Post your B&W shots here

[Wirefox]

This is superb. Lovely textures - it's almost as if you could reach out and touch it. Well done.

Thanks Carregwen. I thought Imay have overdone the PP but monochrome is very forgiving.

You sure know how to do this in perfection !
Very very nice.

Cheers Antonio. These comments have given me a much needed boost. I had a bit of a downer last week because I could not seem to get my head around obtaining consistent shots with a flash gun. I saw the light (groan) this afternoon and as far as I am concerned the trick is to shoot fully manual and exercise full control over the camera settings and let ETTL do its magic with the flash settings. Carregwens pin shot also reminded me that natural light can be used to great effect.

This picture was shot under poor light with hight ISO.
These people were standing in front o us waiting to be photographed while we were looking at their goods.
The colored version is a poor one

This image has a wonderful renaissance feel to it. (Raphael perhaps). A seriously memorable shot. This is not a tit for tat compliment I really do think that this image has that certain something.

Pixel Pete, the shadows of the birds on the wires was well spotted. Good exposure for mid-day too.

Steve

[Donald]

Very nicely captured and converted, Donald. There is a good dialogue in the shot.

Rob
Many thanks for your comment. I got the camera out to try and get the sense of the farmers etc meeting up with those they may not have seen for a year, and the sociability of that. I have known the man in the middle all of my life and he and my father were great friends in their youth (and still are).

[Jim B.]

90mm f/11 ISO 640 1/125"
Set black and white points in ACR.Adjustment layer-levels,gradient map layer.Tweaked RGB channels in levels layer.Flattened image.Lighting , contrast adjusted in Elements7Applied slight USM.

[eNo]

This is superb. Lovely textures - it's almost as if you could reach out and touch it. Well done.

I concur. That jacket close-up is outstanding.

[carregwen]

90mm f/11 ISO 640 1/125"
Set black and white points in ACR.Adjustment layer-levels,gradient map layer.Tweaked RGB channels in levels layer.Flattened image.Lighting , contrast adjusted in Elements7Applied slight USM.

Good detail and light in that, Jim. hard to do a good botanic shot in B+W. Nice one.

[Alis]

Highest contrast I could get:

[carregwen]

Highest contrast I could get:

You can see in this shot how the contrast is good near the light, but falls off towards the right, away from the lamp. Light is so important in b+w for giving contrast and shape. Is that black box a tea-chest? It seems to have the word Lipton on it.

[carregwen]

Here's an unusual one. I know a lot of people don't consider this to be photography, but it did come from a decent photograph. A pen and ink version of a shot I did a few weeks ago. If you want to try it here is the link that explains how (look under 'P' for 'pen and ink technique') http://www.crhfoto.co.uk/knowhowlist.htm It works best on a shot with lots of detail.

Swansea Marina pen and ink

[peterb533]

Back from holiday in Lake District where it rained most days, still managed to get out and about but limited what I could shoot.
This Lake Windemere from Keswick on a typical day. Converted using Nik Silver Efx Pro, sharpened etc in PS4.

[carregwen]

Back from holiday in Lake District where it rained most days, still managed to get out and about but limited what I could shoot.
This Lake Windemere from Keswick on a typical day. Converted using Nik Silver Efx Pro, sharpened etc in PS4.

Good shot. A very nice composition. I used to have a shot of those boats and I could never remember where it was - so thanks for that.

[Antonio Correia]

To tell you the truth I don't know any more what I did on this photo.
Well, not exactly but...
It came from LR as black and white and then worked on the canvas after adjusting the image under Filter Distort Lens Correction to emphasize the dramatism of the jungle the way I felt was better.
I also post the original image without any treatment for you to compare.
It was time consuming because I know little of CS4

Original

First version

The version I like best because it is simpler and more effective

[Wirefox]

This Lake Windemere from Keswick on a typical day

It must have been an exceptionally clear day to see Windermere from Keswick

Nice image but I have my old personal gripe about burning the sky to give a more broody feeling. Sorry (but not surprised) to hear about the weather. Having lived in Cumbria and having spent my formative years travelling up the motorway every Friday night to tramp across the fells on a 4 year pub crawl I can honestly say that autumn and winter are by far the most predictable months weather wise.

[Antonio Correia]

Another one.
The mist just came all of a sudden.

The work was done on LR and CS.
To B&W it was done in LR while the other work is from CS.

[Alis]

You can see in this shot how the contrast is good near the light, but falls off towards the right, away from the lamp. Light is so important in b+w for giving contrast and shape. Is that black box a tea-chest? It seems to have the word Lipton on it.

Thanks for the comments. Actually, I have noticed that when my shots are overexposed, they make pretty good black and white pictures.

And you are right about the black box, good eyes!

[Alis]

Converted using ACR, tweaked curves, sharpenned, and cropped in PS CS4 and reduced slight noise using Neat Image:

[peterb533]

It must have been an exceptionally clear day to see Windermere from Keswick

Nice image but I have my old personal gripe about burning the sky to give a more broody feeling. Sorry (but not surprised) to hear about the weather. Having lived in Cumbria and having spent my formative years travelling up the motorway every Friday night to tramp across the fells on a 4 year pub crawl I can honestly say that autumn and winter are by far the most predictable months weather wise.

After two weeks in the rain one body of water looks much like another!

[carregwen]

Three eggs lined up in a row. I used f5.6 for this with a Sigma 105mm macro lens.

Eggistentialism

[carregwen]

Cardiff Stadium (Rugby). Shot in RAW and converted in CS4/Photo Retouche B&W

"I was never good at geometry"

[Antonio Correia]

This was shot with just one off camera flash.
I had problems with the background...

[jolee6]

White Tiger.
took from S'pore zoo in colour mode then converted in photoshop gradient map.