Giving B&W A Try

[Rainforest]

I can't even decide which image to post I am so out of my depth here. Are either of these tonally interesting or balanced I guess is my question?
This could have been a better shot ;-), (it was raining and shot from the car - no tripod), but it looked like a good one to experiment with B&W. Thanks for any guidance or comments you may want to provide.

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[Donald]

Are either of these tonally interesting or balanced I guess is my question

Yes and Yes.

There's a whole lot that's right with these so far as conversion to B & W is concerned. But before getting into the detail of B & W, my first question, given that it is a B & W image is - What is the key point of interest? When you composed that image and you knew it was going to be a B & W, where did you aim to send the viewer's eye in the first instance?

With a colour image you can often use colour to point eh viewer towards where you want her or him to look. With a B & W you've got to do that with a tone, or a shape, or a line. Have we got something in this image that does that job?

I'm not sure that we have. That's why that concept of 'being able to see in B & W' is, I think important. I know that many people just decide to convert to B & W when they view the image on screen. I make my decision before I press the shutter. 'Seeing' what will make a good B & W and what will make a good colour image are, in my opinion, two very different processes.

The image you've shown us here has a wonderful spread of tone. It's weakness, in my opinion, is in the composition in that it doesn't make us go to one thing first and then take in the rest of the image. Our eyes tend to wander all round the image looking for something upon which to alight.

So, yes a good B & W conversion. You've seen that there is good time and texture there that are prerequisites for a good B & W. There are good solid blocks of shape and there are attractive lines. But just thinking more about composing for B & W is where more practice will be rewarded.

I hope this critique offers some help, Susan. Definitely keep going with your experiments in B & W. It's a fascinating area to get into.

[bnnrcn]

Hi Susan I prefer the first image as the sky is brighter and it is in harmony with the light and reflections on the water.

[Geoff F]

Going on from Donald's comments; for me, you need to lose a bit from either the sky or the foreground so as to make one more dominant.

To me, this current scene resembles a sandwich and 'two pieces of thick bread are overwhelming the filling'.

Probably looks fine in full colour but B&W requires a slightly different composition, as Donald has explained in detail.

[Manfred M]

I make my decision before I press the shutter. 'Seeing' what will make a good B & W and what will make a good colour image are, in my opinion, two very different processes.

+1 to Donald's comment here. This is the approach every experienced B&W photographer I know uses.

If you are just learning B&W, one "trick" my composition professor suggested was to shoot jpeg + raw and have the camera set to produced B&W images. That way you can see what the image looks like in B&W and you have the raw data so that you can either stay with B&W or use it as a colour image.

The other thing to think about when you shoot a landscape (in both colour and B&W) is to look at the image as three distinct zones of interest; the foreground, the middle ground and the background. If you don't have an interesting element in the foreground, chances are that the image won't work.

[Mike Buckley]

All of the above information is good.

What method of making it a monochrome did you use -- converting using a color filter or desaturating?

[Shadowman]

Nice effort, to me there is very little separation between foreground and water; a bit too flat to me. To me this particular scene needs some modification (use of filter) in the original capture; or perhaps a bit of HDR.

[Rainforest]

I'm including the color image (minimally processed), and a new crop, (which is much improved I think Geoff), for discussion or interests sake. I think the color does a bit better job leading the eye in but the point of view and foreground could definitely be stronger. That said there's nothing wrong with wandering/wondering around an image for me as long as it isn't meandering. All your comments and critiques couldn't be more helpful - I've been thinking about seeing in B&W since following the recent posts elsewhere on the site. When I look through the viewfinder and compose I mostly see shapes first and go from there - I think for me adding the idea of weight will get me closer to seeing in B&W. That may not make a bit of sense to you but it does to me...a leap of sorts so thanks so much. Manfred I will shoot the raw and jpeg in monotone because that will be excellent practice and a
great way to compare.
Sorry I have to cut this short - life does get in the way sometimes - but I look forward to reading and responding to further comments soon. Thank you again for the thoughtful and thought provoking ideas and comments. Susan

Cropped:

Color:

[Donald]

When I look through the viewfinder and compose I mostly see shapes first and go from there

Perfect! Keep working on that. Add into that 'lines'. Work on seeing lines and shapes together.

- I think for me adding the idea of weight will get me closer to seeing in B&W. That may not make a bit of sense to you but it does to me

It doesn't matter if it makes sense to us or not (Incidentally, I think I understand what you mean. I think you're talking about the balance of tones in the image). If it makes sense to you and helps you compose the image, then it is good.

[Rainforest]

Perfect! Keep working on that. Add into that 'lines'. Work on seeing lines and shapes together.

Always lines ;-) and thanks for the affirmation Donald.

[Rainforest]

Hi Susan I prefer the first image as the sky is brighter and it is in harmony with the light and reflections on the water.

