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<blockquote data-quote="WayneF" data-source="post: 509977" data-attributes="member: 12496">Just one opinion, just a talking point, but I think a bit of actual white tone and actual black tone would help your picture to sparkle.That was a rule for Ansel Adams, to always have something very black and also something very white in his pictures.&nbsp;&nbsp; Contrast is that range of tones.&nbsp; He did it with dodging and burning, no digital yet.&nbsp; Maybe his pictures were often not realistic views of nature, because they were extremely manipulated, but they were very eye catching and we can say his was considered to be good B&amp;W work.&nbsp;&nbsp; Contrast was most of it, and contrast is about all B&amp;W has going for it.In the Levels tool (the histogram tool), we just adjust the black point higher to be at least where the data actually starts.&nbsp; Same for white point, to be adjusted lower to be&nbsp; at least where the data actually starts at that end.&nbsp; And even a bit more than that is not always bad (for B&amp;W...&nbsp; like shown below).&nbsp;&nbsp; It is clipping then of course, which changes the colors in RGB, and excessive clipping can lose detail in B&amp;W, but it really can help contrast (in B&amp;W).&nbsp; B&amp;W needs more contrast than color, which is not so good for color work, in general.<img src="http://www.scantips.com/g2/lev2.gif" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" />The highlights were already slightly clipped, but this was only the tiny scattered drops splashing. My notion is that a bit larger white areas would be good, more dramatic.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="WayneF, post: 509977, member: 12496"] Just one opinion, just a talking point, but I think a bit of actual white tone and actual black tone would help your picture to sparkle. That was a rule for Ansel Adams, to always have something very black and also something very white in his pictures. Contrast is that range of tones. He did it with dodging and burning, no digital yet. Maybe his pictures were often not realistic views of nature, because they were extremely manipulated, but they were very eye catching and we can say his was considered to be good B&W work. Contrast was most of it, and contrast is about all B&W has going for it. In the Levels tool (the histogram tool), we just adjust the black point higher to be [B]at least[/B] where the data actually starts. Same for white point, to be adjusted lower to be[B] at least[/B] where the data actually starts at that end. And even a bit more than that is not always bad (for B&W... like shown below). It is clipping then of course, which changes the colors in RGB, and excessive clipping can lose detail in B&W, but it really can help contrast (in B&W). B&W needs more contrast than color, which is not so good for color work, in general. [IMG]http://www.scantips.com/g2/lev2.gif[/IMG] The highlights were already slightly clipped, but this was only the tiny scattered drops splashing. My notion is that a bit larger white areas would be good, more dramatic. [/QUOTE]

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