my first foray into the dark side (black & white)

[JBW]

OOPs hard to tell yeah that is it

in colour it is obvious. One more lesson learned

[ajohnw]

I don't think it's possible to give definitive rules to pick a shot for conversion to black and white. There is loosely 3 schools of thought on black and white images.

Ultra contrasty with even grain added. The shot you posted borders on that but part of this is down to dense shadows. This approach is probably at it's best in portraits of aged / lined faces etc. Tramps have been a favourite at times. Often over done digitally.

An aged faded 1800's look but it's worth looking at some old photo's if you can to see what sort of gradation they had. Grain might be added to this too. Gradation in the real thing was better than some might think. Manfred did one that had the same style of gradation as faded newspaper print. There are all sorts of options on this one including adding a bit of hand colouring.

What might be called good black and white. This can make full use of the dynamic range of a monitor and will have pastel tones and good gradation. I tried to go that way with the version I posted. There are several reasons it wont work on this shot, one for instance is the detail in the straw roof. The result really is a photo of part of a straw roof. A shot of the entire house is much more likely to work out. I have already mentioned other problems. In terms of dynamic range it's clipped at both ends so that aspect in itself isn't a good thing to look for. Neither is strong features. Some people choose shots full of interesting shapes rather than fine detail. Not my thing so they don't appeal to me but obviously do to the people who take them. Architectural features in shopping malls etc.

One problem with producing black and white is the pre processing while in colour that can be needed. I for one can never be certain what the result of the conversion will be. This can mean a lot of trial and error. The basic aim while in colour is usually to add contrast some how to make up for the loss of it when the shot is in black and white as colour does add contrast after a fashion. It differentiates things. Contrast might just be added by increasing it in certain colour channels rather than the whole thing. Subtle tone mapping can be useful too.

Lots of the black and white conversion routines in packages are just too simple. May as well just desaturate and play with that. The eg conversion is aimed at making full use of gradation and there are several others in the GIMP.

Look forwards to a shot of the entire house. I think you may find that can work out if angles etc are interesting.

John
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[JBW]

Look forwards to a shot of the entire house. I think you may find that can work out if angles etc are interesting.

John
-[/QUOTE]

This I can guaranty, our Bamboo house has lots of angles. One thing that no one has mentioned yet is shooting in black and white instead of converting. My camera does have a black and white option.
B.

[ajohnw]

Try both Brian.

John
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[JBW]

Try both Brian.

John
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I did today and the shot was dramatic but the cloudy sky turned the tree into an outline. But i am going to explore the dark side for a while. Heck it took me almost 10,000 shots to get competent with bugs.

[ajohnw]

Actually clouds might help a shot like that Brian. It's all down to processing. It's a pity Ansel Adams only shot landscapes.

I'd be inclined to say if there are strong cloud details in a house shot don't include too many. The sky line might be around the top 1/3. Same if it's flat or even less. A sky in black and white will either be flat or have cloud shapes. A blue sky can come out the same as a grey one.

It's a photo of a house so should the trees stand out the same amount? An artist would paint the house in great detail. The rest would be sketchy and no one would notice. If the house is only part of the scene it still needs some thought. If everything stands out there will be nothing to grab a viewers attention. Constable was a master of this sort of thing - but in colour. For instance complete with a chopped off house. I wonder what the C&C would be on a photo like this.

http://www.john-constable.org/Mill-a...-26-large.html

One of the things I find interesting about his work is the added interest he puts into scenes. There are several in this one that wont be noticed until some one looks around the painting. There is in most famous painters work on subjects like this otherwise it would be boring.

John
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[Mike Buckley]

It's a pity Ansel Adams only shot landscapes.

One of my favorite photos by anyone is this informal portrait by Adams of Georgia O'Keeffe and Orville Cox.

[Mike Buckley]

One thing that no one has mentioned yet is shooting in black and white instead of converting.

None of my camera manuals explain the process that is used when setting the camera to black and white. Lacking that understanding, I have never tried it.

Some people shoot in black-and-white to determine if the scene would look good. I have never tried it. That's because I will only know when an image captured that way looks good. It's very possible that an image captured that way will not look good but will look great when captured in color and then post-processed using a best-practices workflow to get to a final black-and-white image.

[JBW]

None of my camera manuals explain the process that is used when setting the camera to black and white. Lacking that understanding, I have never tried it.

Some people shoot in black-and-white to determine if the scene would look good. I have never tried it. That's because I will only know when an image captured that way looks good. It's very possible that an image captured that way will not look good but will look great when captured in color and then post-processed using a best-practices workflow to get to a final black-and-white image.

In my Fuji Film it is as simple as pulling up the menu and third option down on the screen is black and white. Two clicks and i am in B&W.

[JBW]

One of my favorite photos by anyone is this informal portrait by Adams of Georgia O'Keeffe and Orville Cox.

it is an intriguing shot.

[JBW]

http://www.john-constable.org/Mill-a...-26-large.html

One of the things I find interesting about his work is the added interest he puts into scenes. There are several in this one that wont be noticed until some one looks around the painting. There is in most famous painters work on subjects like this otherwise it would be boring.

John
-[/QUOTE]

I have begun to realize that it may well be time to study the masters of paint.

[Mike Buckley]

In my Fuji Film it is as simple as pulling up the menu and third option down on the screen is black and white. Two clicks and i am in B&W.

Perhaps I wasn't clear enough. That simplicity is also the same on my cameras. However, the process the cameras use to produce the black-and-white image isn't explained in the manuals. Do they use a green filter when the subject is a head-and-shoulders portrait of a caucasion? Do they use a red or yellow filter when the scene is a landscape? Do they desaturate rather than use a color filter?

Now that I have hopefully clarified that, perhaps my previous post will be more helpful.

[mknittle]

In my Fuji Film it is as simple as pulling up the menu and third option down on the screen is black and white. Two clicks and i am in B&W.

My Canon 7D produces a pretty flat B&W using the in camera settings. They really need post processing to make them look good. I only rarely use the B&W setting to get an idea what an image will look like by checking the LCD on the camera. When I do that I shoot using the RAW/JPEG setting.

[ajohnw]

Some links for you Brian. More deep dark secrets so don't tell anybody else about them.

This is all photoshop and there are several video's in the group on black and white. They are excellent. I think the 1st is number 58.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_l1rDuhliM

If they start earlier than this one watch from the beginning. This was the 1st one I found. Be prepared for some brain fatigue. It's all pretty thorough.

When photoshop is used as a guide there is a need to google gimp what ever the ps thing is called.

Some of the techniques he uses are identical and listed here but the videos will help show what to adjust and why. A gradient in the GIMP is simply a new layer with gradients drawn on it. Same modes as he mentions.

http://www.gimp.org/tutorials/Color2BW/

The GIMP doesn't warn if channel mixes go over 100%. RT does the sums but it's a lot more complex to use as there are so many options.

Personally I think that eg black and white conversion probably with some of the modifications mentioned in the video while it's still in colour is another one. RT can be used for tone mapping and wont have the tone map problems PS has when using defaults. The colour mode has to be changed to get the usual yuck tone map effect.

John
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