Not sure best way to do B&W conversions...Help?

[sheila3]

Hi all! I love playing with B&W conversions. Unfortunately I do not feel I know what I'm doing or what the outcome should be. I remember reading that a true B&W should be just that and have B&W not just greys. Here is a photo of Maggie that I converted. The first one I converted to B&W with gradient then adjusted brightness and then levels. The second one I don't think I messed with brightness as much. Which do you think is better? And anyone have any good reads on B&W conversions that you can refer me to? Also posted colored version just for fun and if anyone wants to mess with it feel free. Unfortunately that isn't original because I have a severe case of mommy brain and I deleted original. Thanx for any and all critique and help!







Canon Rebel EOS XS
50 mm lens
ISO 100
1/250
f/3.5
no flash

[pesawa]

The hat is dead black but in the color version there is some structure. Try to keep that.

And the lighter spots on the left shoulder look very artificial. You don't see that in the colored version.

Hope that helps a bit,

/p

[IABoomer]

I'm not sure what program you're using to do these, so I can't offer any specific steps. Here's what I did with GIMP. Both images are too wide for posting here, so click the thumbnails for full-sized images.

The left is the original. The middle was a simple gradient map with black and white. The right I adjusted the curves a little, as shown in the second image.





Obviously, you could play around with the curves some, or with dodging and burning to lighten/darken selected areas after converting.

[Photologyst]

Beautiful shot of a lovely girl.

I adjusted the colour photo in LR.




Virtual copied and converted to High Contrast B & W with exposure toned down because of clipping. Also did some recovery work. Used tone curve adjustments for the hat and the sleeve to bring out texture/contrast. I also tried a bit of a crop.



You might want to read this: Converting a Digital Color Photo into Black and White

[edbayani]

i am a beginner when it comes to bw conversion. i do like bw but have done it only lately.
here is a conversion that i did by putting a blank layer and filling with black and changed the blending mode to color, and adjusted the bg layer a bit before merging. then adjusted with curves and selected portions that i thought needed some lighening and burning and and adjusted them.

[sheila3]

Originally Posted by pesawa

The hat is dead black but in the color version there is some structure. Try to keep that.

And the lighter spots on the left shoulder look very artificial. You don't see that in the colored version.

Hope that helps a bit,

/p

Thanx /p! Yes I did notice that the hat looked like I had colored it in with a black marker. And yeah the sleeve looks weird. Thanx for the feedback.

[sheila3]

Originally Posted by IABoomer

I'm not sure what program you're using to do these, so I can't offer any specific steps. Here's what I did with GIMP. Both images are too wide for posting here, so click the thumbnails for full-sized images.

The left is the original. The middle was a simple gradient map with black and white. The right I adjusted the curves a little, as shown in the second image.





Obviously, you could play around with the curves some, or with dodging and burning to lighten/darken selected areas after converting.

Thanx IABoomer! I really like your conversion. I have photoshop elements 6. I've gone back and played with some pictures using curves on there. Thanx for tip.

[sheila3]

Originally Posted by Photologyst

Beautiful shot of a lovely girl.

I adjusted the colour photo in LR.




Virtual copied and converted to High Contrast B & W with exposure toned down because of clipping. Also did some recovery work. Used tone curve adjustments for the hat and the sleeve to bring out texture/contrast. I also tried a bit of a crop.



You might want to read this: Converting a Digital Color Photo into Black and White

Thnx Photolygyst! I like the eyes in your conversions and also the crop. And thanx for the read. I will check that out.

[sheila3]

Originally Posted by edbayani

i am a beginner when it comes to bw conversion. i do like bw but have done it only lately.
here is a conversion that i did by putting a blank layer and filling with black and changed the blending mode to color, and adjusted the bg layer a bit before merging. then adjusted with curves and selected portions that i thought needed some lighening and burning and and adjusted them.

Thnx edbayani! I like how you were able to maintain the texture in her hat. Thnx for helping

[RLucas]

I know absolutely nothing about PSE, but if you can do layers, this is how I did it.
I use GIMP, but I opened your image and made two duplicate layers.
I changed the blend mode to the first one to screen, and reduced the opacity to 20%.
The second layer I changed the blend mode to soft light.
I went back to the screen layer, and added a layer mask, and brushed over the tree and the background to darken it back up.
I thought that gave it a nice tonal range to start with.
I merged those layers, did a slight S curve, and added a high pass sharpen, and inverted it to get a little of the softness in her skin back. The opacity of the reversed high pass was reduced to 20%.
Merged these layers, and added another edge mask sharpen at .5 pixels, and 150%
Flattened, and saved.
This is my effort. Hope you like!