BW conversion help wanted

[Infinite Monkey]

This is my second posting of a BW image. Thanks to Tito87 and EOBeav for the suggestions and help with the last one.

I'm generally pretty happy with this image but welcome suggestions and critiques. My main question is whether more could have been done in the conversion to BW. I'm using Aperture and its built in presets but then tweaking to make it better to my eye. Problem is that I have no real notion of what I should be doing beyond playing with the sliders til I see something I like.

Thanks in advance for any time and thought you put into this.





Camera Nikon D80
Exposure 0.017 sec (1/60)
Aperture f/5.0
Focal Length 35 mm
ISO Speed 200
Exposure Bias 0 EV

[Tzetsin]

Now before I begin, i'm a bit of a hack when it comes to post... so do what i suggest, then drop it by about 70% ;D

your image really lacks punch. the best way to add punch is to increase contrast.

The best black and white images are created from photos that have:

1: a lot of texture
2: a lot of tonal contrasts
3: a wide dynamic range of light.

your image has alot of texture. I'm sure thats what drew you into taking the photo of an otherwise boring scene.

Some things to remember before doing your edits.

1: identify the subject of your scene. You will absolutely want to have your viewer look at this first, or at least have them looking somewhere then following "something" to end up at the subject.

2: the human eye naturall falls on the "lightest" part of the scene. This is important because your subject here is the bench (unless i'm missing something) and its very dark, surrounded by very light.

3: contrast shows texture. for you here in this shot, the texture of the bench is the 'real" subject, it just happens to be on the bench, so you'll want to play that up as much as you can by increasing the contrast in that area.

Now i dont know anything about aperture because I really hate apple, but i'll assume that its a bit like lightroom (?) anyway, however you can do it, DONT apply global edits of contrast. what i mean is however you can do it with aperture, increase the contrast of the bench ONLY. at the same time, maby try to reduce the contrast in the other lighter areas. This is going to defocus the areas we really dont care so much about, and bring in tighter focus to the area we DO care about.

the next thing I would do is burn the edges a bit, or create a vignette to really bring in the focus to the bench, and help draw the eye away from the light background.

just those two simple edits should be enough to bring focus back to the texture.

I'm not real big on the composition either though, i think that if you were to crop it in such a way as to keep its identity as a bench, but bring in the texture a little more the photo would be more interesting. Dont be afraid of shooting "detail" shots. these shots are shots of a portion of a whole. these kind of shots can be very interesting, especially in this case where the subject is really not the bench at all.

[Infinite Monkey]

Some really good advice there Tzetsin. Thanks. Yes, Aperture is very much like Lightroom and I should be able to brush in the contrast areas that you've suggested. I'm very much new to post production and relatively new to digital photography in general and most edits I've made to date have been global so this will present me a nice challenge to see if I can do as you suggest.

[IABoomer]

Is there a channel mixer which lets you adjust the luminance values of different colors in the B&W mix? If so, you could possibly use that to darken the background element more easily than painting in an adjustment.

I'd be curious to see a SOOC color version to see where things started and have a quick go at doing a conversion.

While not conversion related, I do think a composition where the lines of the bench cut more across the frame at an angle and pull the viewer in might be stronger than the end view with the lines leading me to this bright blown background.

[EOBeav]

About conversions: I've been doing b/w quite a bit lately, and have just picked up what I know in bits and pieces on the web. Take my advice accordingly. There are a few givens for my images: I like blue skies to be dark, so that means moving the blue and aqua sliders to the left. Foliage comes through on the green and yellow channels, so that means moving those back and forth to either blend in with their surroundings, or (if I want to emphasize that color) make it stand out. It all depends on what my subject is, and how I want it to stand out. I don't know that there is any one right way to do it, but it's important to have a solid approach so that you're not just moving sliders back and forth at random. Look at your image, see what you want to emphasize, see what you want lighter or darker, and make your move.

Hope that helps.

[Infinite Monkey]

Originally Posted by IABoomer

Is there a channel mixer which lets you adjust the luminance values of different colors in the B&W mix? If so, you could possibly use that to darken the background element more easily than painting in an adjustment.

Yeah, there is. I'll have to play with it some more.

Originally Posted by IABoomer

I'd be curious to see a SOOC color version to see where things started and have a quick go at doing a conversion.

Wow, that would be great. I'll have to dig out the original color version. I'll try to post that later this evening. Thanks.

Originally Posted by IABoomer

While not conversion related, I do think a composition where the lines of the bench cut more across the frame at an angle and pull the viewer in might be stronger than the end view with the lines leading me to this bright blown background.

You might be right. As somebody else suggested, it was the textures that appealed to me when I took it, particularly the lichen on the ends of the slats. But there could be more available there.

[Infinite Monkey]

Here's the original RAW file. Overexposed to begin with.

[Infinite Monkey]

Originally Posted by EOBeav

About conversions: I've been doing b/w quite a bit lately, and have just picked up what I know in bits and pieces on the web. Take my advice accordingly. There are a few givens for my images: I like blue skies to be dark, so that means moving the blue and aqua sliders to the left. Foliage comes through on the green and yellow channels, so that means moving those back and forth to either blend in with their surroundings, or (if I want to emphasize that color) make it stand out. It all depends on what my subject is, and how I want it to stand out. I don't know that there is any one right way to do it, but it's important to have a solid approach so that you're not just moving sliders back and forth at random. Look at your image, see what you want to emphasize, see what you want lighter or darker, and make your move.

Hope that helps.

That does help a lot. I've been trying to evolve from "just moving sliders back and forth at random" to establishing a sensible work flow. Part of my problem is that I've really only been doing global adjustments. I'm going to have to start experimenting with going beyond that. I like dark skies in BW, too, but where I live the sky is usually white to pale gray, as fog is something of a constant. The lighthouse shot you commented on yesterday was an exception, where I had a blue sky to work with and was able to darken it even more. I don't know, though, how I would darken a white to neutral gray sky. The curse of living on the Northern California coast.

[IABoomer]

This may not be perfect, but it's a take on the image. I've got the before and after side-by-side views from my Lightroom, plus the develop settings.

I didn't play with the individual color luminosity too much. A global reduction in exposure, combined with some fill lighting kept the bench detail while toning down the background. The crop put the end of the bench in focus and got rid of much of the bright distracting background. A push of the black levels added some contrast to make the growth on the end of the bench pop more.

[Infinite Monkey]

Very nice, IABoomer. I'm not sure about the crop to portrait but I like what you've done with the conversion and the overall image. Thanks for taking the time and for giving me the step by step on what you did to get there. Much appreciated.