BW conversions

Jack'll do

I'm trying a new (to me) conversion method using layers and masks. Would appreciate any and all comments and or critiques on these.
The original color images are here

1.


2.


3.


4.

dlplumer

These are awesome Jack Will you share the conversion method please.

Skippy

Jack'll do wrote:

I'm trying a new (to me) conversion method using layers and masks. Would appreciate any and all comments and or critiques on these.
The original color images are here

Hi Jack I like the 2nd and 3rd shots, even though the 2nd shot looks a little too dark in the shadowed areas.

Personally I'm thinking the black areas are too black.

They look pretty darn good though ... Skippy
.

black mamba

Hey Jack...

Boy, you hit a homerun with this effort. These will stop you in your tracks. I really like the last three. That's more of a preference for the subject that a comment on the process. I can't wait to see more as you develop your skills.

Tom

Jack'll do

dlplumer wrote:

These are awesome Jack Will you share the conversion method please.

Thanks for the kind comment Dan.
Basically I take the color image that I have PP'd and separate the r,g, and b channels. I look at each channel and decide which features from that channel I want in the final image (for example the sky is obviously usually best in the red channel. I then create a new image (RGB) with the most important channel as the bg and the other two in decreasing order of importance. I adjust the bg layer (curves etc.) then add vector masks to the other two. If needed. I adjust each of these layers as well to ensure that the areas of interest in them are of the tone I want. I expose these areas by painting white on the black masks adjusting opacity as needed. Obviously one can mix the contributions to a given area from 2 or 3 channels by varying the mask opacities. Then flatten and tweak the final image.The method gives you much more control than channel mixing or simply converting to greyscale. (It's also much more labor intensive )
Hope this helps. If there's interest I'll post some screen grabs of the layers and masks.

Jack'll do

Skippy wrote:

Hi Jack I like the 2nd and 3rd shots, even though the 2nd shot looks a little too dark in the shadowed areas.

Yeah the original was shot last february before I started shooting RAW. The shadows were clipped and I couldn't do much about it during the conversion (using bc just made a mess of it).

Personally I'm thinking the black areas are too black.

I do tend to prefer high contrast BW

They look pretty darn good though ... Skippy

Thanks for looking and taking time to offer constructive criticism Skippy

Jack'll do

black mamba wrote:

Hey Jack...

Boy, you hit a homerun with this effort. These will stop you in your tracks. I really like the last three. That's more of a preference for the subject that a comment on the process. I can't wait to see more as you develop your skills.

Tom

Thanks Tom I appreciate the encouragement. Right now I'm still trying to perfect the process. These were all older jpegs that I'm practicing on. Will move to new RAW images soon.

DaddyO

Pretty cool images & conversions. Thanks for sharing your method.
I've been looking for how too's on that topic as I really need to learn
the various ways to do the BW right to my images. Sounds involved
and time consuming but for a great result I guess its worth it in spades.

Dogdots

Jack'll do wrote:

If there's interest I'll post some screen grabs of the layers and masks.

I'm interested since I'm so new to this

Awais Yaqub

Loved the 2nd a lot very nice

Jack'll do

DaddyO wrote:

Pretty cool images & conversions. Thanks for sharing your method.
I've been looking for how too's on that topic as I really need to learn
the various ways to do the BW right to my images. Sounds involved
and time consuming but for a great result I guess its worth it in spades.

Thanks DaddyO. It is very time consuming. What I like about it is that you can use 100% of discrete portions of each optimized channel in creating the final image.

Jack'll do

Thanks Dog Dots and Awais (I've long been a fan of your images of the people of pakistan)

DaddyO

Jack'll do wrote:

Thanks DaddyO. It is very time consuming. What I like about it is that you can use 100% of discrete portions of each optimized channel in creating the final image.

I see Scott Kelby has 3 conversion methods in his book Photoshop for Digital
photographers. Today I will give 2 of the methods a try.

Time consuming is just part of the deal I guess. Seems theres going to be
a certain amount of PP no matter what. Some quick and some slow. Those
fluent in photoshop no doubt get where they want to go very quickly.

Whats a drag is I'm not fluent with the tool.
Still, I'm really looking forward to trying some conversions today. One landscape and one abstract.
The landscape I would like to try I posted in Landscapes forum.

Sunset Bay

If I can do the conversion well enough I might have something worth
printing.

Jack'll do

Those
fluent in photoshop no doubt get where they want to go very quickly.

Whats a drag is I'm not fluent with the tool.

Neither am I. Up until a couple of months ago I was using PS 7 and limited to cropping, resizing, and a few adjustment layers. Now I have CS3 and a few books on it. As I read of something useful, I try it out. I think there are only a few people (probably the authors of the books ) who can really take advantage of all of its features.

The landscape I would like to try I posted in Landscapes forum.

Sunset Bay

That is an awesome shot. Can't wait to see your results.