Little Russell Pond

[Bill Dix]

Seeing Grace's nice image of Sandy Stream Pond the other day prompted me to pull this out of my archives. Russell Pond is a 7-mile hike from Sandy Stream Pond through the Baxter State Park semi-wilderness, and this image was scanned from a 35mm transparency taken about 40 years ago. Many of these old slides have gone through serious color shift, and although I tried to correct it (mostly shifting toward green from the magenta cast) I still see strange casts of yellow, green and magenta in various places in the image. Maybe better as a B&W? Any suggestions, C&C would be welcomed. Sorry I don't have the EXIF.

[Bill Dix]

Here's a B&W version.

[Grady Weed]

Living here in Maine, it is a treat to see Baxter some 40 year ago! Like the color and B&W too. If you can fix the odd casts as you noted, it wins on all counts. I like the comp, fog and the boat give it an old time feel. Thanks for sharing.

[Bill Dix]

Thanks Grady. My wife and I hiked in here for our honeymoon, and spent a week camped on the shore of the pond. The morning this was taken the trout were practically jumping into our frying pan.

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Bill,
You captured the mood well here and I like where you placed the main trees. The FG rock and mist is also a nice touch with pretty good seperation throughout. I like the direction with the B&W......since it is mostly that already......but for the color version......just go into H/S and pull down magenta.......and decrease the saturation.......you probably have to be very agressive.....but it should do the trick. That will probably knock down some of the golden tones too.....so you may have to get them back a touch but check to see if that works first.
As for the B&W....just a touch more dodging and burning or levels and contrast layers should give it that final pop.

[Dave Mills]

Hi Bill, Agree with Roman regarding the color correction. The mist is an important element within the image and gives it a mood. I tend to like the B&W but due to the lack of color takes away the element of warmth.

[Bill Dix]

Roman and Dave,

Thanks for the helpful advice. I had already de-sat'd the magenta practically to 0, but it occurred to me to try a slight de-sat of the red channel and that took most of the tint out. I did then boost the yellows just a bit, and cloned a slight amount of adjacent color into the area that had been magenta. I also took at least some of the halo from around the rocks. I don't know how much this helped -- it now looks almost sepia -- but here is the repost. I haven't played with the b&w.

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Bill,
Yes it's better.....but I have one more idea for you.....first thing after the scan....try to do a reverse s-curve (Robert has a tutorial on it on Tonal range tweaks).....this will lessen the contrast and bring up some of the subtle shadow areas......then go for the standard corrections....see if that works better.

[Bill Dix]

Roman, as a matter of fact I just happened to re-read Robert's tutorials today. I haven't tried all of the tweaks yet, but will try the reverse S-curve when I get some time to re-scan the slide. Thanks for your help.