Before & After Shots!

[Clactonian]

Now we're talking extremes ....





Cropped, converted to b & w in channels, adjusted b & w points, cloned in a patch of burnt out sky.

[Sahil]

Sahil,

This is agreat idea.

Nasseem

Thanks, Naseem.
& thats a pretty neat cloning Robin. That is a shot I might have deleted, but your processing has really added dynamism to it.

& Mike, I really like your shot. Its like a classic example of having triangles in the image. The first thing that gets noticed in that pic is the flower/plant in center, & the eye is drawn upwards to the peak & then slides down towards right & then back to the flower.

Thanks everyone for making this thread alive

[Sahil]

Mike, Just saw your cemetry shot. It wasn't there while I was typing the message above.

[MiniChris]

I am going to give a slight twist in this thread by showing the before and after and then three different sharpening treatments after converting to B&W via Silver Efex Pro.

Out of camera RAW



Straight conversion with some adjusting in RAW and Silver using high Structure modified



Lab sharpening



Emboss Sharpening



Straight Unsharp at 99-1-4



My intent was to find a sharpening device which would give me the most sharp-edged detail without softening any other parts. I wanted to try to capture the greasy feel to the nuts and bolts but still let them maintain some digity of having served well and perhaps being on the ready to serve again.

[Clactonian]

...and what was your conclusion Chris? It is very hard to see a great difference at web resolution and small size.

[MiniChris]

I have always liked LAB sharpening, though I find that I still want to do an output sharpening after saving it to web. With emboss sharpening (and this works well on angular, sharp edged things but it pretty much worthless for anything else), I rarely have to do an output resharpen. I took a section from both the emboss and LAB...it's kind of a toss up.

Emboss



LAB


I think the LAB sharpen renders better detail.

[Clactonian]

Have to agree. The LAB version looks much better on my screen.

[Clactonian]

.....Interesting you said you take your coloured pictures with B&W in mind. What is it that determines in your mind a B&W photo?? Just interested. Nasseem

For a start my passion for b & w, which I grew up with. When shooting, it's luck of finding scenes with distinctive shapes, patterns and contrast, in the same way that I would be trying to introduce the basic compositional rules (there to be broken of course) of lead in lines, thirds, triangles etc.

[maloufn]

For a start my passion for b & w, which I grew up with. When shooting, it's luck of finding scenes with distinctive shapes, patterns and contrast, in the same way that I would be trying to introduce the basic compositional rules (there to be broken of course) of lead in lines, thirds, triangles etc.

Thanks Mike. Ive just got to train my eye and see a B&W on capture based on contast and patterns. I can normally see it post capture but never think of it in B&W language before capture.

Nasseem

[Ruffy]

I am loving this thread, it really shows the need for P&P and also just shows us newbes what is possable, thanks

[Clactonian]

Suspicion

Originally taken as a potential b & w conversion in Garda, Lake Garda, Italy



... but the torn plastic sheeting al so gave me an idea, and I knew that I had just the face I needed in my catalogue ...



... so with some cropping, layers and b & w conversion we get ...



Just a bit of harmless fun.

[MiniChris]

I like what you've done with the conversion, but the lack of verticality bothers me greatly and I don't think it adds anytihng to the shot to have it off-kilter....Soooooooooo, I played with adding a little vertical distortion to kick the horizontal up a little and to make the left and right sides of the window frame parallel to the frame sides...but had to add some room for a better crop....

I am quite sure you can improve on this immensely having the original file and it is just my thoughts...

[MiniChris]

I was out and about this morning shooting some more fog shots, albeit with a borrowed camera which was set up way out of whack...and I shot this photo because I thought the setting reminded me of a movie scene from "Close Encounters of the Third Kind."

The colored version, pretty much straight from the camera is way blown out. I really didn't want to lose the shot, so I approached it from a different conversion angle, using the blown out areas to convey the sene's intent, rather than try to fix what wasn't broken for this shot's sake.

There are two B&W versions...and I would love some feedback as to which one conveys the scene where Richard Dreyfus first encounters the aliens at the RR crossing.

[Sahil]

Mike, I find Chris' straightened version better. & For the second shot, the one of carnival (??) I think cloning out the left part of the picture can give it more strength. Two grumpy looking ladies at a celebration would make the image interesting.

[Clactonian]

Sorry Chris, but I don't agree. The window is distorted in every plane ... so be it. Old buildings are like that. The horizontals, such as they are, are now out in your edit, so where are you going to stop.

[MiniChris]

I did deliberately change the plane to avoid having that deer in the headlights look of a dead, straight on shot after making a rotationsl adjustment...and, it was just a thought...one man's potato is another man's soup. I think it is one of those shots that will please some, displease others and in the end, it will be the eye of its creator who makes the best determination...and, that be you...

I think I would have left the whole shot intact as a B&W...but that's just me.

[Clactonian]

Sahil, the two original shots are for illustrative purposes only both are straight from the camera and un-edited. I have discarded the door and window shot, which doesn't do a lot for me, the other edit is here

[Clactonian]

In truth it's not a good shot. I was only playing around to try and make something of it before I removed it from my catalogue. As I said to Sahil, the original, once viewed on the screen, did little for me.
You win some and lose more!!

[MiniChris]

In truth it's not a good shot. I was only playing around to try and make something of it before I removed it from my catalogue. As I said to Sahil, the original, once viewed on the screen, did little for me.
You win some and lose more!!

Ain't that the ever lovin' truth!