Linco22 From United Kingdom, joined Jun 2005, 1379 posts, RR: 18 Posted (5 years 8 months 1 week 1 day 16 hours ago) and read 1694 times:
Hi all,
I trust you all had a pleasant weekend? I had this rejected for contrast originally and after adjusting the contrast it's now been rejected for dark. Don't mean to be rude but adjusting contrast in a B&W image will make the blacks more black, thus making it 'dark'. I didn't do a colour version of this because it's rather flat looking.
Jid From Barbados, joined Dec 2004, 960 posts, RR: 35 Reply 1, posted (5 years 8 months 1 week 1 day 13 hours ago) and read 1673 times:
Hi Colin, well the conversion to B&W is not as simple as people would think. There are numerous ways to do it and depending on your original shot will dictact your approach. Your shot is never going to be easy as it will always be very contrasty between the underside of the aircraft and the sky.
If I was to attempt this conversion I would certainly shoot RAW and slightly over expose the image. Then adjust the exposure at the start of processing. This will give you an image with far less noise to start off with. Then do your conversion to mono, maybe you could apply a calculation and see which channel gives you the best results.
Good luck .. Jid
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Garry From United Kingdom, joined Feb 2006, 183 posts, RR: 3 Reply 2, posted (5 years 8 months 1 week 1 day 11 hours ago) and read 1659 times:
Hi Colin - hope you are well. The shot looks alot better than the version you posted before.
Getting a b&w conversion correct seems to be a difficult skill and as Jid mentions there are numerous ways. How did you make the coversion?
I guess Jid's point relates the various %'s of red, green and blue from the channel mixer function in Photoshop and which combination to use to acheive best effect.
Have you tried a curves adjustment for the mid tones only?
Linco22 From United Kingdom, joined Jun 2005, 1379 posts, RR: 18 Reply 3, posted (5 years 8 months 1 week 1 day 11 hours ago) and read 1654 times:
Hi guys,
Thanks for the replys. Keeping well Garry thanks, hope you are too.
This was a RAW file, edited in Lightroom and then resized cropped etc in PSE V4.0.
Not much in the way of curves adjustment, more on the contrast and a few colour channels to make the B&W look better. Maybe have another look at it when I get home tonight.
Dendrobatid From United Kingdom, joined Nov 2004, 1605 posts, RR: 64 Reply 4, posted (5 years 8 months 1 week 1 day 6 hours ago) and read 1632 times:
Quoting Jid (Reply 1): Hi Colin, well the conversion to B&W is not as simple as people would think.
Very wise words, surprising coming from Jid really (sorry Jid, I couldn't resist)
It is not that easy and anyone that could print black and white would recognise that the images are what we used to describe as muddy. Colin comments that there was not much in the way of curves adjustment but that is precisely what is needed. It is an old photographic that (generally) an image should have a full black and a pure white. Take a look at Colin's edit and there is a pure black, but only on the A.net copyright bar which provides a good reference. The pure white is there on the fin but the mid-tones are too compressed. By lifting the curve in the mid tones the sky brightens and the whole image looks better (like moving up a paper grade in printing)
A very quick edit
Jid From Barbados, joined Dec 2004, 960 posts, RR: 35 Reply 5, posted (5 years 8 months 1 week 17 hours ago) and read 1580 times:
Thanks Mick
It is not easy getting the contrast right when working in B&W. As Mick says increase your midtones slightly then on a different layer as slight 'S' curve to correct the contrast,(You could even use a couple of Alpha channel masks, one inverted for really good contrast adjustment).
For mono printing, instead of going up a grade in paper, try a Multigrade paper
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(sorry Jid, I couldn't resist)
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