Unusual twisted Z

[Skitalez]

[MiniChris]

I liked the image concept but found it to be overly gray and I was a bit bothered by the distraction on the right side of the frame, not feeling at all like it was necessary to the overall impact. So, of course, I played with it a bit...not sure if this is in your taste range, but I think it helps to center the focus on the zig-zag and away from the almost dreary grayness.

[MiniChris]

Now that I look at it on the screen, I wonder if I didn't go too bright in the whites...decisions, decisions...eh?

[Suzanne]

How very Escher....I like it Yegor.

[MiniChris]

It does have a rather Escher look to it, doesn't it? Good call.

[Skitalez]

Maybe! But depth of a picture is lost.......however,i think so

[Donald]

Maybe! But depth of a picture is lost.......however,i think so

I agree with your assessment.

As well as that, I find the re-worked version rather harsh and hard and not as pleasing an image to look at.

[MiniChris]

It's funny how two people can look at the same ting and see it completely different. I guess I tend more toward a more austere look while you two seem to like a more subdued (and to me), for lack of better words, "dreary" "dark" "overly gray" look. I did remark that perhaps I'd gone too far in the whites, but even so, I think this print still goes too far to the top end of the gray scale without a proper balance of white...and to that end, it is one of those discussions which will go on forever in photography...it is always fun to agree to be able to disagree.

[Skitalez]

Anyway,photo like musik - u do what u feel! It's a matter of taste! Here is original,can try!!!

[MiniChris]

Well, I did try and while my methods may be a little unorthodox, I think the image speaks well for the effort.



Here is the whole list of functions:
-Image is slightly out of focus so I did an unsharp mask
-In the color image, the bird was overly bluish so I gave it more of a black wash so when I went to gray, it would stand off the sky
-Did a curves adjustment with the shadow at 74/53, midtones 135/129 and highlights 196/197
-Dodged the light at 4% in the shadow area
-Darkened the sky by about 20%
-Did a midtone color balance of -13, +8, +9
-Made a copy and desaturated the copy
-I pasted this copy back to the original and gave it a 69% opacity and a 90% fill
-I flattened these two layers and converted to grayscale
-Did one more Curves balance taking the shadow to 23/27 and the midtones to 49/58 and no adjustment to the highlights.
-Did some dodging on the light and at the top rim where the bird is perched

Doing the desaturated layer merge s somewhat like flashing a piece of photographic paper to give it a slight edge in contrast. I do this when I have a somewhat flat negative. I tried it on Rob's bike scene and it worked nicely given all I have to work with is CS2.
So, what do you think?

[MiniChris]

I think my mid-range grays are still a bit too dark and will go back to the drawing board and see if a layer adjustment will help lighten this area a tad yet leave the rest of the image as it stands.

[MiniChris]

And, with a layer adjustment using levels and screen mode at 20%, I set the input at
5, 1.59, 255 and my output came out to 0, 190. By doing this, I was able to preserve the details in the whites, maintain the shadows and lighten up the mid gray without losing too much of the overall print quality. It did cost me a little in the sky, but it is livable.

[Skitalez]

not bad! Really!

[MiniChris]

The limitations of only having CS2 and not even lightroom or bridge to work with pretty much speak for themselves in my B&W. Just by dinking about and going back to what I would do with an film image (using a densitometer to read what you can with lightroom), I remebered my old flashing techniques I used with paper that perhaps was not so new....like surplus Korean War vintage. I spent the better part of last night playing more with some of the other modes in the layer adjustment panel but still find "screen" gives me the most control. Now, I have to play with opacity and fill to see if I can even my midranges out a bit further. New computer will be here Monday and I will have Silver Efex Pro soon after and will be asking a ton more questions...in the meantime, I will continue to fiddle about. Thanks for the affirmation.