MONOCHROME Mini Competition #1

[Dave Humphries]

Since the aim of these is to get you taking and submitting photos, let see if it can also encourage people to post monochrome (black and white) images, even if that's not in their normal photography 'diet' (e.g. like me)

Here's how it works ...

- You good folks post MONOCHROME images in the thread (please change your post title to a name for your picture)

- When we get 10 images we will attach a voting poll

- After 3 days the poll closes and the winner is declared!

- If you would especially like some critique after the competition poll closes, please make it known in the post

Too easy eh?

Limit of 1 image per post, and 2 image posts per person.

If there are already 10 in the current comp, please start a new thread in this forums

[carregwen]

Dave

Are you allowing 'tints'? Or stictly b&w?

[Donald]

Okay

One from January (that I don't think I put into any other of our competitions - apologies if I did)



Done for a friend who owns the house and put on the cover of our local village newsletter.

[Dave Humphries]

Are you allowing 'tints'? Or stictly b&w?

I think taking "monochrome" at face value; something like a sepia tint is OK.

The main thing is you usually need to shoot for monochrome, or consider it in the channels mixing (?) carefully, as a simple zero saturation shot, even with enhanced contrast, is unlikely to be very good. (or so I am learning)

Cheers,

[RonH]

Looks just like Norway, Donald ... all those hanging icycles!
Love your B/W pics ... do you have a 'how I do it PP guide' that you are willing to share?

[carregwen]

Please don't ask how I did it - I really can't remember. Something about using threshold then applying different layers and using 'levels'.

On Black

[RonH]

Lets give B/W a try ... comments/suggestions most welcome

[Jim B.]

[arith]

Well I can't think of a good title C&C welcome

[Sahil]

I am not sure if I have posted this before, in some other competition.

[ScoutR]

C&C welcome

[James G]

Shot as a Raw capture. This is a monochrome treatment, but I also , and then worked as both a colour and monochrome. Have never really made my mind up which I prefer.

[Colin Southern]

[Maritimer1]

Pots and Plots? What an interesting photo!

[zippy]

C&C always welcome

[ScoutR]

That was quick. Follow the link to MONO mini #2

MONOCHROME Mini Competition #2

[Donald]

do you have a 'how I do it PP guide' that you are willing to share?

Ron
Many thanks for your comment. Are you ready for a convoluted story?

Previously I was doing the B &W conversions in the GIMP after having processed from RAW using Canon's DPP software, or UFRaw. I previously wrote about not being content with either.

In the GIMP, my conversion was being done with the G'MIC plug-in Channel Mixer. But I was not finding that ideal either.

Although I was producing reasonable images, I wasn't getting to the standard I wanted. And then reading Freeman's 'The Complete Guide to Black & White Digital Photography', Ilex, 2009, made me even more frustrated when I saw what could be done with Adobe's Black & White dialogue. And then, not because I referred to Freeman but in another thread on the subject of RAW processing, Keith pointed me towards Raw Therapee.

This is a screenshot of Raw Therapee's Channel Mixer.



Not quite the same as Adobe's B & W dialogue, but achieving the same end and providing very fine control. Being Open Source, there are a distinct lack of tutorials about how to use this Channel Mixer to best effect. It's very much a case of learn-on-the-job. The first task is to crank the 'Colour Boost' down to '-100' and then tweak the channels from there.

Other than that, my main weapons of choice are the curves tool and local contrast enhancement.

[RonH]

Ron
Previously I was doing the B &W conversions in .....

Thanks for this info Donald.
This arvo I have been trying hard to get to grips with Adobe RAW B/W converting, guided by the book by Scott Kelby/Matt Kloskowski 'Photoshop Elements 8 Book for Digital Photographers'. So many things to 'tweek' but the end result in Monochrome#2 is distinctly different from my earlier attempt. Have a peek if you get time, I value your comments.

It was not the easiest of pics to convert for sharpness/BW because it was a dull day and I was at lens max zoom but it is a good one to experiment on.