boy trouble

[ranchermom]

I am really unsure of my people skills when it comes to my shooting. I have my first family shoot coming up and i need all the cc i can get!!
Meet my nephew! He was pretty easy to shoot. this is a b/w conversion, and im having trouble getting the balance that i want, please let me know what ya'll think. i'll take any other advice ya throw out there too!

Thanx



Camera Nikon D60
Exposure 0.01 sec (1/100)
Aperture f/4.0
Focal Length 55 mm
Focal Length 55.0 mm
ISO Speed 200
Exposure Bias +1/3 EV
Flash No Flash

i am pretty sure my external flash was on and fired.

[MrJones]

I love the photo and the pose, though the cut off hand is a bit of a turn off..
when doing BW conversions you want blacks and you want whites. is this photo you have neither, just many shades of gray.
a quick thumb rule when doing BW conversions: take the contrast to the end and then back up till you got what you want. BW requires both blacks and whites to be present (hence the name).
here is a quick edit I did to show you what I mean:

[ranchermom]

Thank you! I've struggled with my conversions and have not figured out how to get them black and white. I could tell it was flat. I will go back and give my pics some adjusting!!

[edbayani]

just lacks contrast and looks like a bit sepia.
i cropped it and desaturated and increased contrast using levels and fine tuned with dodge and burn.

[SusanH1970]

I like this photo...what method did you use for the conversion?

I think MrJones was pretty darn close with his edit, and I really like Ed's crop. I had a play also...he's a bit underexposed in the original, I brought up the midtones in levels and did a curves adjustment layer for contrast, then borrowed Ed's crop. .

I'm still not 100% satisfied with it...would you mind posting a SOOC?

[ranchermom]

here he is SOOC

i just used iPhoto to convert to b/w and color boost. I also deepened the saturation and the contrast, sharpened and definition. My pp system is very basic, im not smart enought yet to use GIMP or PS.

[Surprised]

I'm no expert but I like this one -- the narrowed eyes and the rugged look tell a story. Now, if he had a few days'-worth of stubble too...

The only thing that's slightly distracted for me is the position of his head in relation to the abrupt change of background. That may be just me though -- so many of my pictures seem to have railings or fences or railway tracks or goodness-knows-what sticking out of people's heads, I guess it's something that distracts me easily!

But as I say, a great pic. Thanks for sharing.