B/W or Color?

[DeanP]

Well, after a bit of a dry spell, finally got the camera out and did some shooting. Still working on my b/w conversions. Played with the channel mixer and some contrast. Coud have used a bit more power on the hair light to get more separation in the b/w image but I kinda liked how it turned out. Any coments / critiques always appreciated and wanted. Thanks for taking a look.






Dean

[fantasiesimage]

Hey Dean!! I really like the b&w better..but in your conversion you lost the hair to the background....I think the blacks got proccessed just a bit too much.


Don.

[DeanP]

Thanks for the comments Don, yup, still have to learn a little more on the b/w conversions and how to get it better. Just been playing with the channel mixer. Any recommended starting points with it?

[fantasiesimage]

not sure which version your using!! if Jimmy has a cool article on the Shadow/Highlight tool in CS...
on his blog. http://prettygirlshooter.blogspot.co...r_archive.html

But if you dont have CS..I would do this with adjustment layers...one of levels setting your black points and pumping up the whites...then I would do a hue/saturation adjustment layer and desaturate it...then you can go back to the levels layer and adjust accordingly, you can see the conversion..but your original is still in color untouched...no damage done.
so you can always tweak things with adjusment layers..

Don.

[DeanP]

Yes, using PS CS. Have been using the adjustment layers so I dont mess up the original. The color images I've been using levels as you showed me a while back, bumping up the center dot, top right to the left for contrast and lower right to the right increase the blacks. Haven't tried to desaturate then go back to levels to adjust again, will try that as well.

Will go chck out Jimmys blog, must have missed that one.

Dean

[DeanP]

Went back and tried editing some more. Here is the results. Still needed a bit more on the hairlight to separate her from the bg. Thoughts?



Dean

[jabner]

The second b&w is much better. Larger tonal range and more shadow detail. I like this shot.

[doug_r]

Nice image and a fun problem ...

Opened up the background color range a bit before b/w conversion and then a slight platinum duotone.

[DeanP]

Looks pretty good, mind sharing the "opened up the background color range" not quite the most PS savvy person around.

Dean

[doug_r]

Sure Dean, Happy to pass it on.

IN PS CS2 (and probably earlier as well),
1) From the main menu,go to Select, then Color Range.
2) With eye dropper, click on image and use the fuzziness pointer to select just the color range you want.
3) From the main menu, go to Select then Feather; you'll have to mess around with the number of pixels til you get a nice smooth selection area.
4) Create an adjustment layer and move the left and right-most slider to the edges of the histogram shown. You may want to adjust (very slightly) the center pointer histogram as well.
5) save layer and et voila'

I learned the trick here: http://www.photojojo.com/content/tut...ute-photo-fix/ but I'm sure it's documented elsewhere as well.

Good Luck!

[DeanP]

Thanks Talos for explaining it. Will have to go give it a try.

Dean

[AlbertP]

B&W! Talos' version works best, I think.

[ScottBuckel]

I think I like the talos versiona little better although your last version looks pretty good.

Scott

[DeanP]

Thanks Scott, still have some learning to do on post production. Will come in time. Appreciate all the folks on this forum for helping folks like me to learn the digital ways.

Dean