I've had a decent camera now for about 2 years. Two things I've never done with it are b & w and video. My photography mentor and I were having a discussion on the subject after a day at the boat races. So he had me go through my images keeping in mind what to look for and I decided to convert this one. As a result of our discussion I bought a grey card online and have yet to use it instead of the back of my hand, lol. Lots more to learn always as this is really a science. still have no interest in video. That's just me, I guess. Eventualy I'll have to get back to learning B&W. In my ignorance I've kind of always thought of it as a band aid. I was wrong. I like "AHA!" moments when learning this stuff. blah blah, blah, etc, etc. Thanks for looking -Jas
First Attempt at B & W
- Thread starter bordsmnj
- Start date
singlerosa_RIP
Senior Member
Don't know if b/w does anything for this shot, unless it neutralizes what might be a distracting colorful background. Two suggestions - you might try panning to show some motion and also leave some space for the subject to move into. Here's an example using a car instead of a boat.
Like a Band-Aid? lol. I hear what your saying otherwise but I would be more interest in critique on the B&W aspect. Thanks -Jas
BackdoorArts
Senior Member
I like the idea, but outside of the boat vs. everything else it's almost too flat for me - no differentiation of pieces.
The key to true B&W photography is understanding how color "looks" when you desaturate it. It's possible to take an extremely colorful photo, desaturate it and have something very one dimensional. Desaturate an image where colors are all the same lightness value and you have basic grey and nothing else. I see a lot of that in your photo. There are different things you can do to fix this in post (which assumes you don't shoot B&W JPEG) depending on how your processing.
Lightroom allows you to tweak the various color levels in B&W mode to highlight and darken various colors. In doing this you can take what's simply a desaturated photo and make it pop a bit.
Photoshop is a little more flexible, if more complicated. I did a blog post on it which you might want to take a look at as it shows a photo on water rather similar to yours in appearance. http://nikonites.com/blogs/backdoor...-layers-photoshop-elements.html#axzz2kB26BDiH
My favorite method is using Nik Silver Efex Pro 2 as it allows the Lightroom-like methodology, along with a very easy to use and vary color filter option where you can vary how colors interact in B&W by adjusting both the hue and intensity of a color filter. Simple to use.
If you're going to shoot straight B&W you need to be very aware of getting these post-processing tweaks accounted for before you shoot. If you're shooting RAW and coverting, do more than simply desaturate to keep the photos lively.
The key to true B&W photography is understanding how color "looks" when you desaturate it. It's possible to take an extremely colorful photo, desaturate it and have something very one dimensional. Desaturate an image where colors are all the same lightness value and you have basic grey and nothing else. I see a lot of that in your photo. There are different things you can do to fix this in post (which assumes you don't shoot B&W JPEG) depending on how your processing.
Lightroom allows you to tweak the various color levels in B&W mode to highlight and darken various colors. In doing this you can take what's simply a desaturated photo and make it pop a bit.
Photoshop is a little more flexible, if more complicated. I did a blog post on it which you might want to take a look at as it shows a photo on water rather similar to yours in appearance. http://nikonites.com/blogs/backdoor...-layers-photoshop-elements.html#axzz2kB26BDiH
My favorite method is using Nik Silver Efex Pro 2 as it allows the Lightroom-like methodology, along with a very easy to use and vary color filter option where you can vary how colors interact in B&W by adjusting both the hue and intensity of a color filter. Simple to use.
If you're going to shoot straight B&W you need to be very aware of getting these post-processing tweaks accounted for before you shoot. If you're shooting RAW and coverting, do more than simply desaturate to keep the photos lively.
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BackdoorArts
Senior Member
Simple Desaturation...
Tweaking the color...
One does something for me, one doesn't.
FYI, I did zero tweaking in either to brightness or contrast. Top is saturation set to 0, bottom is essentially a layered approach where a color modifying layer is inserted between the original image and the desaturation layer. A single color filter is inserted and then individual color lightness is tweaked to desired effect.
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Mfrankfort
Senior Member
To me, B&W is for high contrast pictures... It works with some things, not so much with others.