Street Photography

BarryG

BarryG

I'll stick to my 2 inches
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Edit My Images
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I have been looking at various street photos and comparing them to mine. The main thing I notice is mine are very flat and there isn't much dark and light. It's all very Gray.

Can anyone give some insight into their settings?

I'm not talking about composition or pre focusing, more management of light.

I normally use a matrix setting, but I'm thinking centre weighted would be more appropriate.

Any help?
 
I should have added that I know I can increase blacks and decrease exposure with the RAW, but looking to get the shot in camera.
 
I don't really have any good examples online and I'm on the iPad at the moment.

They just look grey all over rather than definitive blacks and whites.

Maybe I need to dial 0.3 or 0.7 of under exposure?
 
No, I am converting to mono using the RAW file.

I am just trying to reduce my PP really.
 
I've always found that a mono shot straight from the file generally looks flat. They need some processing to get the result I need. You don't say what software you are using, however with Lightroom I've a B&W preset, that I have developed that tend to give a good starting point. However I think each image needs to be assessed in it's own right.
 
If you're using Lightroom, once you click the Grayscale tab in the Hue/Color/Grayscale section, you can play with individual colours to affect the overall look of the photo. But the thing that would make the biggest difference to how grey it appears is the Tone Curve section. You can adjust highlights, mids, shadows, and darks separately. I think the Adobe RAW converter has something similar, as does the Canon RAW converter.

Or you could just invest in Silver Efex Pro ;)
 
silver efex pro is a godsend for getting lovely deep blacks and great contrast. Really simple to use once you get the hang of it.
 
If you want to speed up your PP, then the only option is to spend some time developing a preset that works with the way you work. Or download a free preset that someone else has spent their time tweaking. There are hunddreds to choose from.

By its very nature a RAW file will be flat and will require post-processing to make it "pop" in either colour or black and white.
 
go old school on it - slap a orange or red filter on the lens like we did when dinosaurs roamed the earth and people shot on film - that'll bump your contrast no end :)
 
Let's start at the beginning and examine what sort of conditions you're shooting under. We don't know if the scenes you're shooting are flatly lit with little contrast or not. Once you show some examples then it'll be easier to help you. Perhaps there are some in your Flickr stream which you think are symptomatic of what you describe? Describing how you currently post process might help too.
 
The only problem with the Flickr ones is I've done the PP and pushed the blacks up etc.

The nearest one to the problem I'm having is the one below I guess, although it's not a great example. I'll have to upload one that hasn't been processed fully.

6056236313_25e92eec72_z.jpg
 
What are you using for editing?

I've just run your image through Silver Efex Pro 2, hit one of the presets to get me in a starting position and then tweaked a few of the sliders to my liking. All in all, less than a minute in editing gets me a much punchier image with more depth. Perhaps, even a little grittier than I'd usually go, but hopefully it serves as an example.

BarryG-1.jpg


(Photobucket has reduced the contrast and sharpness of the image, but you get the idea)

Before SEP2, I was primarily using Lightroom 3 for my B&W conversions. Occasionally, I'd also use Photomatix and perhaps Photoshop to try to get more from my photos, but I've found SEP2 to do it all much quicker.

If you're interested in SEP2, it's currently on sale with a 10% discount. Maybe worth downloading a trial copy to try out?
 
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Barry

I hope you don't mind but I downloaded the image to have a look at it in Lightroom.

It is very odd. For a start it shows as very over exposed so I dragged the exposure back, but I noticed the Histogram looked unusual , rather than a smooth curve it has loads of spikes in it

histogram-2.jpg


What software are you using to process the image as the histogram looks very odd
 
Thanks for the assistance!

DigitalRelish: I'm using CS5.1 to edit the images. I've got the Silver FX Plugin too, but to be honest it's a bit overwhelming at the moment. There are so many settings and different things to do in there it's hard to know where to start. I do like the version you've created, better than the "original". I think I need to spend some quality time with it and see what I can do. Thank you.

Chappers: As I said, I'm using Photoshop to process, but the sample picture is quite old, so there is a good chance it has been processed from RAW, then jpeg, possible a couple of times. Maybe that explains the weird histogram.

Thanks for the help guys :)
 
The histogram just represents the range of tones in the image. Starting from a JPG means there's less data to play with. So, when you start trying to extract more tones from it you start exposing gaps in the data where there are no areas of the image with certain tones.

Regarding Silver Efex, try the presets to find a preferred starting point before tweaking the settings. Also, there are some tutorials on the Nik Software website which you might find useful.
 
onona said:
Another vote here for Silver Efex. It's wonderful for processing mono, and is generally my first port of call for mono stuff.
Click to expand...

I am thinking about getting this, is a bit pricey though. when you say first port of call, is there other software you use? I don't really want to pay out for something that doesn't do the whole job.
 
lofcuk said:
I am thinking about getting this, is a bit pricey though. when you say first port of call, is there other software you use? I don't really want to pay out for something that doesn't do the whole job.
Click to expand...

Have you tried the free trial version to see if it does what you want?
 
Different strokes, for b/w I first find which channels would be best to work from and then using curves and levels I establish true K and white.
 
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