'Gritty' Filter?

I would like to take photos that have a 'gritty' appearance. Unfortunately, I
am just a novice photographer! I would be extremely grateful for any guidance.

My inspiration comes from films such as 'Saving Private Ryan' and the advert
for Stella Artois. There seems to be a filter that removes red hues? Is this
correct? I have also noticed that shadows become more apparent. Can this effect
be used in conjunction with photography?

I hope that I have explained the desired effect sufficiently. I'm hoping to
become a serious amateur photographer in the future (i'm just a student at
present). An explanation of how to use filters would be great!!

Thanks in advance for any help!!
Niall

ojunk (NIALLBRUCE) wrote in
:

I would like to take photos that have a 'gritty' appearance.
Unfortunately, I am just a novice photographer! I would be extremely
grateful for any guidance.

My inspiration comes from films such as 'Saving Private Ryan' and the
advert for Stella Artois. There seems to be a filter that removes red
hues? Is this correct? I have also noticed that shadows become more
apparent. Can this effect be used in conjunction with photography?

I hope that I have explained the desired effect sufficiently. I'm
hoping to become a serious amateur photographer in the future (i'm
just a student at present). An explanation of how to use filters would
be great!!

Thanks in advance for any help!!
Niall

There are a couple of things at work, and neither of them are
filters.

In "Saving Private Ryan", the film was intentionally, and digitally,
reduced in saturation in order to achieve the effect. Not hard to do with a
digital file (scanned film or image from digital camera), but it requires
post-processing with an editing program like Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro.
While there are film types that have a reduced saturation and lower
contrast, they do not come anywhere near this extent.

The "grittiness" is best referred to as grain, and this is a trait of
the emulsion. Again, no films feature this to such an extent, but it's
possible to produce this both digitally and by special processing.

In order to increase grain without digital editing, the film has to
be shot at a much higher ISO than rated, which is essentially
underexposure. Then it has to be processed to account for this - the whole
procedure is called "pushing" and is usually done in increments of f-stops,
one stop being the doubling of the rated ISO.

The problem with this is, it increases the contrast at the same time,
which is the opposite direction from what you're after with the color
saturation, though it may produce the shadow effects you want.

You can reduce saturation in a film by "pulling" it, the opposite of
the above. You shoot it at a *lower* ISO than rated and process accordingly
- this washes out the color a little bit, lowering contrast. But this means
the shadows won't be deep, they'll be more grey.

So, to really mimic the effect, you're into handling the images
digitally, reducing saturation while keeping the contrast in place, or
perhaps increasing it slightly, then adding grain or noise to get the
gritty feel.

Unless you could get your hands on some of the first color films that
were introduced. They should replicate the effect fairly well (which is
what Spielberg was trying to do). Methinks this would be hard to find,
though ;-)

Good luck,


- Al.

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On Mon, 31 May 2004 02:14:56 GMT, Al Denelsbeck
wrote:

Al's post was right on the money.

But to go further, though the effect can be achieved with pushing the
film and judicious film development (which by the way can include
altering the temperature of the development solutions), a much easier
way these days is to work on the image in Photoshop (desaturate and
add noise, are a few things to try).