Practicing the craft: Monochromatic red and white striped lily

[JBW]

[Shadowman]

Looks good, very sharp capture and smooth conversion.

[JBW]

Looks good, very sharp capture and smooth conversion.

still a long way to go.

[Geoff F]

A tricky subject for monochrome.

Maybe lose a little from the right side and replace it with some 'negative space' on the left and bottom; so the tip isn't quite so close to the frame edges?

[Manfred M]

+1 to Geoff's comment. I know some people do monochrome shots of flowers, but in general I find that the colours are why we like flowers, so throwing that aspect of the image away generally does not work for me.

[JBW]

A tricky subject for monochrome.

Maybe lose a little from the right side and replace it with some 'negative space' on the left and bottom; so the tip isn't quite so close to the frame edges?

that could work

[JBW]

+1 to Geoff's comment. I know some people do monochrome shots of flowers, but in general I find that the colours are why we like flowers, so throwing that aspect of the image away generally does not work for me.

Which is the challenge. To find the beauty behind the colors. Just to mix a little apples and oranges: Casablanca is a horrible movie when it's colorized.

Living, working and loving on the north coast of B.C. taught me that the subtlest of colors can be as beautiful as the boldest. A good monochromatic shot tends to run from pure black to whitest white. To me this means all the colors are there. They're just really really subtle.

[Jim A]

Very good Brian - it gives us a new slant on things!

[JBW]

Very good Brian - it gives us a new slant on things!

Especially on the water drops hanging from the stem top right.

[xpatUSA]

If you're going into grayscale, Brian, the following might be of interesting albeit not exactly simple:

http://cadik.posvete.cz/color_to_gray_evaluation/

Of interest is the very first example (red peppers) and scrolling right and left to see the various conversion methods and their results, vis-a-vis converting red things to grayscale. Other rows below that are of interest vis-a-vis other types of image content.

I found it to be quite fascinating, dispelling any idea that conversion from RGB to grayscale is simply a matter of choosing between de-saturation and luminance methods . . .

[JBW]

If you're going into grayscale, Brian, the following might be of interesting albeit not exactly simple:

http://cadik.posvete.cz/color_to_gray_evaluation/

Of interest is the very first example (red peppers) and scrolling right and left to see the various conversion methods and their results, vis-a-vis converting red things to grayscale. Other rows below that are of interest vis-a-vis other types of image content.

I found it to be quite fascinating, dispelling any idea that conversion from RGB to grayscale is simply a matter of choosing between de-saturation and luminance methods . . .

It's in my Firefox pocket. I don't know which system capture 1 uses but it offerfs a lot of options for playing with hints and tints of color.

[Cogito]

Oh! I thought it to be a blue and yellow striped lily.....

[xpatUSA]

It's in my Firefox pocket. I don't know which system capture 1 uses but it offerfs a lot of options for playing with hints and tints of color.

OK. Glad to be of assistance . .

[Cantab]

If you're going into grayscale, Brian, the following might be of interesting albeit not exactly simple:

http://cadik.posvete.cz/color_to_gray_evaluation/

Of interest is the very first example (red peppers) and scrolling right and left to see the various conversion methods and their results, vis-a-vis converting red things to grayscale. Other rows below that are of interest vis-a-vis other types of image content.

I found it to be quite fascinating, dispelling any idea that conversion from RGB to grayscale is simply a matter of choosing between de-saturation and luminance methods . . .

An interesting study. I've downloaded the full length academic paper for future perusal. Having only an extremely quick look at the page in Ted's link, I didn't see any reference to Silver Efex, which I believe is the software used by Donald and some others for their B&W work.

[JBW]

Oh! I thought it to be a blue and yellow striped lily.....

nope red and white

[Manfred M]

Which is the challenge. To find the beauty behind the colors. Just to mix a little apples and oranges: Casablanca is a horrible movie when it's colorized.

Living, working and loving on the north coast of B.C. taught me that the subtlest of colors can be as beautiful as the boldest. A good monochromatic shot tends to run from pure black to whitest white. To me this means all the colors are there. They're just really really subtle.

My take on this is slightly different. When one converts to B&W one potentially throws away 99.998% of the data one paid for when one bought the camera. When you display a B&W jpeg, you are limited to 256 tonal values, rather than the 16.7 million colours that a colour jpeg image can have. I need a really good reason to do this.

[JBW]

My take on this is slightly different. When one converts to B&W one potentially throws away 99.998% of the data one paid for when one bought the camera. When you display a B&W jpeg, you are limited to 256 tonal values, rather than the 16.7 million colours that a colour jpeg image can have. I need a really good reason to do this.

The reason is that all those colors make a person lazy. Photography is all about working with light and shadow. There have been and hopefully always will be people who can find the ultimate light and shadow in monochrome.

[JBW]

that could work

I gave the different crop a try and post processed in a little different way.

[Manfred M]

The reason is that all those colors make a person lazy. Photography is all about working with light and shadow. There have been and hopefully always will be people who can find the ultimate light and shadow in monochrome.

That is a rather interesting and unique view Brian.

When I first got into serious photography, I shot B&W pretty well exclusively for the first couple of years. That was in the film days so the tools I got to use were much more primitive than a modern digital camera. Black, white and all the shades between and contrast control were the only variables one had to worry about with a well exposed negative. In the days of printing in the wet darkroom, there were a few more variables; paper base colour, texture and toning. All of this was considerably less complex and simpler to get great images than colour has ever been. About 5% of my work continues to be in B&W.

There are far more variables in colour work, from white balance to colour grading. I find doing colour well takes a lot more time, effort and knowledge (colour theory) than B&W does.

[Mike Buckley]

When you display a B&W jpeg, you are limited to 256 tonal values, rather than the 16.7 million colours that a colour jpeg image can have. I need a really good reason to do this.

When choosing whether to make a monochrome image or a color image, I need only one reason: that I like it better.

I can't perceive 16 million colors, so it doesn't do me any good that so many of them are being displayed. If I had to make a choice between making only black-and-white images or only color images the rest of my life, I'd definitely go with black-and-white.