Black & White!

[chl0e]

Hey!

I've been trying to take photos with an eye to turning them black and white afterwards.

I was wondering what people thought of this photo I have taken. Do you think the black and white works well? Is there a way I could improve it, or certain things to look for when photographing black and white that works particularly well?

Thanks everyone ;D
Chloe
x

PS. I'm not sure if this is too big or not so I'm really sorry if it is, this is my first ever thread!




Camera: Sony DSLR-A200
Aperture: f/16
Focal Length: 18mm
Speed: 1/30
Edited on: Picnik.com (I have a premium account, but I don't have access to photoshop or anything like that)

[RLucas]

Generally, what I do when I pick an image for conversion, is look at the content to see if I think it would be suitable for the mood I want to portray. In this particular photo you have a lot of things going on. You have a tree on the left, a shed, a tree on the right, and a plow. The first thing you want to do is ddecide what your actual subject is, and concentrate on that. For me, it would have been the tree on the right, because the light gives it a bunch of contrast, which, for me is great for black and white.

If you can't afford PS or one of the commercial programs, I would suggest you download GIMP. It is a great alternative to them, and it is free! you can find it here

Also, Wulf posted a great tutorial on converting images to black and white using the GIMP. This has been the best way I can find, that doesn't leave them with that "grey haze" that the simple desaturation leaves you with. Youcan find it here

Here is what I did with your image.
It was a really simple adjustment.
After opening the image in GIMP, I just did a simple "S" curve using the curves tool to boost the contrast, then did a separate highlight, and shadow sharpen, and that was it. I hope you like it.

[chl0e]

Hey! Thanks very much for the reply, I will have to try that out.
The tutorial is really interesting, thank you for the link - I think you can do curves on Picnik.com.

You're right about the subject, although I was kind of trying to 'frame' the shed a bit with the trees, but it didn't exactly work since they don't touch very much at the top and are perhaps quite distracting.