My kids in B&W - C&C please

cab.in.boston

My mom has 8x10 b&w photos of me with my older sister, and then my sister's two kids at roughly the same ages. My kids are now the appropriate ages, and she has requested a photo to round out the set. I got a photo I am quite happy with today, but am working on the b&w conversion. It's not something I've done much of, and while I've read several articles on the topic, I'm not all that sure of what I'm doing yet, so I'd love some feedback.



Note - I use LR3. I have PS5 but it intimidates the crud out of me, so much so that I've almost never even opened it. Someday I will open and start to learn it with less fear, but that day is not today. So if possible, please keep any suggestions to things that can be handled in LR3.

divamum

Re PS: "fear" of what? (Sorry - the teacher in me is coming out - I have a similar conversation regularly with new singers who feel overwhelmed!). Seriously, as long as you do a "save as" or make a copy of your original file before starting so you have a backup just in case.... have at it! NO kittens will be harmed and the sun will still rise tomorrow no matter what kind of a mess you wind up with . The worst you'll do is make a hash of it, delete it, make another copy and start over. Yeah, PS is somewhat overwhelming in the beginning until you get on its wavelength - I certainly remember feeling utterly clueless and intimidated by it when I first gave it a try! - but hands-on is sometimes the best way to learn; it certainly was for me. FWIW, the real "aha moment" for me was via some youtube tutorials - once I saw how layers worked everything clicked and I haven't looked back

LR does some terrific conversions, so you can be spared CS5 for a little while longer, but do jump in and give it a try - you may be pleasantly surprised There's a (free) LR preset out there from Wonderland called "B&W Dependable" which I use a lot, and Sara505 (I think it was her) shared a recipe I love which is as simple as using the "black and white" selection in this "basic" section of the tdevelop module, setting all the colours to "0" and then selectively adjusting any as needed, plus tweaking with the curves tool and contrast slider.

HTH!

Anyway, in the meantime... pix? Nothing showing.

ETA: showing now.

To me, that's just too dark - skintones seem muddy. Try the all colours to zero and see what that looks like; boost brightness/exposure/blacks a bit. Sometimes playing with the white balance once it's in BW can lead to some interesting results.

VayCayMom

what a sweet surprise for Mom. I also think it is a bit dark. The blacks are too dark, that and the mid colors could use a bit of brightening. I had Lightroom for quite a while before I realized how useful it could be. The more you play the more you learn.

cab.in.boston

divamum wrote: »

...snip... Yeah, PS is somewhat overwhelming in the beginning until you get on its wavelength - I certainly remember feeling utterly clueless and intimidated by it when I first gave it a try!

Overwhelming is exactly what I mean. I bought CS5 just before I finished grad school so I could qualify for the Education price, knowing I'd use it "someday." But the (admittedly small) handful of times I've opened it, I've just stared at the screen with no idea of how to even start. With LR I at least could figure out the basic workflow, but in PS I felt like I didn't even know how to open a file. I know it's incredibly powerful and do look forward to learning it, but haven't had the time to devote to getting started.

"Fear" was probably the wrong word to use, I just feel like to get me started I need a "do this, then this" kind of tutorial and/or book, and I know they're out there. The problem is just that I seldom have two minutes to rub together until late at night when I'm exhausted, and I'd prefer to use my minutes of spare time with the camera in front of my face, rather than the computer. I'll get there. I'm not truly scared of it, it's just that I know it will take some time commitment to get started, and I don't have much of that luxury at the moment.

divamum wrote: »

To me, that's just too dark - skintones seem muddy. Try the all colours to zero and see what that looks like; boost brightness/exposure/blacks a bit. Sometimes playing with the white balance once it's in BW can lead to some interesting results.

Thanks! I'll give that a try. Honestly I haven't even thought of setting the colors to 0, I just hit the B&W button and then adjust the colors starting from the default values LR gives me. I did boost exposure and blacks until I started seeing a little bit of clipping on each end, but then it looked too bright to me, so I actually lowered brightness some.

I'll play around with it more and try to lighten it up and improve the skin tones. Thanks for the suggestions!

VayCayMom - thanks for the comments as well. I know LR can do more than I am familiar with as well, but I'd like to think I'm learning!

divamum

Fair enough, Cab! I was just like that with PS until one day I decided I was sick of not using this powerful piece of software and was going to Get To Grips With It Or Else. Yeah, time is definitely needed and if you don't have the couple of hours to plonk down and play around with the files then that will seem like a mountain to climb. I'm sure there must be some basic tutorials out there to help you get started with it - I'd definitely hunt around youtube. And as for opening a file? I do believe it's file>open

Do also google for lightroom bw presets - there are zillions out there, many of which are free. I have LOADS of them and often work down my entire bw preset folder to see if there's something there I like. Again, that "bw dependable" from Wonderland is one of my favorites, and I also like some of the PH sets (Phil something - can't remember his name, but all the presets have PH in front of them - somebody help me out here?).

Hackbone

That is very understandable. I've been doing this along time and at times I feel the same way. If you've got an extra $100 you can afford join www.photoshopuser.com. They've got some excellent tutoritals on photoshop and a monthly magazine.

cab.in.boston

How about this? Better/worse? More suggestions on how to improve the conversion would be appreciated. Thanks!

iteach6g

I love it. Anytime I try to catch my two girls, one's either being a PITA or the other is looking down or both. One is 6 and the other is 16 mo. I guess its the ages. Anyway, I'm a newbie so I probably don't pick up on the technical stuff as well, but I really think you catured a sweet moment where each child shows its personality. Nice shot!