ice cream

[Noodles]

Hi All

I would appreciate your oppinions in the portrait image below. I'm just starting to experiment with black and white photography. I can see alot wrong with it myself as I know monochrome photography is an art form and a skill in its self. If anyone knows any good tutorials or books on black and white photography I would appriciate the pointer

Many thanks

 

[antonroland]

Hello there

It does look a bit flat and grey to me...but then I need to calibrate my monitor again and simply have not had the energy to do so yet.

As you quite rightly say that B&W is a bit of a skill or art, it can also be rather subjective, depending on who you ask.

Being at the bottom of Africa I also would not know what books are available near you but why not look out for a copy of Practical Photography Magazine?

They often have good B&W tutorials.

You could also visit the Photo Radar site where they have tons of tutorials.

Search on Flickr for B&W groups...Deviant Art maybe?

How about telling us how you did the conversion and maybe we can discuss it and bounce ideas around...

Or you could put up the original colour image and we could all have a go:shrug:

Cheers

 

[karlwilson1986]

Hey
Hope ya dont mind i have tweeked the contrast along with playing with the curves a little and then painting back certain areas and a little sharpen

Karl

 

[karlwilson1986]

If you can get hold of a filter called Silver Effex Pro that is the best one to use in photshop to convert to B&W

The key to good B&W is a good clear image to start with !
By than i mean a good contrast with the colors and then by also using the dodge and burn tool can help to add different effects

If you already know how to use layer masking thats great if not look it up on google as that is a good way of getting great contrasty pictures in B&W

Hope this helps

could you post up the original color version please

Karl

 

[antonroland]

Playing around with the RGB sliders in the channel mixer could also make a nice difference.

 

[antonroland]

If you can get hold of a filter called Silver Effex Pro that is the best one to use in photshop to convert to B&W

The key to good B&W is a good clear image to start with !
By than i mean a good contrast with the colors and then by also using the dodge and burn tool can help to add different effects

If you already know how to use layer masking thats great if not look it up on google as that is a good way of getting great contrasty pictures in B&W

Hope this helps

could you post up the original color version please

Karl

^What he said^

Especially agree with the Nik Silver FX software...or scour Flickr for B&W film plug-ins...Tri-X, Tri-X with red filter...

 

[Noodles]

Thanks for you comments and advice it's really useful. I will look into all the suggestions. I have two weeks off work holidaying on the norfolk coast so hoping to get plent of time with the camera and think I am going to focus on trying to get some black and white images. My thoughts when I took this was that indeed it was too grey and not enough contrast across the image. I have little experience in converting but understand there are many different ways. I have a stack of photo mags and plenty have how to convert so will look there too.

karlwilson1986 thanks for taking the time to change the image it always amazes me how peoples experiences in post processing can enhance an image, and also the comments and pointers

antonroland, thanks for the advice and the pointers too

These will be really useful and I hope to post some more on here soon