Always Shot B+W

[Allan Holmes]

My wet photography only involved shooting B+W and very few landscapes. Am starting to shoot some color film and print with photoshop elements and an inkjet - this post negative processing smells better than my wet darkroom but it's definitely taken me out of my comfort level. Here's one of my first pics --- the Grand Canyon. I shot a small set using the haze and a little grain as primary features. Old Rollei SL66 w/100 iso print film. Apparently, I didn't upload the print to this post. Oh well. Will try again.

[Allan Holmes]

Now that I seem to have figured out how to get a pic with the comment, am posting another in the group.

[gcowan]

Now that I seem to have figured out how to get a pic with the comment, am posting another in the group.

Hi Allan,

These are very beautiful. I love the soft light and the sharp lenses. How did you scan your negs? Were they negative or slide film?
Graham

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Allan,

I hope you don't mind, but this looked rather flat for screen display, so I had a simple edit - I used CS5, but your Elements can do everything exactly the same;


To view properly: Hit F11 on your keyboard, then click on image to see at 1000px square in Lytebox

What did I do to the image?
1) Local Contrast Enhancement with UnSharp Mask (USM): 25% (Amount), 160px (Radius), 0 (Threshold)
2) Using Levels dialog, I set 1.2 on the grey point, lifting the brightness of the image a little
3) Resized to 1008 by 1000px - mainly because as presented, it won't fit on most people's screens at 1:1 pixel (think of screen resolution) which means their browser will 'scale it' to fit and that will make it look softer than it really is
4) Post re-size sharpen, again using USM: 50%, 0.3px, 1th.
5) Auto WB (OK, I'm lazy, I should have done this first and properly with an eye dropper on the clouds to get them white)

I can't make my mind up whether the first shot needs a slight anticlockwise rotation, the land seems to slope, but that may be real.
I can't judge from the rock strata, there's nothing that says they are going to be horizontal. The semi-distant right hand cloudbases seem level, but the ones in middle slope with the land, rather odd.

Hope that helps and welcome to the CiC forums from ...

[Allan Holmes]

Hi Allan,

These are very beautiful. I love the soft light and the sharp lenses. How did you scan your negs? Were they negative or slide film?
Graham

Thanks Graham. Scanned them on Epson scanner. Negatives.

[Allan Holmes]

Thanks. A lot more than I know how to do. Don't even know what "Auto WB" refers to. Indeed, I'm pretty much mystified by the differences that come from printing them on different papers. Ilford Gallerie Gold Fiber Silk seems most like the screen image. I picked 4 negatives from the 12 shot roll I took on my only visit to the canyon. I have the idea I'll frame them as a set of 4 at 6 to 8 inches each and close to square. I was hand holding the camera and/or holding it on a rock so there's a decent chance the horizon is tilted, but I don't really remember. Grand Canyon is so spectacular it's hard for even me to take a poor pic of it. My affinity for photography is more with Diane Arbus than Ansel Adams (though I would never have made even a mediocre B+W print without his books) so I'm thinking my landscape learning curve would be especially steep even if there were no digital age. Anyway, thanks again for the redo. Allan