Oh good, that is what I thought worked better too ;-)

[Rainforest]

All of the above information is good.

What method of making it a monochrome did you use -- converting using a color filter or desaturating?

Hi Mike, It was a squirrelly process this time around. I started with a LR B&W preset (a good way to learn sometimes), then used the color sliders to further enhance tones, then I put it into ColorEffects Pro B&W and played some more! Commitment eh? ;-)

[Rainforest]

Nice effort, to me there is very little separation between foreground and water; a bit too flat to me. To me this particular scene needs some modification (use of filter) in the original capture; or perhaps a bit of HDR.

I agree John. Perhaps a graduated filter? All I have in that dept. is a 10 stop. I did have my circular polarizer on but didn't use it very well as you can see in the deciduous tree on the left.

[Manfred M]

Susan - when you shoot in B&W, you really only have three variables to play with:

1. Image brightness;

2. Image tonal range; and

3. Contrast

When I first started into photography I shot pretty well nothing other than B&W for the first couple of years and one thing I had driven into my head by the commercial photographer who mentored me was that every B&W image needed to contain a full tonal range from pure white to pure black. This was a re-iterated when I took a colour correction course at the local college a couple of years ago. I know there could be some exceptions to this.

When you shoot B&W and convert to jpeg, there are a maximum of 256 shades available to you as a photographer 0 = pure black and 255 is pure white and everything else is some shade of gray. To get a decent image, you usually need all of those tones.

When I look at your second image's histogram you are pretty close to having pure black, but the brightest value you have on the light side is around 214, which tells me you are using around 84% of the total tonal range available to you.




If I adjust this to give you a full tonal range, the image looks like this:



All I did was to adjust the white point and the midpoint.

[JBW]

I don't know if your camera has the option but my Sony allows me to choose Black and White. This means my LCD is in B&W which definitely helps me find the shapes and lines in the shot.

[Rainforest]

Susan - when you shoot in B&W, you really only have three variables to play with:

1. Image brightness;

2. Image tonal range; and

3. Contrast

When I first started into photography I shot pretty well nothing other than B&W for the first couple of years and one thing I had driven into my head by the commercial photographer who mentored me was that every B&W image needed to contain a full tonal range from pure white to pure black. This was a re-iterated when I took a colour correction course at the local college a couple of years ago. I know there could be some exceptions to this.

When you shoot B&W and convert to jpeg, there are a maximum of 256 shades available to you as a photographer 0 = pure black and 255 is pure white and everything else is some shade of gray. To get a decent image, you usually need all of those tones.

When I look at your second image's histogram you are pretty close to having pure black, but the brightest value you have on the light side is around 214, which tells me you are using around 84% of the total tonal range available to you.

If I adjust this to give you a full tonal range, the image looks like this:

All I did was to adjust the white point and the midpoint.

Awesome, and so helpful. I think trusting that histogram is something I can take to heart. Do you adjust the midpoint in the Tone Curve? -sorry I have to ask!

[Rainforest]

I don't know if your camera has the option but my Sony allows me to choose Black and White. This means my LCD is in B&W which definitely helps me find the shapes and lines in the shot.

Hi Brian, My camera has a monotone setting and I can see it in B&W - yeah. :-)

[Manfred M]

Do you adjust the midpoint in the Tone Curve? -sorry I have to ask!

Yes, I did bring the midpoint down a bit to more closely match what appears to have been your intent on the original shots. For B&W work I will set my black point and white point to ensure that I cover the entire tonal range and then adjust the mid-point to give me the desired brightness.

[Wavelength]

I love the colors of original; but conversion is nice too. I am not sharp enough to make a thorough distinction among the two B&W though

[Mike Buckley]

Susan,

The method you used to make the monochrome is called converting using a color filter. (The color sliders you used determined the color of the filter.) That process is similar to what black-and-white film photographers use when placing a color filter in front of the lens. In all but very few cases, it's the best way to change a digital image to monochrome because it preserves all of the image data. That in turn gives you the most control when post-processing the image. Even when using the method of desaturating the entire image, which removes two-thirds of the data, desaturating is never a better method insofar as producing the final image is concerned and is only more convenient when desaturating suffices.

The color of the filter will render the same color in the color image the brightest tone once the image is converted to monochrome. As an example, if the color filter is the same color as the blue sky, that part of the sky will be rendered white in the monochrome image. The color that is opposite of that color on a color wheel, which is easy to Google, will be rendered the darkest tone once the image is converted. The colors in between will be progressively rendered brighter than the darkest tone depending on their proximity to the position on the color wheel of the color of the filter.

I did have my circular polarizer on but didn't use it very well as you can see in the deciduous tree on the left.

I wonder what you think the purposes of using the polarizer are. I would use it in this particular image only to ensure that there is no glare and I see none anywhere in the image (though it might help if I knew whether a tree is deciduous or not!). So, it seems to me that you used the polarizer very well.