Photo Assignment ... September

[Billy]

Take a picture in black & white. Either take it in black & white in-camera, or shoot it in color and convert to b&w using your photo editor. Ton of stuff online explaining what subjects work better (or at least as well ) in b&w...great place to steal ideas.
Please add photo-geeky explanations whenever/wherever possible to accompany your photo.

 

[JohnL]

Spearhead Mesa, Monument Valley

This image converted quite nicely to b&w simply by sliding the saturation level to zero. That was it.

JohnL

 

[Taconic]

Spearhead Mesa, Monument Valley

This image converted quite nicely to b&w simply by sliding the saturation level to zero. That was it.

JohnL

Very nice. I like the perspective. Looks like the light might have been a little harsh, but you seem to have nailed the exposure.


If you're open to suggestions...
Have you tried playing with the color channel mixing before converting it to B&W? This is a prime candidate for a bump in the red channels. 100% on R and 0% on G and B would render the sky dark and the rock/sand/tree much lighter. It's the equivalent of shooting B&W with a red filter. It would really make this one pop, I think.

 

[JohnL]

Don't mind a little help at all with editing. I'm a novice when it comes to the editing and I only do some basic adjustments to my photos. I tried what you said but the foreground and mesa came out quite bright in the conversion as they are red sandstone as you can see. The image was taken shortly before sunset so the ambient light was warm as well. I'm probably a bit clumsy at the controls so I'll keep trying. Thanks.

JohnL

 

[Taconic]

Don't mind a little help at all with editing. I'm a novice when it comes to the editing and I only do some basic adjustments to my photos. I tried what you said but the foreground and mesa came out quite bright in the conversion as they are red sandstone as you can see. The image was taken shortly before sunset so the ambient light was warm as well. I'm probably a bit clumsy at the controls so I'll keep trying. Thanks.

JohnL

I guess I didn't explain very well.

I'm coming from a PS frame of reference, but most programs have something that allows you to individually play with the channel mixing (in PS it's simply called "Channel Mixer.")

What I was getting at was bumping up the red channel in the mixer and then converting it to B&W (there's a monochrome option built right into PS' mixer for convenience.) It will look very odd in color, but it's meant to be viewed in B&W. It's the equivalent of putting a colored filter on the lens in B&W photography.

In this case, putting a red filter over a lens with B&W film would (in a perfect world, which the real world isn't ) render red as white and blue as black in monochrome. For this reason, a lot of the great old landscape photographers (like Adams) shot B&W with a red filter when the sky was blue. You can more or less do this with any of the primaries--the inverse will (in a perfect world) always be black. Foliage, for example, looks good if you crank up the green channel and then do a monochrome conversion. With digital, we can shoot in color and do all of this in post, but the basic principals are the same.

 

[JohnL]

No, you described it correctly and that is what I did. Here is what the image looks like with 100% Red then directly converting to B/W:

Yes, Adams' image of Monolith, Half Dome was shot with a deep red filter. Interestingly enough he used the last of his 12 glass plates that day for that famous image.

JohnL

 

[Taconic]

What program do you use to process?

This is what it looks like run through the channel mixer in PS:

 

[JohnL]

Well, that certainly has more crispness in it than my attempts. Nice! I am using the editing sfw that came with my Canon, ArcSoft PhotoStudio5.5. I know, I know. Get something real. I'm working on it.

JohnL

 

[nartreb]

John, it looks like you bumped up the red but didn't drop the green and blue - your sky is still blue before desaturation; it should be just about black.

Hm, this could be a really stupid idea but I wonder how it would look in color if all you did was drop the blue part of the way? Might darken the sky as if you had a polarizer.

 

[pudgy_groundhog]

JohnL, that's a very cool picture and Taconic's edit really makes it pop. I haven't tried the channel mixer on a conversion - thanks for the tip.

Typically, just desaturation will leave a picture a little flat or dull, so you need some extra tweaks to liven it up.

This was a picture I took in Maine earlier this summer. With the overcast conditions the picture was nearly B&W out of camera anyway, so it didn't take much to convert. I actually used a Creamtone B&W preset in Lightroom.

