Several months ago I was asked to beta test Version 3 of Alien Skin’s popular software, Exposure, as part of a book project I’m currently working on.  Needless to say, I accepted.  Now that it’s officially released, I can tell you that I officially love it.

Exposure can take any image and change it to reflect dozens of film and developer combinations, in color or black and white, and the results are amazing.  

My favorites are the black and white combinations.  Having worked with many of the films they list as choices, I can say that their programming produces results that are very close to what prints from those films actually looked like.

For those of you who may miss the quirky but charming look of discontinued color film stocks, negative or color slide, take a look at this (and remember that this is just a few of the films they’ve replicated):

These samples show grain structure as they envision it and, my opinion, is based on the look of a typical 35mm image, but you can go into each preset and change it.  Each film stock, color or black and white, is also available as a “without grain” preset.  

One of my all time favorite films was Polaroid 669, the professional version of Type 108.  Not only did we use this to preview lighting and product placement changes for advertising clients (and what a profit center that was!), but also to preview fine art setups.  High quality scanners were becoming available as Polaroid was being phased out, but I’m fortunate to still have several thousand Polaroid test prints, waiting patiently for their final edit and possible journey to Digiville.

In the meantime, Exposure 3 offers several Polaroid presets, for Type 669, Polapan, and other Polaroid stock.  My favorite of all is “669 Creamy Blown Highlights.”  Those were the days.

This is excellent software, well thought out and easy to use.  I think you can easily see how you can use it to create images with a special look, something that may benefit your studio’s bottom line.  

©  Chris Grey

New book!

Hey gang, Amherst Media just released “Christopher Grey’s Advanced Lighting Techniques,” the book that was designed to pick up where last year’s “Studio Lighting Techniques” left off, even more tricks of the trade to make your images sing. 

It’s only been out a couple of weeks but is doing pretty well, so Thanks! to everyone  at PPR who’s grabbed a copy. 

For those of you who haven’t, get one at Amazon and save a pile of cash.