how to achieve this B&W editing?

babygodzilla

there is something about these black and whites... can't quite put my finger on it. it's different than my black and whites. is it the lens?

Richard

babygodzilla wrote:

there is something about these black and whites... can't quite put my finger on it. it's different than my black and whites. is it the lens?

Neither of these is straight B&W. The first has a sepia tint, the second a blue one. Is that what you are talking about? If not, post one of your own and we can try to help.

babygodzilla

perhaps. the color is one thing, another is the skin tone. compare this picture. i know for sure he's using a much better lens.



in this pic i increased the exposure and the blacks. how do i make it look like the previous examples?

Richard

babygodzilla wrote:

in this pic i increased the exposure and the blacks. how do i make it look like the previous examples?

I think the key here is the lighting, not the lens and probably not the B&W conversion either. I'm no expert on lighting, but I imagine off-camera flash was used, probably more than one.

babygodzilla

Richard wrote:

I think the key here is the lighting, not the lens and probably not the B&W conversion either. I'm no expert on lighting, but I imagine off-camera flash was used, probably more than one.

there is sunlight through the window for sure. might've used an off camera flash to the left.

you could be right. anyone have any other techniques to share?

JohnBiggs

babygodzilla wrote:

there is sunlight through the window for sure. might've used an off camera flash to the left.

you could be right. anyone have any other techniques to share?

Try lowering your contrast. He definitely had more than one light source. But notice in his very little is completely black.

mercphoto

babygodzilla wrote:

in this pic i increased the exposure and the blacks. how do i make it look like the previous examples?

Do you mean you increased the black point? Back it down again, a lot -- you've lost all detail in the hair.

babygodzilla

mercphoto wrote:

Do you mean you increased the black point? Back it down again, a lot -- you've lost all detail in the hair.

yeah i tried that. helped a bit, but still can't figure out what he did with the whole color tone.

mercphoto

babygodzilla wrote:

yeah i tried that. helped a bit, but still can't figure out what he did with the whole color tone.

Not that I don't like your particular B&W treatment on that image, I was only referring to how to get that other look given your image.

zoomer

Low contrast, slight blur/glow effect, natural light, very bright exposure.
As mentioned slight sepia, slight blue.

Your example is not a sharp photo to begin with, dark room, probably slow shutter speed, noise?

If you increase the exposure on yours and decrease the contrast I am guessing it will really show the noise and blurriness....so maybe not much you can do with it.

I may be wrong but they look like 1 click Lightroom Preset effects.

babygodzilla

mercphoto wrote:

Not that I don't like your particular B&W treatment on that image, I was only referring to how to get that other look given your image.

no no of course, i wasnt implying that. sorry.

Low contrast, slight blur/glow effect, natural light, very bright exposure.
As mentioned slight sepia, slight blue.

Your example is not a sharp photo to begin with, dark room, probably slow shutter speed, noise?

If you increase the exposure on yours and decrease the contrast I am guessing it will really show the noise and blurriness....so maybe not much you can do with it.

I may be wrong but they look like 1 click Lightroom Preset effects.

yeah low contrast, definitely was thinking of that.

yeap, my example was in a dark room. quite dark actually... and yellow light bulbs everywhere. the damn room was frickin orange because of them. 1/20 sec, f1.8, ISO 1000. not so much noise in the original pic i dont think. ISO 1000 is still OK. 1/20 sec tho, quite slow. does slow shutter reduce sharpness? i was never sure of this... if so, what is the ideal shutter speed then? sorry newb question.

thanks

craig_d

babygodzilla wrote:

yeap, my example was in a dark room. quite dark actually... and yellow light bulbs everywhere. the damn room was frickin orange because of them. 1/20 sec, f1.8, ISO 1000. not so much noise in the original pic i dont think. ISO 1000 is still OK. 1/20 sec tho, quite slow. does slow shutter reduce sharpness? i was never sure of this... if so, what is the ideal shutter speed then? sorry newb question.

Nothing wrong with beginner-level questions.

Show shutter speed affects sharpness only if something moves during the exposure -- either the objects being photographed, or the camera itself. If you're shooting hand-held it's a real challenge to hold the camera perfectly still for very long. The usual rule (which is not an absolute) is that if your exposure is longer than the reciprocal of the lens' focal length multiplied by your camera's crop factor, then you are very likely to have blur caused by camera shake. So, for example, using any of the Canon Digital Rebels (1.6x crop factor) with a lens set to 35mm, you would expect to have blurry shots if shooting longer exposures than 1/(35 x 1.6) = 1/56 sec.

Again, this rule is not an absolute; it doesn't mean every shot will be blurry, or that every shot taken faster than this limit will be sharp. It's just a general rule of thumb that says that when your exposures are longer than the limit, you will tend to get blurry shots due to camera shake. And some people are better at holding a camera perfectly still than others.

