Two Pics

[LePetomane]

Two random pictures I took a few weeks ago.

A view from Mill City museum looking out at the Guthrie theater. The portrait on the wall is that of the Russian playwright and physician, Anton Chekov. I could not lighten up the shadows any further.



The second is a picture looking out from the courtyard at some converging lines.

[IzzieK]

I like the first picture, Paul...very interesting view. I wouldn't have been able to get the lines as straight as you did here without using my tilt/shift lens. I like the conversion to black and white too. Excellent job.

[LePetomane]

Izzie,

Thanks. The black & white is out of the camera, the Fujifilm monochrome setting in the film simulation mode.

[Shadowman]

Nice views and processing.

[Barbara Ponder]

Both are very nice but LOVE the first, everything about it. Especially how I feel pulled to the back where the portrait hangs.

[LePetomane]

Thanks for the nice comments. The portrait of Chekov is actually on the wall of the Guthrie Theater which is across a large walkway from the Mill City facility. It is a cool area

[bje07]

Paul, you wrote

I could not lighten up the shadows any further.

From you picture I just processed it with Camera Raw, mainly opening the shadows and reducing a tad the highlights (to recover the portrait) , of course from your original it will look better.



BTW I like your two pictures.

[LePetomane]

Jean,

Thanks.

[Mike Buckley]

Great eye and compositions, Paul!

In the first photo, consider selecting the image of Chekov, darkening the shadow tones and perhaps increasing the mid-tone contrast.

You'll have a lot more control if you use your post-processing software rather than the camera to change from color to monochrome. As an example, if your camera makes the monochrome image by desaturating rather than maintaining the RGB data and converting using a color filter, you'll lose two-thirds of the data. Even if your camera converts using a color filter (maintains all of the RGB data), you probably have a limited choice of which color filter to use. The filter that is used can make a huge difference in the overall appearance of the image before you start fine-tuning the details.