B&W macro pictures

Carmelo75

as my second post, I want to share a couple of recent shots in black and white:

leaves...


this one was shot indoor, with the camera on the tripod and the light coming from a nearby window...



Here is also an update of the spider I have shown in my first post. after all the comments, I have done a better resizing/conversion, and added some more snap. I'd like to know if I'm going in the right direction...



By the way, as I am still quite new to digital photograpy and I'm step-by-step learning the advanced techniques, I'm really interested to know how much and which kind of post-processing other people do, with clearly amazing results. For example: what sharpening techniques are best for macro?

Thanks!

BBiggs

You are headed in the right direction with these photos!!! The B&W photos are great conversions!!! Watch out for dust spots in the second shot!!! The spider shot is simply awesome. These creatures are one of my favorites to shoot, and you did very well capturing the beauty of that guy!!! thumb

Lord Vetinari

Lovely series- esp like the first B&W and the argiope spider.

Re sharpening. I shoot RAW and do no de-noise and very little sharpening during jpg conversion. In PS I do a light de-noise (using noiseware pro) and then sharpen using USM at 200,1,1, but faded (EDIT fade) to suit- normally by 50%. I do another similar sharpen to the size reduced image for web use but fade again to around 30%.

Brian v.

Carmelo75

BBiggs wrote:

You are headed in the right direction with these photos!!! The B&W photos are great conversions!!! Watch out for dust spots in the second shot!!! The spider shot is simply awesome. These creatures are one of my favorites to shoot, and you did very well capturing the beauty of that guy!!! thumb

thanks! I'm also really attracted by the beuty of spiders, I'll probably post more shots during the next days... and do some dust cleaning on the B&W, as you well pointed out (you really had a careful look at it!).

Carmelo75

Lord Vetinari wrote:

Lovely series- esp like the first B&W and the argiope spider.

Re sharpening. I shoot RAW and do no de-noise and very little sharpening during jpg conversion. In PS I do a light de-noise (using noiseware pro) and then sharpen using USM at 200,1,1, but faded (EDIT fade) to suit- normally by 50%. I do another similar sharpen to the size reduced image for web use but fade again to around 30%.

Brian v.

interesting, I do not apply any de-noising at the moment, should try it...
concerning sharpening, I found somewhere a post with a very nice technique for applying USM:

1) make a copy of your image and convert it to LAB
2) sharpen the L channel only, adjust the radius and treshold to your taste, going a bit too far with the amount
3) activate again all channels, and copy twice the sharpened version on top of the original, un-sharpened RGB file
4) set the mode of one of the sharpened layers to Darken, the other to Lighten
5) adjust independently the opacity of the two until the result is what you are looking for

This technique allows to get separate control on the light and dark halos introduced by USM, and I found it to give better results (at least to my taste) that straght USM. Often I set the Lighten layer at 50% of the Darken, as for example in the first B&W shot. Hope tis can help.

Chrissiebeez_NL

first two are really nice (watch those spots! spot removal is your friend)

Carmelo75

Chrissiebeez_NL wrote:

first two are really nice (watch those spots! spot removal is your friend)

thanks chris, I promise I'll do some cleaning...