Flash Dance

the more i shoot the more i learn about whats right and wrong. film has needs. it has limitations. there is a target to your exposure - you have to do it right. there isnt a lot of room for mistake with slide film - almost none. slide film really is awesome. negative film is good too if you want more shadow detail, but slide film has a ready to go pop to it.

here's what ive learned about slide film lately:

Exposure - do it right. meter it and shoot it exactly right.

Scanning - you should be able to scan with no adjustments/flat and have a nice image. at this point its time to edit

Curves - Once you have a flat scan, you've got an accurate representation of the film. The next step is to add curves to the light and dark. You should have a preset curve that works for your perfect exposures. It should boost the highs just enough to "help out" the film and give it a little more energy. it should not give absolute blacks, rather, rich blacks except in small detail spots where black is dismissable.

Color balance - its time i set up a color profile for my slide work. It needs to have the right quality of reds. the rest is pretty ok and right on. If i used color filters when shooting, i might have a special balance for that unless its perfect color balanced with filter.

Basically - you dont have to artificially raise the skin tones to make them pop with slide other than your standard curve that you are used to for a slight optimization.

Tone - i add a warm gradient map to my images to tone down the greens, blues and reds... and leaving a warm brown tone to the image which places more attention on the lines rather than the potentially distracting pointless colors.