B&W Conversion - Portrait

[rpcrowe]

[wilgk]

Richard, for me this is absolutely beautiful.
The symmetry of her hands, hair and clothing in this pose to me are just perfect.
I would love to learn how to manage such a BW conversion as this 1 day.

[rpcrowe]

Kay,

Thank you...

The B&W conversion was simply done in Photoshop CS-5, using: Image>Adjustments>black and white. I had done this shot last year and was looking around in my image files for an image which might satisfactorily convert to monochrome. I came upon this one...

I then kicked in a bit of extra contrast.

This is what the image looked like in color...



Richard

[Sabemajeen]

Richard,
I find myself liking them both equally, but differently. I find myself focusing more on the lips and eyes of the color photo. Thanks

[dje]

Lovely shots Richard, both of them in their own way. I've got no expertise whatsoever in portraits but to me, the image quality and lighting in these shots is terrific. You've captured the lady's beauty splendidly.

Cheers Dave

[another Marcus]

Hi Richard,
a very nice shot, congrats! B&W as well as color - perfect. The composition is very harmonic and with obvious symmetry...I don't know if this portrait was done in a studio, if so I might (only might...since it is so much easier in-front of the monitor ) have asked the model to correct her hands into a more symmetric position - a minor point.

[rpcrowe]

Yes, this shot was done indoors, but hardly in a studio. Rather it was done in a friend's apartment with a couple of lights and a rather nasty muslin BG which I ironed out with the clone stamp. I only noticed the lack of symetry in her hands when I viewed it on the computer monitor. I probably would have asked her to rearrange her hand slightly if I had noticed during the shooting.

[arith]

I would say perfect. A challenge might be to get light around the sides of her neck, I don't know how but maybe something light inside the head scarf but I'm just thinking and it might not work.
I don't normally go for B+W but here I like both for different reasons; I think colour has a lot going for it.

[speedneeder]

The exposure is good. The subject is beautiful!
The dark areas around the neck are debatable. Depending on the context of the photo I can see them as good or bad.
Overall - this is a fantastic portrait! I really like it. I prefer the color version. Have you tried a tighter crop? More HER and less MUSLIN might be good.
Thanks for sharing this photo.