Critique B&W - Penshurst Place, Kent

[Elines]

Still trying different conversions to B&W but feel that I am getting somewhere (at last) - also trying different sharpening approaches.

This is the first picture I have processed from a recent visit to Penshurst Place - a privately owned home we went to as part of my wife's ancestor history investigations (and no - her ancestors didn't used to own it - one of them worked there)

The unreduced version looks better than the one reduced for posting but I think you can see some of what I was trying to achieve:

- no blown out bits of sky
- details in the clouds
- good texture with lots of different shades of grey

so hopefully it doesn't look 'flat' but has some 'pop'.

But if you think it still isn't a good rendition and that I haven't managed to get it almost right then happy to hear constructive, reasoned criticism, as always.

 

[Norkie]

I think that's pretty good, well done

 

[Elines]

I think that's pretty good, well done

Thanks very much for that - it has been a bit of a slog but I think I am getting there.

I still need to have a go at some other methods/settings for sharpening so that I can get a grip on what I like.

 

[ancient_mariner]

It doesn't look at all flat Chris, but it seems a little over-sharpened.

If you are happy to experiment and don't mind trying different software, wander over to on-one software and download perfect effects free edition. Instead of sharpening the image as you normally would, try the dynamic contrast filter on 'natural' and see if that does what you're after. I've pretty much stopped using more than Lighroom's minimal standard filtering (though I do use noise reduction) and use PE dynamic contrast instead.

 

[Elines]

It doesn't look at all flat Chris, but it seems a little over-sharpened.

If you are happy to experiment and don't mind trying different software, wander over to on-one software and download perfect effects free edition. Instead of sharpening the image as you normally would, try the dynamic contrast filter on 'natural' and see if that does what you're after. I've pretty much stopped using more than Lighroom's minimal standard filtering (though I do use noise reduction) and use PE dynamic contrast instead.

Thanks for that - I have several options on sharpening that I want to try - I think I used the Nik sharpening program in this one - part of the difficulty I have is that I still don't know what I like as regards sharpening and so I'm trying different ways to help get my eye in.

I have the free perfect effects 8 but haven't used it yet as I find it a bit confusing (not knowing what I want) but quite happy to try the sharpening method you suggest as an additional option.