This one was my daughter in the Beartooths, a little more work as I had to be careful to not blow the whites (which I know weren't blown when I edited it, but on my laptop it looks like I lost some detail in the snow):

 

[Fitz]

Snake Den

I had fun trying to amp the textures on the snake and the rock in this one...

 

[DougPaul]

I just ran across an article reviewing a digital color to B&W conversion product. Even if you are not interested in the featured product, the discussion of the conversion process may be of interest: http://www.luminous-landscape.com/r...lack_and_white_with_nik_silver_efex_pro.shtml.

There is a more basic discussion at http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/photoshop/b-w.htm

Doug

 

[MichaelJ]

My entry. Straight luminance conversion to b/w, I mucked a bit with the color curves prior to desaturation and found it unsatisfying for this shot. However, it would be an excellent candidate for leaving the flag itself colorized, I may give that a try later.

 

[Billy]

Help.

I have Photoshop Elements 7. I can't find the channel mixer. I googled it.

Luminous-Landscapes has a tutorial saying go to Layer>New>Adjustment Layer (to create a new layer) and then select Channel Mixer from the Effects palette. Dead end. Not there.

The Ken Rockwell link above says go to Image>Adjustments>Channel Mixer. Dead end. Not there.

Anyone out there with PSE-7 who can dumb it down for me. Type slowly; I can't read too fast.

 

[Craig]

Converted using a preset in LR

 

[blaze]

There is a nice piece here (Luminous Landscape) on the use of Silver Efex Pro, a very powerful tool for converting images to black and white.

Beautiful shots everyone!

 

[Taconic]

Help.

I have Photoshop Elements 7. I can't find the channel mixer. I googled it.

Luminous-Landscapes has a tutorial saying go to Layer>New>Adjustment Layer (to create a new layer) and then select Channel Mixer from the Effects palette. Dead end. Not there.

The Ken Rockwell link above says go to Image>Adjustments>Channel Mixer. Dead end. Not there.

Anyone out there with PSE-7 who can dumb it down for me. Type slowly; I can't read too fast.

It's quite possible that it's not in Elements since it's a stripped down version of PS. It should definitely be under Image > Adjustments. If it's not there, then Adobe probably removed the feature.



I guess this will be my entry:

Missed sunrise by about an hour that morning. B&W it was.

Converted through the channel mixer. 100% red, I think (it was done a while ago.)

 

[Billy]

Photo 1: Moraine Lake in Banff
Photos 2 & 3: Lake O'Hara in Yoho (same photo...see explanation below)
Photo 4: Light globe in bedroom, exposed to "see" the light bulb

Black & White photos

Comparing photos 2 and 3 might be of interest to those who have Photoshop Elements and do NOT have the Channel Mixer feature. Photo 2 was converted to b&w by sliding the saturation slider full left. Photo 3 was converted by setting the image to gray scale. Note the subtle changes in tone between the two pics, especially the lake.

Not having Channel Mixer, I might try to apply a red filter to a layer, save it, and then convert that layer to b&w. See if it has a similar effect as maxing out the red in the channel mixer.

 

[blaze]

I am on Elements version 5. It has a "Convert to Black & White" dialog which gives you some preset options such as Scenic Landscape, Vivid Landscape, Urban, Portrait, etc. It also gives you the ability to fine tune the colors and contrast. I prefer this dialog or a PSE "action" to convert to B&W, rather than just desaturating.

 

[Billy]

I am on Elements version 5. It has a "Convert to Black & White" dialog which gives you some preset options such as Scenic Landscape, Vivid Landscape, Urban, Portrait, etc. It also gives you the ability to fine tune the colors and contrast. I prefer this dialog or a PSE "action" to convert to B&W, rather than just desaturating.

blaze, thank you very much for pointing out this feature. So now there's (at least) three ways to convert to b&w in Elements. The option you described gives the user much more flexibility, and looks very similar to the Channel Mixer I've seen elsewhere. Thanks again.