Two B&W shots from my visit to Zanzibar.

[thegman]

These are two shots from my recent visit to Zanzibar, I'd like any advice, comments and critique regarding skin tones etc.

1. Maasai warrior,


2. Local beach girl

[Shadowman]

Nice efforts. The skintones differ because each (within one image) body section is in under different lighting. With the woman and child, the face of the mother is in shadow, her baby is lit from the side and their lower extremities are in direct sunlight.

[thegman]

Thanks John, so far my PP skills stretch as far as minor adjustments, overall adjustments , contrast etc, I'm looking forward to delving into ''dodge and burn'' but it's slow learning curve just now

[IzzieK]

Gerry, I prefer the first one though it needs a bit of cropping at the bottom part of the shot. If you ran this via lytebox, I suggest that you crop where the lytebox option window is and also a little bit of cropping at the right side to balance the view of the shoulders. On the second shot, you cropped her hand a little bit there...Since this is in black and white, a little more blurring of the background will help pop this shot more...just me.

[Manfred M]

Two very nice portraits, Gerry, especially given the harsh light when you were shooting. It reminds me of my problems shooting darker skin under bright (sub) tropical sunlight. The shine on the skin has some compositional advantages, but can also be a bit distracting.

Why did you chose to do these in B&W? I would have thought that the bright clothing would be an intersting compositional element to these shots. Regardless, I like both shots, but I prefer the first one. The lighting works better for my taste.

[thegman]

Two very nice portraits, Gerry, especially given the harsh light when you were shooting. It reminds me of my problems shooting darker skin under bright (sub) tropical sunlight. The shine on the skin has some compositional advantages, but can also be a bit distracting.

Why did you chose to do these in B&W? I would have thought that the bright clothing would be an intersting compositional element to these shots. Regardless, I like both shots, but I prefer the first one. The lighting works better for my taste.

Manfred, thanks for your comments, I had a look at the original images, here are the colour versions.

1. Maasai warrior.


2. Local girl and baby.

[rpcrowe]

I am really confused... I thought that I might try copying the B&W image of the man in order to play with it using various NIK Software Filters. Funny thing happened, I copied the image, opened it in Photoshop CS6 and then tried to modify it with a NIK filter. I could not use NIK filters on the opened image. When I tried to use a NIK filter, that selection was grayedout and I couldn't select it.

However, copying the color image and opening it in CS6, I was able to use the full gamut of NIK filters...

What I was originally trying to do was to increase the structure in the man's face. I was able to do this using the color image and modifying that image with with NIK Viveza and then Silver FX Pro High Structure. This put some more contrast in the man's face...

[thegman]

Richard, I'm not familiar with NIK filters, the shot was taken on Canon 700d, adjusted using ACR and Photoshop CC.

[kap55]

I am really confused... I thought that I might try copying the B&W image of the man in order to play with it using various NIK Software Filters. Funny thing happened, I copied the image, opened it in Photoshop CS6 and then tried to modify it with a NIK filter. I could not use NIK filters on the opened image. When I tried to use a NIK filter, that selection was grayedout and I couldn't select it.

However, copying the color image and opening it in CS6, I was able to use the full gamut of NIK filters...

What I was originally trying to do was to increase the structure in the man's face. I was able to do this using the color image and modifying that image with with NIK Viveza and then Silver FX Pro High Structure. This put some more contrast in the man's face...

Try bringing the B&W into Photoshop then going IMAGE>MODE>16 Bit RGB. The plugins probably won't work on 8 bit images.

[Manfred M]

Thanks Gerry - I appreciate that you uploaded the colour images. Now that I see both versions, my thoughts are:

I prefer the B&W version of the Maasai warrior; I find that this image needs the simplification that the B&W conversion gives you, but prefer the colour version of the local girl and baby. In that case, the bright orange head scarf draws our eyes towards the girl, but you lose that brightness (and hence the impact) in the B&W conversion.