Wrestling with B+W conversions

[Ollokot]

Hi Folks,
I have been dabbling in black and white but am not very adept, here is a conversion of a shot of a Tree and any comments and pointers would be most appreciated, photoshop was used for the conversion and I was wondering would a dedicated software be the way to go if I ever start to improve in the process,
Best Wishes, Pat

[Donald]

Pat

Going the 'dedicated software route' (such as Nik's Silver Efex Pro 2) is one option, but before you do that, I'd suggest a much cheaper step - Buy this.

In my very humble opinion, you will never do yourself a better favour if you want to get serious about B & W.

And whilst he does make reference to Silver Efex Pro, his guidance in primarily based on use of the B & W dialogue in Photoshop. If, after that, you still want to take the step to something like SEP2, then fine.

[Carl in Louisiana]

Donald suggested both of these items to me and very glad he did. I am still reading through the book and playing around with SEF2. I have been thinking more and more of some of the places I want to go and try to capture some images I think would make a good B & W. I do love a good B & W it's just something about them that color does not have, on the other hand for some images color is the only way to go. I'm hoping to have a little more time on my hands very soon to get at it.

[DanK]

You don't say what software you are using. However, if you are using Lightroom, it has excellent B&W conversion tools, quite powerful and very easy to use. One particularly nice feature is that it has a targeted adjustment tool that makes it very easy to darken or lighten specific colors. In the old days, we did this with filters when we took the picture. E.g., to darken a blue sky, you would use (if I remember right) a red filter. Many of us did not have that many filters, and if you guessed wrong, too bad. Now it is trivially easy to this, with much more flexibility, in postprocessing.

[thatguyfromvienna]

Donald is totally right.
As usual, by the way.