Image-stabilized lenses can help significantly to reduce blur in longer exposures, but only if the blur is caused by camera motion rather than motion of objects in the image. Some lenses claim up to four stops of improvement from IS, which would change 1/56 sec. (in the above example) to 1/4 sec. (rounding up a little). But if you're taking pictures of living people, the likelihood of them remaining perfectly still for 1/4 sec. is pretty low, so IS isn't a complete solution to the difficulties of long exposures.

EOS_JD

babygodzilla wrote:

perhaps. the color is one thing, another is the skin tone. compare this picture. i know for sure he's using a much better lens.



in this pic i increased the exposure and the blacks. how do i make it look like the previous examples?

The clack contrast is way too high.... Can you post the original and we can edit that? What software do you use?

craig_d

Here's my two cents on the photos that started this thread:

As has been previously noted, there is a subtle color tint to the second image; it's slightly blue. I'm not sure whether the first picture is slightly sepia, as has been stated earlier. To me, viewing it on my un-calibrated laptop display, it looks neutral.

In both cases, you will note that the view out the window is overexposed, which suggests to me that the lighting is mostly natural, with minimal if any fill flash. The highlights on the girl may be somewhat overexposed as well; look at the way the top of her upper arm in the first picture blends into the overexposed window shutter. Likewise the tops of her hands and right forearm in the second picture, against the window sill and the background outside the house.

The first shot was taken with a wide-angle lens, and the second, I think, is closer to standard-length.

If I were trying to duplicate the tonal "look" of these shots, I would set the black point very carefully to get good strong blacks only where they're really needed, and I'd experiment with the tone curve and the color channel mix to try to get the balance right.

These look like planned, posed shots, not candids, which is another difference compared to your more spontaneous picture. The color of her clothes was probably chosen with these shots in mind, and the intention to convert to B&W.

Richard

craig_d wrote:

I'm not sure whether the first picture is slightly sepia, as has been stated earlier. To me, viewing it on my un-calibrated laptop display, it looks neutral.

Measures positive in A and B channels everywhere, with B > A most of the time. Definitely tinted.

babygodzilla

craig_d wrote:

Nothing wrong with beginner-level questions.

Show shutter speed affects sharpness only if something moves during the exposure -- either the objects being photographed, or the camera itself.

Yeah that's what I thought. Somehow, though, I think the Canon and Nikon pro prime lenses are much clearer than my 35 mm Nikon DX prime. are the pro lenses really that much clearer, or is it due to my (lack of) skills? the rest of the images from the same set that has the first 2 example images are so so clear. my friend that knows the photographer says he likes to use Photoshop a lot so it's quite probable that he did some photoshopping to increase the sharpness. anyone knows a technique like that?

a couple more from the same set:

http://erwinphotography.com/blog2/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/amel_190.jpg

http://erwinphotography.com/blog2/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/amel_277.jpg

http://erwinphotography.com/blog2/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/amel_709.jpg

http://erwinphotography.com/blog2/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/amel_1047.jpg

the images above, to me, are so clear, so crisp. details on the hair and eyes are so apparent. can i do the same thing with my 35mm DX? is it the editing that's increasing the sharpness?

These look like planned, posed shots, not candids, which is another difference compared to your more spontaneous picture. The color of her clothes was probably chosen with these shots in mind, and the intention to convert to B&W.

you are correct. these are posed shots, the girl's a model.

Can you post the original and we can edit that? What software do you use?

Sure I could do that, I have the RAW in DNG. File's huge though, not sure how I should send it over.. I use Lightroom 2.

thanks

pathfinder

Good lenses certainly can help, but I have very sharp images shot with numerous Tamron, Canon and Sigma lenses that are certainly not the equal of good L glass.

Shooting technique is important - focus, shutter speed or tripod use, good lighting, but so is editing in RAW and Photoshop. Capture Sharpening in Adobe Camera Raw with correction of chromatice aberration is a good start.

I have 13 x 19 prints with a Tamron 28-300 travel zoom. A nice lens, I like it for a walk around lens, but certainly not the equal on Canon L glass, or Zeiss primes. But shot at f8 it is quite serviceable.

babygodzilla

pathfinder wrote:

Good lenses certainly can help, but I have very sharp images shot with numerous Tamron, Canon and Sigma lenses that are certainly not the equal of good L glass.

Shooting technique is important - focus, shutter speed or tripod use, good lighting, but so is editing in RAW and Photoshop. Capture Sharpening in Adobe Camera Raw with correction of chromatice aberration is a good start.

