bleeding fort

[briank]

After forum member IABoomer's advice to turn another one of my Fort Popham shots into a BW photograph to bring the texture to the forefront, I made just my second attempt at conversion with an exterior shot of the structure.

I'm happy with the composition and for the most part, the conversion.

I'm looking for peoples' opinion on my post production work -- specifically, do the textures in the image pop?

For PP, I adjusted white balance, applied auto-tone, then converted by adjusting the saturation to -100 for all colors. Next, I adjusted the luminescence of the different colors in order to get certain textures to pop. I then shot up the clarity, contrast and finally sharpness.



Pentax K-X
47.5mm
f/8.0
1/400 sec
ISO 200
no flash

My biggest concerns are the sky in the upper right corner. I don't mind the gradient, but it it looks a little noisy -- at least in raw. Exported as a JPEG, it's actually not too bad. I know that noise is supposed to be bad, but I don't mind it too much in this photo. If I need to, I can use a brush to drop the detail in that area and clean it up.

Also thinking the building's surface might be a tad light?

Thanks for looking/commenting.

[IABoomer]

If you're adjusting in Lightroom or Adobe Camera Raw, using the Color/B&W switch to start the conversion process will probably work better. It's similar to the auto tone, but it also attempts to adjust some of the color luminance values which might give you a better baseline to work from.

I like the lines and the textures. Seeing the water stains below the windows, I get why you've titled this as you have.

I don't know that the triangle of sky is adding much, in my opinion. I'd much rather see you get a little lower, let the lines of the fort wall cover the top of the frame, and show some more of the water at the base. That contrast between the natural and the man-made might be another interesting element, especially given the water stains on the windows.