Scottish Castle - Black and White

[windrunner]

Hi Folks,

Hopefully this is the correct forum to post these pictures. I took a couple of shots at Dunrobin Castle in the Scottish Highlands last weekend.

This is the first time I've converted photos to black and white (thought the subject suited the mono conversions). I know the lens distortion is quite bad here but I quite like it in these instances.

Anyway, as it's my first time I hoped some of the more experienced togs on here could offer some feedback and highlight any areas where I could make improvement. My processing skills are pretty limited as I'm on a fairly steep learning curve with Photoshop etc.

Thanks in advance


Dunrobin Castle - Scottish Highlands by Michael & Ashley, on Flickr


Entrance - (Explored) by Michael & Ashley, on Flickr

 

[markliamgraham]

Wow, first one for me!

Works brilliant in the B&W conversion. Great image.

 

[James J]

Wow, first one for me!

Works brilliant in the B&W conversion. Great image.

Indeed! The first image is magnificent.

 

[dtsrules2]

Got to agree the first is a cracker.

 

[Adow2]

#1 for me too! Love the flock of birds. Would like to see original colour shots..... Just to be nosey

 

[windrunner]

Cheers guys.

This is pretty much my first attempt at a proper b+w convertion.

I copied the orignial layer and set to multply blend mode. Then I added a layer mask and erased any areas I wanted to highlight. After that I changed the mode to 32 bit then back 8. I set the adjustment to local area adjustment and faffed around with the sliders to try and create some drama.

I'm fairly happy with how they turned out but wondered it there was an easier way to process shots like this to get a similar effect?