I have 13 x 19 prints with a Tamron 28-300 travel zoom. A nice lens, I like it for a walk around lens, but certainly not the equal on Canon L glass, or Zeiss primes. But shot at f8 it is quite serviceable.

what's Capture Sharpening? I don't use Photoshop much, usually LR. Is there an equivalent functionality in LR?

angevin1

babygodzilla wrote:

Yeah that's what I thought. Somehow, though, I think the Canon and Nikon pro prime lenses are much clearer than my 35 mm Nikon DX prime. are the pro lenses really that much clearer, or is it due to my (lack of) skills? the rest of the images from the same set that has the first 2 example images are so so clear. my friend that knows the photographer says he likes to use Photoshop a lot so it's quite probable that he did some photoshopping to increase the sharpness. anyone knows a technique like that?

a couple more from the same set:

http://erwinphotography.com/blog2/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/amel_190.jpg

http://erwinphotography.com/blog2/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/amel_277.jpg

http://erwinphotography.com/blog2/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/amel_709.jpg

http://erwinphotography.com/blog2/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/amel_1047.jpg

the images above, to me, are so clear, so crisp. details on the hair and eyes are so apparent. can i do the same thing with my 35mm DX? is it the editing that's increasing the sharpness?



you are correct. these are posed shots, the girl's a model.



Sure I could do that, I have the RAW in DNG. File's huge though, not sure how I should send it over.. I use Lightroom 2.

thanks

You need to first get a decent clear photo SOOC: straight out of the camera. Then, you need to work on it. The latter one/s especially had work done, other than simple LR stuff. But without a decently snappy clear shot, you're DIW: dead in the water. So find yourself a model/friend or whatnot, set yourself up just to try and emulate this particular type of shooting for one day and shoot it. Come back and look over the photos and figure out what you like or do not like and what you did or did not do.

Looking at the first two shots...the model is (2)sitting on and (1)hands are completely within a Lightbox!

Yes, pro lenses make a difference...No Pro lenses are not required to produce good imagery. Unless your 35mm DX is optically unsound, it will produce images equal to these.....The biggest requirement: L I G H T !

It stands to reason that our glass today ought to be significantly better than glass from yesteryear...and in many cases it is. But light has always been with us, and it is the determining factor nine times out of ten.

GO shoot, get more light in there and show us what ya got.

Also, have you got a bunch of LR presets? They are free out here on the 'Net' and ubiquitous.

cheers,

EOS_JD

babygodzilla wrote:

Sure I could do that, I have the RAW in DNG. File's huge though, not sure how I should send it over.. I use Lightroom 2.

thanks

Open it in Lr and upload here as you did but without your lightroom edits.

I agree witht he other comments though. It's really all about the light - More light and better exposure will resuilt in clearer sharper images.

ziggy53

I am suspicious that the first 2 photos may be taken with an IR converted camera. Notice how the vegetation is so much brighter.

IR could also be part of the explanation for the skin tones and relative lack of texture in the skin.

Here are some links to photos known to be IR:

http://www.timothyfaust.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/0255-grow.jpg

http://macdevcenter.com/mac/2004/05/11/graphics/infra_closeup.jpg

The latter of the above images is within a fairly nice descriptive site (hack #102):

http://macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2004/05/11/photo_hacks.html?page=all

babygodzilla

ziggy53 wrote:

I am suspicious that the first 2 photos may be taken with an IR converted camera. Notice how the vegetation is so much brighter.

IR could also be part of the explanation for the skin tones and relative lack of texture in the skin.

Here are some links to photos known to be IR:

http://www.timothyfaust.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/0255-grow.jpg

http://macdevcenter.com/mac/2004/05/11/graphics/infra_closeup.jpg

The latter of the above images is within a fairly nice descriptive site (hack #102):

http://macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2004/05/11/photo_hacks.html?page=all

hmmm not sure what to say about that, although the photog did list his equipments. I quote:

Equipment: Canon 1DMKIII, Canon 5DMKII, 24mm 1.4, 50mm 1.2, 135mm 2.0, 580EX, STE-2, Radiopopper PX system, and available light

looking deeper, i think he might have done the same color treatement to his color pictures. check this one out:



there is something about the color of the sky, and the clothes. looking at the green and red clothing, i feel like they're.... desaturated? not quite sure if that is right but i feel like in real life they would look more vibrant.

babygodzilla

angevin1 wrote:

GO shoot, get more light in there and show us what ya got.

Also, have you got a bunch of LR presets? They are free out here on the 'Net' and ubiquitous.

cheers,

thanks for the advice!

Llywellyn

Keeping in mind all the other great advice in this thread, try playing around with this kind of Photoshop action to get a similar look. Or hunt down a similar LR preset.

babygodzilla

thanks for the tips and advice. ill a look at that photoshop trick. i gotta meet this photog and just ask him directly...

jeffreaux2

The processing....both the BW and color....look similar to some of the photoshop actions included with the Totally Rad Action sets.