Re: Magic of Boredom... *PIC*

Hi Taylor,
Nice shot, makes me homesick.
We're getting settled in over here on the coast, finally! I bought a Canon Rebel Digital SLR camera, and love it. Been playing with B&W shots (color, converted in Paint Shop Pro), and put together a little tutorial you might find interesting!
Black and white photos from early times look different, why? Up until around 1900-1920 or so, film was color blind, only sensitive to blue light. This gave mostly white sky and fairly light shadows, as they are lit by the blue part of the sky. This makes the photos of the early photographers quite distictive.
Next came increased sensitivity in Orthochromatic films. They saw both blue and green, still insensitive to red. These films could be developed under a red safelight, so you could see how much image was forming, giving you some control over density and contrast. In the late 30's Panchromatic films started being available, but saw some resistance, as you couldn't inspect them while developing, being sensitive to all colors of light. (A very dark green safelight could be used for a few seconds, late in developement.)
Color filters over the lens, were used to change the sensitivity to light, becoming very popular in the late 40's. If you shot through a red filter, you got almost black skies (the red filter absorbed most of the blue light) and brilliant, puffy clouds and steam! Yellow and orange were also used, yellow giving a fairly realistic gray in the sky, and orange inbetween yellow and red. If you used a green filter, it lightened foliage. Blue would accentuate haze and fog.
These affects, film sensitivity and filters, can be duplicated using PSP or PhotoShop. So, if you are down at Promintory, and want a shot with that 1860's look, or you are at the C&T trying to imitate Otto Perry, or Beebe, give this a try!
This uses PSP, layers/new adjustment layer/channel mixer. Check the monochrome box. Here's some examples, note the subtle changes in the rendition of colors.