My first attempt of a Tintype treatment.

[Texas Dave]

In the last hour of my day here I stumbled across a video about a photographer that took tintype photos of the stars at the Sundance Film Festival.

http://www.boredpanda.com/vintage-ph...victoria-will/

Then my ADD kicked in and I started goggling Graflex and Sinar tintype cameras.

Then I found this site that gave a tutorial on creating a mock tintype.

http://design.tutsplus.com/tutorials...tos--psd-16123

Then I took this picture of my german shepherd. Meet Bella.



The first piece of texture I found in my texture library.




...and I came up with this. I want to explore this tintype treatment thing more. Not for reason you probably think but for those shots that aren't quite right. Ya know, where the focus may not be where it should be. Sort of a "salvage" operation.

[James G]

David, I rather like this. It has a great 'antique' feel to it. Thanks for the links, I might give this a try myself....

[bnnrcn]

Hi David, thanks for sharing the links I always wondered how people created such images and I even didn't know the technique was called as 'tintype' Your treatment looks nice to me but I have to tell you that you have a lovely, great looking dog. I wouldn't give Bella's image such a treatment.

[Texas Dave]

Thanks James.

Binnur, it was the first image I ran across going down my list of images to monkey with. Having said that, I deserve a "chop busting" after I said the same about your flowers! There! We're even for the weekend!

By the way, once you set up a photoshop layered file the way the above tutorial says to, you can drop in any image as a layered smart image and just apply the smart filters to the new layer and done.

[bnnrcn]

Nothing intentional David. We have both tried different techniques on the same day. You are always welcome to comment on my images as I learn a lot from them

PS. I subscribed to this thread so that I could find it easily when I need in the future.

[Manfred M]

Actually, it looks like a photograph of a fairly badly abused tintype.

Real ones look quite different given that they are made on a reflective piece of metal. Depending on the angle you look at them, you can see both a positive and a negative image.

[Rebel]

I'm not a fan of the tintype effect, BUT the portrait of your dog is STUNNING.

[Texas Dave]

Actually, it looks like a photograph of a fairly badly abused tintype.

Real ones look quite different given that they are made on a reflective piece of metal. Depending on the angle you look at them, you can see both a positive and a negative image.

I've never seen or held a real one. I'm now wondering where I could go to see one for real. hmmmm

[Mike Buckley]

I've never seen or held a real one. I'm now wondering where I could go to see one for real. hmmmm

They're readily available very cheaply on eBay. It's not a bad idea to buy a few if you want to know the look that you're trying to replicate. Another option is to look in your area for a weekend market specializing in antique photos. You'll get to see lots of tintypes, daguerreotypes and ambrotypes, all of which have somewhat similar looks and share the characteristic of being relatively indestructible compared to other types of photos.

It has been a long time since I have dragged my tintypes out from under my bed, but I don't remember any of them having such a strongly toned look as in your photo. Also, the texture that you used has the look of a paper-based product rather than a piece of metal.

By the way, we should introduce your dog to my niece because they have the same name.

[IzzieK]

+1 to Binnur's comment...I like the original shot of your German Shepherd...The idea of a tintype effect is good, but please do not use it on a beautiful animal...

[Texas Dave]

Reflective metal
Metal Texture
Subdue tone
Not the dog.

Got it!

It really appears to me that the majority of these tintype photos had a really shallow depth of field. Sounds like it took allot of light to expose this way?


BTW, here's my second attempt.

[Manfred M]

I've never seen or held a real one. I'm now wondering where I could go to see one for real. hmmmm

Check out some local antique stores, quite often they'll have some for sale. They were quite popular during the Civil War, so any place that sells things from that period would be a place to look for them as well.

[Mike Buckley]

Manfred's idea of looking for stores that sell Civil War memorabilia is a great idea.

It really appears to me that the majority of these tintype photos had a really shallow depth of field. Sounds like it took allot of light to expose this way?

Yes. That's because the metal was sensitized with wet collodion until a dry-plate process was devised about 1890. Keep in mind that the heyday of the tintype was about 1860 - 1865 and that was only about 30 years after the discovery of photography; exposure times were relatively long. The waning years of the tintype were just a few years later. However, tintypes were made into the 20th century.

If you want your images to be authentic replicas of the most common tintype, the subjects should only be people and they should not be toned. Also limit the dynamic range. The relatively small cost of the tintype made it possible for people of average income for the first time to be photographed, so almost all tintypes are of people. When you see tintypes displaying rather intricate backgrounds of the countryside, a village or whatever, it was almost always a painted background used in the portrait studio even if the studio was nothing more than a booth set up at a fair or tourist area. If the portrait shows the subject's feet, you'll see the bottom of the painted background.

[bnnrcn]

I don't know if it means the requirements of a tintype image but it certainly looks better than the first attemt

Reflective metal
Metal Texture
Subdue tone
Not the dog.

Got it!

It really appears to me that the majority of these tintype photos had a really shallow depth of field. Sounds like it took allot of light to expose this way?


BTW, here's my second attempt.

[John 2]

An interesting exercise and I would say quite successful. However, I am not familiar with the original process. It's good to play though.

[Mike Buckley]

David,

You might enjoy this article and video about tintypes being made of today's movie stars.

[marlunn]

this just came up on petapixel - http://petapixel.com/2015/04/11/recr...ing-photoshop/

[IzzieK]

You still got the dog, Dave... OK...I like the first one better despite that you sort of emphasized the orangy colour at the frame because the first one has more texture than this second one and that alone, makes it more attractive...

Reflective metal
Metal Texture
Subdue tone
Not the dog.

Got it!

It really appears to me that the majority of these tintype photos had a really shallow depth of field. Sounds like it took allot of light to expose this way?


BTW, here's my second attempt.

[rpcrowe]

IMO, tintype effect is one of the most difficult of the old-style photographic techniques to duplicate. That is because in the tintype process, the image is reflected off the metal (tin) base.

Perfect Photo Perfect BW-8 has a series of 19th Century processes to choose from...

This is their albumen print:



Here is the full gamut of Perfect BW-8, 19th Century processes...



However, their "tintype effect" is not all that good. This is their Tintype Dirty rendition. Of course, this is the "standard" effect.



You have total control over all the parameters when using Perfect BW. I tend to like Perfect BW- 8 better than Perfect BW-9. When upgrading, the person using Perfect Photo Suite has the choice of discarding the earlier issue or of keeping it so to have the choice of which issue to use. Since I have a large hard drive, I opted to keep earlier issues. This has been a good plan since I find the BW-8 easier to use than the newer BW-9 issue. CHANGE IS OFTEN ONLY AN ILLUSION OF PROGRESS...

[Texas Dave]

I'm not giving up yet. After looking at the Robert Redford Tintype that the photographer did at the Sundance thing, I tried another approach.

It really seems to me that the old cameras had a very, very shallow depth of field. I shot a coworker with my 50mm at 1.8. I had a hard time keeping the light from blowing him out but I think I got allot better understanding of the "tintype feel". Anyway, here's another attempt. I did use a new filter I never used before, the iris blur.

Iris Blur


After the iris blur I placed the original sharp image over it and filled the layer mask to knock it all out, then slowly and gently brushed the sharp image back in, only around the eye and what I perceived to be an old Graflex or Sinar's focal plane. That got me to here.

By the way, this is the friend that let me shoot the sword. Heck of a sport!