Flowers in B&W

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Originally Posted by bnnrcn

If you didn't see the color one you wouldn't know if there were any details in the white flowers or not, they might have been pure white anyway. So, why did you look for details in the white flowers at first sight?

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Because there was so much detail in the flowers displayed on the left. I liked that detail and missed it in the flowers on the right. Even if the flowers on the right had not displayed any detail in the physical scene, I still would have preferred a photo with all of the characteristics of yours plus different flowers with more detail on the right. I'm sure the gardener would have been happy to accommodate you. :D

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I tried to convert the original to B&W with a B&W adjustment layer in PS instead of the different technique I applied, no good results again:( I was only able to get very little detail with a green filter....Do you think I lost so much information while converting because I was already editing a JPG file with less information?

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I tried converting using a color filter and found that no single color filter would bring out the detail in both sets of flowers while also keeping the two sets looking very different. So, I converted everything in the image using a yellow-green filter to reveal the detail in the flowers on the right. I then erased the conversion in the flowers on the left and converted them using a blue-green filter.

Please keep in mind that I spent only about 10 or 15 minutes on this and spent almost all of that time trying (perhaps unsuccessfully) to at least partly replicate the overall look of your image.


http://i57.tinypic.com/2u8axq0.jpg

I forgot to explicitly mention in my previous post that the issue could not be explained by working on a JPEG rather than a RAW file. The JPEG displays the detail in the color version so the information is there to be brought out in the monochrome version.

Thanks for taking the time to try to bring out the details better Mike, your edit is different than mine but it is certainly a nice image on its own :) Have you added some gaussian blur to the image in your edit? I can notice some softness which suits the image.

No gaussian blur, Binnur. My edit steps were:

1. Converted everything except the flowers on the left using the yellow-green filter.
2. Converted the flowers on the left using the blue-green filter.
3. Added a small amount of Local Contrast Enhancement to the flowers on the left to get them to look more like yours.
4. Darkened the areas in between the flowers to get that area to look more like yours.
5. Added SEP's Copper Toner #18 to get the toning to look more like yours (though decided afterward that you probably used Copper Toner #17).

Came to this one late, cant comment on any of the tech stuff, but i was unsure as to converting flowers to B & W so dropped in to see - Nice and unexpected to a degree as my reason for photoing flowers to a great extent is the colour and tones of them and often the contrasting colours, I like what both of you have done with the image, to see the tones in B&W is educational for me.

Thanks Mike :) I have just tried the neutral B&W conversion in SEP2 and noticed that the details can be seen much better than the photoshop's default conversion ( well, there is actually no detail at all in PS default conversion). Because I was trying a different technique , I didn't edit this image with SEP2 , I only added a copper tone 18 with some reduced strength to the image. I think,the more I try B&W conversions the more I find SEP2 superior to PS and I will stick with it after trying different conversion techniques in my book.

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Originally Posted by Mike Buckley

No gaussian blur, Binnur. My edit steps were:

1. Converted everything except the flowers on the left using the yellow-green filter.
2. Converted the flowers on the left using the blue-green filter.
3. Added a small amount of Local Contrast Enhancement to the flowers on the left to get them to look more like yours.
4. Darkened the areas in between the flowers to get that area to look more like yours.
5. Added SEP's Copper Toner #18 to get the toning to look more like yours (though decided afterward that you probably used Copper Toner #17).

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Thanks for looking and commenting Mark :) I'm learning from the books I read about B&W conversions that flowers too are important subjects in B&W photography. Flower images especially taken with a macro lens make really nice artistic B&W images.

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Originally Posted by marlunn

Came to this one late, cant comment on any of the tech stuff, but i was unsure as to converting flowers to B & W so dropped in to see - Nice and unexpected to a degree as my reason for photoing flowers to a great extent is the colour and tones of them and often the contrasting colours, I like what both of you have done with the image, to see the tones in B&W is educational for me.

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We're all different, but it makes lots of sense to me that you would choose to use the same software almost all of the time to make your monochrome images. I do the same because doing so initially leads to obtaining greater command of the various capabilities of the software sooner rather than later and because once that has happened, you enjoy the ease that comes with that familiarity. If you're constantly jumping around from one software app to another one, those benefits would be delayed at least for me.

I also can't imagine that you could go wrong with using SEP as your go-to software application. Even though I have used it very little, it's very evident that its reputation for easily producing high-quality images is well deserved.

I usually use some blending modes or do some subtle treatments and/or cloning,dodging etc. in PS after editing my images in SEP2, so I use both softwares for their different functions. But I really like various brightness, contrast and structure options and color filters (yellow,green etc)in SEP2 and I can say that it is my main software for B&W, PS only helps when/if necessary. My book teaches different techniques for B&W conversions with different softwares and I'm currently trying them with some of my images to see how they work. I agree with you that working with the same software is very useful. After finishing my book and confirming by trial that SEP 2 is still my fav, I will be doing most of my conversions with it.

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Originally Posted by Mike Buckley

We're all different, but it makes lots of sense to me that you would choose to use the same software almost all of the time to make your monochrome images. I do the same because doing so initially leads to obtaining greater command of the various capabilities of the software sooner rather than later and because once that has happened, you enjoy the ease that comes with that familiarity. If you're constantly jumping around from one software app to another one, those benefits would be delayed at least for me.

I also can't imagine that you could go wrong with using SEP as your go-to software application. Even though I have used it very little, it's very evident that its reputation for easily producing high-quality images is well deserved.

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What book are you referring to? We don't allow secrets around here. :D

:D Not a secret at all. It is ' Creative Black and White by Harold Davis'.

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Originally Posted by Mike Buckley

What book are you referring to? We don't allow secrets around here. :D

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I am late to this post so I have not read any comments...I will later on, offline...but I like the conversion and the composition so far. It is very different from the straight black and white we have already seen so far...Love it.

Thanks Isabel, I'm glad that members usually liked the composition and the unusual conversion :)

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Originally Posted by IzzieK

I am late to this post so I have not read any comments...I will later on, offline...but I like the conversion and the composition so far. It is very different from the straight black and white we have already seen so far...Love it.

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