What do you think of this conversion?

bobcool

Took a quick shot of my daughter the other day, and while it didn't work as a color photo I thought it might make a good B&W conversion attempt. Please let me know what you think of this, and how close to a possible "high-key" type portrait this is...

D'Buggs

I'm horrible at this,,, but it seems to be missing something. What? I don't know.

AtlPikMan

I would like too see more contrast...

Hurme

It's hard to comment a single photo on these basis. I don't think the photo really works the way it's cropped. She's bit too boxed in. Also only her left eye is in focus which makes the image slightly creepy as the left eye is almost at the center of the image. But I guess you wanted comments on the B&W aspect. If highkey is defined by lack of shadows, then your photo is definetly highkey.

You could probably convert it into B&W in multiple ways and there's no saying which of those is better than the others. Ultimately you have to be the judge of that.

All of above is imho of course. And yeah, the creepy part was just related to the framing / focusing bit, not your daughter.

Photosbychuck

I like this shot as a B&W.
mho it would fit into the High-Key status.
The only thing I see that might help is to not crop it so tight on the left side.

Take Care,
Charles

bobcool

Thanks for the comments! She has very light skin, but her share of freckles (like every kid!). I was playing around with the channels to reduce them and came up with an almost high-key image. To give it a little more contrast, I did set the black point in PS, but it didn't alter the image much. I'll keep experimenting - thanks for the feedback!

bobcool

Here's another that contains more contrast, taken outside with the sun as a hair/back light with the pop-up flash for fill. My wife took this one and liked it quite a bit.:D

rutt

Much better! Freckles are good. I have freckles. My daughter has freckles. They are beautiful.

austinstrobist

I also think the 1st shot needs some more contrast to make it pop.

# 2 looks really good.

whiterice

Much, MUCH better!! I really like the conversion for #2.

My concern with your first pic was the lack of contrast...the lips are lost (which I think is a really common mistake in BW conversions), and one of the first things I notice.

rutt

Whatever you do, for portraits, compare it to just taking the green channel. Very often you cannot do better than to start there and curve, sharpen, &etc. Usually red is just totally OE, so you don't want any of it. And blue way too dark and noisy. So take green and go.

D'Buggs

freckles = beauty spots...... I'm flippin' gorgous


it was the centered eye that bugged me most - Now that it's been identified. #2 is looking up.

Candid Arts

IMO, in regards to the first photo you posted being close to high key...I would say close, but not quite there. The shadows under the chin/ear and in the ear, as well as her right eye, under her nose a bit too maybe. Possibly even the entire right side of her face might be in slight shadow. As it's been described to me, a high key has zero to little shadows. There seems to be to many shadows in this for me.

I hope you don't mind, but I did a little tweaking to show an example of what high key would be with this photo.



I also agree that the crop is a bit tight.

bobcool

Got it - I knew it was close to high-key, but wasn't sure how close. Thanks for the example - next time I'll take it a little further than the first photo and see how it turns out.

rhondavid

I think the second one is right on target. Nice balance of natural lighting and fill flash.

Gorgeous eyes! Pretty young lady.

bobcool

Okay, same photo as #2 but a looser crop to include the tree and a little composition. I dunno if the split in the tree distracts, but I kinda like this conversion better than the average black and white. Thoughts?