M8 and B&W [Archive] - Rangefinderforum.com

MP Guy

01-03-2007, 20:03

I took a bunch of my pictures and converted them to B&W with PS. Please prvide your thoughts on them ....

http://www.flickr.com/photos/torralba/sets/72157594458059290/

Thanks

paulhart

01-03-2007, 22:53

Nice shots. What were those with the very shallow DOF taken with?

J. Borger

01-03-2007, 23:04

Some realy nce shots in there Jorge.
Especially like the portraits of your kids, and to be more specific the picture of your daughter in the strong light (monalisabw).

ruben

01-04-2007, 00:29

Hi Jorge,
Of course the technicalities are the last think I look after when I see pics, unless serious shortcommings jump to my eyes. So I specially like the Monalisa and the wooden wheels pics. If the monalise is your daughter, I concede you my acquittal for any amount of money you have invested in gear (although gear is not what made this pict - what the hell !).

If the look at the computer screen is what you were asking about, well I am seeing your pics from my LCD screened computer at work, and I have noticed that LCD sceens highly improve the looking of BW images. From this situation, yours look perfect.

Cheers,
Ruben

Nachkebia

01-04-2007, 01:25

You need to control white tone, all the digital files need to be white tone manipulated well at least for monitor

iml

01-04-2007, 01:48

I like the portraits of what I guess are your children, very nicely done.

Ian

jaapv

01-04-2007, 04:50

I like them Jorge. What B&W conversion did you use?

MP Guy

01-04-2007, 09:01

Ara Ghajanian

01-04-2007, 09:13

Jaapv,

I just used PS gray scale conversion. I think I need to adjust my monitor since it looks so different on other monitors. I just bought a Gateway monitor and today is the last day I have for returning it. I may actually do so and upgrade to a better monitor.

You should really use the Channel Mixer adjustment layer in PS. It will give you so much more control that you'll wonder what you did without it.
Ara

jaapv

01-04-2007, 09:41

What I do: Create a levels layer, create a gradient layer and adjust the levels in the colour channels in the levels layer and flatten and only then remove colour information. Works in Elements as well. I think the standard PS conversion is rather flat without much control. But I may be wrong, your shots seem to prove that.

Topdog1

01-04-2007, 10:13

I very much liked the MonaLisa, Wheels, and snow trio. The snow trio seemed to have too many unifrom grey tones, so could have used some more interesting light to brighten it up and add contrast.

Regards,
Ira

MP Guy

01-04-2007, 10:15

All those adjustment are too technical for me. I need a lesson or a step by step instruction cheat sheet.

Topdog1

01-04-2007, 10:24

All those adjustment are too technical for me. I need a lesson or a step by step instruction cheat sheet.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who finds these descriptions mystifying. I have no idea what people are talking about when they suggest making a B&W in PS that way.

/Ira

ruben

01-04-2007, 10:26

All those adjustment are too technical for me. I need a lesson or a step by step instruction cheat sheet.

Are you sure you must them ?

rsl

01-04-2007, 12:54

Jorge, I've made a lot of grayscale conversions from color over the past several years, using straight grayscale, desaturating (which is the same thing), converting to Lab and using the L, lightness channel, using the luminance mask, using channel mixer (very flexible), and using calculations (even more flexiible). But the best methods I've found are the black and white conversion filters in Nik color efex pro. If I can figure out how to attach a couple of pictures to this post you can see for yourself.

Robert

01-04-2007, 13:29

Jorge, your photos are nice, some of the black and white look better than the colour originals.
The photos show some nice tones.
I tend to please myself and if I like the way I produce a print I don't care if someone says I would have been better doing it this way or the other.

mwooten

01-04-2007, 16:50

All those adjustment are too technical for me. I need a lesson or a step by step instruction cheat sheet.
Jorge,
While I use Adobe's Lightroom for my b&w conversion, here is a link to a quicktime movie about using a couple of adjustment layers to convert color to b&w that you might like;
http://av.adobe.com/russellbrown/ColortoBW.mov
The neatist thing about using adjustment layers in photoshop is that nothing is final until, and if, you flatten the file.
There are a bunch of methods to convert color to b&w, and everyone seems to have their favorite.

Take care,
Michael

cnguyen

01-04-2007, 17:23

Good pics , Jorge ! Just got my M8 tonight. Battery is charging.:)

marco_rol

01-04-2007, 19:08

Jorge,

Those are really nice. Here's (yet another) step-by-step tutorial that I have found helpful for B&W conversion in PS that provides nice results.

http://www.journalofaphotographer.com/workflow_tutorials/tutorial_converting_color_images_to_black_and_whit e.php

Marco

andersju

01-04-2007, 20:11

And here's yet another tutorial. I've tried the one linked above, but this technique is much simpler (just channel mixer+contrast curve - make an action of it) and I find the results more pleasing:

http://www.markushartel.com/tutorials/archives/2006/08/color_to_bw_con.html

The author also has a page with channel mixer settings simulating various films (Tri-X, T-Max, Delta, HP5, etc.):

http://www.markushartel.com/tutorials/archives/2006/11/channel_mixer_s_1.html

HansRoggen

01-05-2007, 08:04

Here's one someone in another forum came accross at Shutterbug:

It's pretty simple and quick.

1. Open a color image
2. Add a Hue/Saturation layer with blend mode Color
3. Add another Hue/Saturation layer with Saturation -100 (blend mode Normal)
4. To adjust BW tonal distribution, vary the Hue slider in the first Hue/Saturation layer

Hans

MP Guy

01-05-2007, 08:30

I will try these in the next few days. I don't have a monitor now on my PC sice I returned the Gateway. I am looking at apple monitors but hear the show next week may reveal some new ones. So I am on hold.

boilerdoc2

01-05-2007, 18:40

Jorge, those are REALLY good. Keep it going....

KJB

01-05-2007, 21:25

Great shots Jorge. I'm also enjoying the best B+W I've had in digital and without lots of postprocessing since getting the M8.

And I use Lightroom saturation -100, Tone Curve to linear, change default brightness +50 to zero, and increase fill light as necessary to bring out the desired tone as a starting point. Its quick and easy which is a priority for me as I don't like spending hours in PP if I can avoid it.