My B&W's stink!

DivotDan

DivotDan

Veteran
So here is the deal, I love taking pictures but a lot of this digital post processing is new to me. I'm learning a lot, and when I get it right I really love it. Usually I work in color, and the few B&W's that I have done have generally been happy mistakes.

That said, I did a maternity shoot last weekend (I mentioned that in another thread) and of course they want most of them in B&W. I've done most of my post work and I'm happy with most of it, but I still feel like I stink at B&W conversion.

Take a look at them here.

I've post processed a few of these a little differently. The name of the photos say what I've done with them, most have been made B&W, or B&W with a pink-ish hue, some different color stuff, and whatever else I did.

What can I do to make these B&W photos better? I process in Lightroom, so it should have most of the same adjustments that PS does. I can't post them now, but if someone wants to play with any of the shots let me know and I can throw up links to the RAW files later today.
 
They don't Stink! If you want a more film-like black and white. Let me make a few suggestions (I am not a master of B+W but I do have a method!):

1.Choose a higher Iso setting and underexpose a bit, push the exposure in post-processing.

2. Don't show so much dynamic range in your post-processed image. I think thats the main problem with digital B+W simulation, there are way too many mid tone grays to make it look like a real B+W photograph.

3. Make your blacks black and your whites whites.

4. Try using the exposure plug-in for photo shop to accurately simulate B+W film characteristics (accurate grain, curves, and color response)

5. Try using different color filters for B+W photography (Blue,Red,Green ect..) Cokin makes quite a few.
 
Just the opposite! Black and white photography is all about dynamic range. B&W film has the most dynamic range out of any film stock. The idea in black and white photography is to pay close attention to make sure you image is not too muddy but also not too contrasty. You also want to make sure your whites are not fully white because you don't want it to be the color of the photo paper (even if there isn't any detail in your highlights, you should try to make sure your whites stay slightly under 255 especially if they are touching the edge of the photo.
When it comes to taking digital color photos to B&W there are many differnt ways of doing this:

-You can add a little grain/noise but don't over do it. not every black and white photographer shoots on grain tri-x film. You are allowed to have grain free B&W.

-If tinting the photo, stick to warmer tones

-If not tinting photos and you are doing to printing, try to get it printed on fiber paper. it will last 200 years since the image is actually embedded into the paper. plus it will really give the photo a nice feel (luste, glossy, matte your choice)

- When converting a color Image to B&W, do NOT simply lower the saturation, going into photoshop and clicking desaturate, or just converting to grayscale image. Rather you want to desaturate each channel RGB and then make certain channels more prenounced (usually the ones that contain more data like blue and green for a landscape) Then you can conver to B&W. There are tons of great tutorials on converting color to B&W online.
 
Dont listen to that egg...he doesnt know what he is talking about... =)

I dont make B+W prints (Just digital & with video) so he probably knows what he is talking about.
 
I would look into using different color filters and see what is best for your setup. I've used Yellow #8 when doing outdoor landscape. The in post using photoshop I adjust for B/W. I found the blacks crush down a lot cleaner vs without using a color filter. But for indoor photography I would look into other colors to see what is best. If fact...i was think of shooting video using the yellow #8 filter and see how that works out for the B/W image effect vs doing it using incamera settings to achieve b/w.

http://photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00D1DT

http://photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00AwbQ
 
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Dan if you want to post some of your favorite raw files I'd be more than happy to give you a few diferent looks. I loves me some Photoshop.
-Kevin
 
Thanks for the feedback guys. I actually found a PS tutorial from a guy who lives here in Atlanta that in one of my Flickr groups. It was a very good tutorial, but I'm wondering if there is a way to do this successfully in Lightroom, as I'd like to keep that as my main workflow engine. If not, I guess you do what you gotta do.

Sure Kevin, give it a go. Took ma a while to get them uploaded.

http://www.danedwardsphoto.com/photos/DDE_3658.NEF
http://www.danedwardsphoto.com/photos/DDE_3705.NEF

Also, here were a few of the happy accidents I told you about. I was happy with these.



 
Those look really good Dan. I just downloaded your files, I'll try a few different looks. Maybe give you an alternative to regular black and white. Give me a few minutes...

-Kevin
 
Old School Action
2459367967_97ba0bf155_o.jpg

Split Tone
2460204258_605ffaa490_o.jpg

Old School
2459367711_59f7ae325b_o.jpg

Old School at 70%
2460204462_99bff9702e_o.jpg

My Special Sauce Action
2460204190_0c2045280a_o.jpg

My resize action oversharpened these a bit, but you get the idea.
-Kevin
 
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Thanks Sacksnack! Good stuff.

rslv, great site you linked to. I like the channel mixer method in PS myself, so I'm glad to see there is a similar way to do this in Lightroom. I'm DLing the mov file now, so we will see how it goes.

The blog you linked to is fantastic too. That hit the old Mozilla Toolbar folder right way. Thanks.
 
rslv, awesome tutorial. I already feel like I know what I'm doing. Plus it inspired me to DL the 2.0 beta. Now I'm gonna have to drop the $$$ when it is released. Here are a few examples I reworked and I like them a lot. These are straight from Lightroom with no PS work done yet.

DDE_3675.jpg


DDE_3705.jpg


DDE_3658.jpg
 
I'm just getting back into town after being gone for a couple of days so just finding this thread.

Two good pieces of advice I can offer from my experience:

1. When shooting images that you are going to convert to black and white the use of an orange filter increases the contrast and when you edit the image you will get more defined results. You can also use red, yellow, or green filters to different levels of success (a while ago I posted a tutorial showing different filters and the results that emerge as you edit change to b&w... it's somewhere in this forum but I'm too lazy to search this morning).

2. While Photoshop offers a great b&w conversion tool where you can adjust each level as well as the commonly used desaturate feature, I find that the gradient works best for me. I edit it to different levels but for me this gives me a very nice feel for my images. You results might vary but it is good to play around with.

Also, you might want to iron that backdrop :)
 
When I've done B&W conversions from Digital, I've found Picture Window Pro 4 from Digital Light and Color to be very good. It has a very intuative and customisable colour wheel control, that feels more phtographic than any channel mixer.
Another point, the eye is far more sensitive to highlights than shadows, so that's where you need to maintain a delicacy of touch.
For a good account of colour filters and theit effects, can I point you in the direction of Ansel Adams' book "The Negative"?
Oh yes, I sill think a real Silver Gelatine print from a Large-Format negative kicks digital into touch!
Dave
 
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