First black & white conversion

[djscott]

This is my first attempt at black & white conversion. To my eye it looks ok, is there anything that sticks out that you would change.



Canon EOS Digital Rebel XSi
Exposure 0.011 sec (1/90)
Aperture f/5.6
Focal Length 29 mm
ISO Speed 100

Thanks in Advance

[IABoomer]

It's kind of flat. I think if you look on this forum, you'll see a few posts about correcting levels in B&W conversions using the levels or curves tools. You could also play with the tone curve in Lightroom or (possibly) Aperture, although I'm not a Mac user, so I don't know what Aperture has available.

If you push the lights up and pull the darks down to get more of an "S" shaped tone curve, that should put some more contrast into the image. You might also want to push the exposure up a bit, as it looks a little underexposed, which is probably contributing to the flatness.

I might crop a bit of the sky out. There's not much there to hold interest. The texture of the wood really should be the focus, IMHO.

[djscott]

Thanks for the critique. I made a few changes, and hope they were for the better. I cropped out some of the sky as you suggested and also adjusted exposure and applied an "S" to curves.



The Original

[zona5101]

The second render is improved.

Still lots of gray but maybe it was an overcast day and there simply weren't any whites to capture?

[djscott]

It was an overcast day, I assume you're referring to the sky as being gray. I'll see if I can lighten it up. Thanks for the comments. I'm downloading a video that was linked in the tutorials section so hopefully I'll learn something.

I appreciate the the comments.

Originally Posted by zona5101

The second render is improved.

Still lots of gray but maybe it was an overcast day and there simply weren't any whites to capture?

[OldSailor88]

I love black and white photography, and I got tired of converting from color. So, I learned on DPS that I can set my own custom settings on my Canon XTi. So, I took one of my user settings and made it my go to black and white setting. I increased the sharpness and the contrast so that I rarely have to do any post production to my photos. Also, I can take a photo in color, and with a flick of my thumb change to my B&W setting. That way I have a quick solution to both the color world, and my world of B&W.

Your photo is an awesome idea. I love the driftwood and it's something that I would have stopped and photographed for some time.

If you increase your shadows to make more contrast, you'd be better off.

I've learned that good B&W photography is all about the contrast.

[zona5101]

Originally Posted by djscott

It was an overcast day, I assume you're referring to the sky as being gray.

Yes, the sky. It is hard to get good separation between the highlight and shadow when most everything is gray! Not much you can do about all the gray when the scene doesn't have any white

[IABoomer]

Starting from one of your low-res images, I pulled it into Lightroom. Bumped up the lights on the tone curve to about +40. Pulled down the darks to -65. Added about +15 clarity to increase some of the midtone contrast. I didn't bother with a crop on this.



I think pushing the lights helped whiten up the sky some without clipping any highlights.

[djscott]

I appreciate you taking the time to help me out. Black and white is one of those things that I need to spend some more time with, but I think the results will be well worth the effort. There seem to be a lot of little subtle things that can make or break the image.

Thanks again for the points in the right direction. Off to Aperture and Photoshop to play some more.