed version has a bit more shadow detail. Maybe my monitor?

[GeorgeSalt]

It's very subtle, Poilu points out the most obvious difference I can see - rather unattractive blueing and edge artefacts in the shadows.