Here I used channel mixing - red 35, green 75, blue 10. I think I got a good "dynamic" look but I wanted the white trim and glass to 'pop' more. Tried softening to make the white trim shine a bit but only got really artificial looking effects. I ended up just toning down the letters on the sign to highlight the upper building:
Here I used channel mixing - red 35, green 75, blue 10. I think I got a good "dynamic" look but I wanted the white trim and glass to 'pop' more. Tried softening to make the white trim shine a bit but only got really artificial looking effects. I ended up just toning down the letters on the sign to highlight the upper building:
Any other ideas? Thx.
Keith
I don't know if this is any closer to what you had in mind:
I basically did the same thing that I did to my image.
Opened your color image
Duplicated the background layer
Gausian blurred the new layer @ 4 pixels
Changed the blending mode to Soft Light
Added a Channel Mixer adjustment layer (R:35,G:75,B:10:C:-20)
Be sure to try different blending modes for the blurred layer.
I hope this helps!
The ground in the forground is darker and retains a little better detail in mine.
The patch of ground that the house sits on is also darker in mine. In this, Hutch is truer to the original, where this patch is definitly lighter.
We both decided to loose some details of the house in the interest of a strong shawdow there.
Sky tone and detail very similar.
Hutch's sharpening is visible in the tree branches. To my eye, they are a little oversharpened.
Which conversion is "better" here is pretty much a question of taste. The image retoucher inevitably ends up making aesthetic decisions, but that shouldn't be his/her goal. B&W conversion is difficult this way, because color is so much richer than B&W (this is meant as an objective statement, there are many possible colors for the same luminosity.)
I find it useful to compare different attempts.
I agree John. As to the sharpening, it is a fault of mine that I really have to watch when manipulating an image. I really do not like soft images. Never have, never will. I have tried some soft focus portraits and just cannot make myself stay away from the unsharp mask!
I agree John. As to the sharpening, it is a fault of mine that I really have to watch when manipulating an image. I really do not like soft images. Never have, never will. I have tried some soft focus portraits and just cannot make myself stay away from the unsharp mask!
Me bad!
Hutch
I have the same tendency. I'm really liking the trick with the separate layers for dark and light sharpening halos that I got from Dan's book and used for the two brkck buildings. I wonder how this would work with the trees...
[/color] You are encouraged to post not only your final image, but also your original color image and a description of your color to black and white conversion method.
My entry into this weeks assignment, is RoRy EliZaBeTh, born 3:05am Easter Sunday, 11 April 2004, weighing in at 7lbs 11oz & 20.5" long.
This was one of her first photos. Taken just 5 days after she was born, and she is rather jaundiced. So, I knew I would be converting some of them to B&W anyway.
Made touch up to any outstanding Blemishes.
Checked and Adjusted Levels & Curves
Changed the Mode to Grayscale
re-Adjusted Levels
Curves
Contrast
Mode-DuoTone
Selected PANTONE 7533 C & PANTONE 1405 C
Hi Ginette, nice shot.. sorry I have'nt gotton back to you.. I've been straight out.. I will though
Glamour blur
Pathfinder and Lynn, please post details of the glamour blur technique. I've been trying to reproduce, but I think I'm missing something.
I think that you both want to blur this shot because you don't like the shadows under Pam's eyes. Is that true? On the other hand, I think you both probably agree with me that it would be good to have some detail in the cheek. Is that true? Whatever happens under the eyes, I think it would be good to retain the sharpness in the hair, jacket, eyes, eyebrows, eyelashes, etc. Is that true?
It would be good to have a clear set of goals for this image.
By the way, why is this a good candidate for conversion to B&W? Is it because something is missing from the color version? We can use some plate blending to restore the cheek detail in color:
Make a duplicate layer
Apply image green channel to duplicate layer RGB
Blending options -> luminosity
Now we may need some more adjustments to restore nice color balance, but we have much more facial detail to work with. I'm thinking this might also be a better place to start with the black and white conversion. Perhaps if you start here, when you blur, the cheek detail will survive better.
Pathfinder and Lynn, please post details of the glamour blur technique. I've been trying to reproduce, but I think I'm missing something.
I think that you both want to blur this shot because you don't like the shadows under Pam's eyes. Is that true? On the other hand, I think you both probably agree with me that it would be good to have some detail in the cheek. Is that true? Whatever happens under the eyes, I think it would be good to retain the sharpness in the hair, jacket, eyes, eyebrows, eyelashes, etc. Is that true?
It would be good to have a clear set of goals for this image.
By the way, why is this a good candidate for conversion to B&W? Is it because something is missing from the color version? We can use some plate blending to restore the cheek detail in color:
Make a duplicate layer
Apply image green channel to duplicate layer RGB
Blending options -> luminosity
Now we may need some more adjustments to restore nice color balance, but we have much more facial detail to work with. I'm thinking this might also be a better place to start with the black and white conversion. Perhaps if you start here, when you blur, the cheek detail will survive better.
Hi Rutt, Yes I think you are right... I'm straight out working right now but would like to have another go at it later. The reason I thought it might make a nice b&w was because of the sad and rather haunting look in her eyes.. I thought b&w would look more dramatic. The blur I like for the misty romantic tone...
My blur technique is:(link from Waxy) http://info.zavalaphotography.com/tutsoft.html
duplicate my layer
on the dup. hefty dose of gaussian blur (around 7 for a large meg pic).
then with a soft brush I brush off the blur with a 50% opacity brush.
Then I use a small brush and remove the blur 100% from eyes, teeth, jewelry.
Sometimes I dodge the white parts a tad, and sharpen the eyes a tad to make them glitter. Then I lower the opacity of the blur layer to where I want the finished shot to be. I don't always like too much sharpening in the hair either, I feel it can look too...... sharp.. If it's a male I sharpen much more. Bear in mind I'm practising for glamour look here.
I like the fact that there is not much detail, should be a little more in the cheeks granted but I'm looking for a slightly surreal look. Looking at the photos again, I think the detail around her eyes detracts from the expression in them... but there again.. I might be totally losing it..
Back to you later.
Lynn
Nice job Cletus. I like the soft windows against the craggy facade. I'll have to figure out your method in the poor man's Photoshop (PSP).
Keith
Keith,
Here is my Photoshop version again:
and here is the version I did in PSP:
I just loaded PSP on my machine to see what it was like, and see if I could duplicate the effect I got in Photoshop.
I found I was able to do the exact same steps that I did in Photoshop.
Opened the color image in PSP
Right-clicked on the background layer in the layers palette, selected Duplicate
Right-clicked on the new background copy layer in the layers palette and selected Properties. In the Layer Properties dialog I changed the Blend Mode to Soft Light.
Found Gaussian Blur under Adjust > Blur. Ran the Gaussian blur at 4 pixels
Right clicked in the layers palette and selected New Adjustment Layer > Channel Mixer. Set the values in the channel mixer, clicked Monochrome and I was done!
Pathfinder and Lynn, please post details of the glamour blur technique. I've been trying to reproduce, but I think I'm missing something.
I think that you both want to blur this shot because you don't like the shadows under Pam's eyes. Is that true? On the other hand, I think you both probably agree with me that it would be good to have some detail in the cheek. Is that true? Whatever happens under the eyes, I think it would be good to retain the sharpness in the hair, jacket, eyes, eyebrows, eyelashes, etc. Is that true?
It would be good to have a clear set of goals for this image.
By the way, why is this a good candidate for conversion to B&W? Is it because something is missing from the color version? We can use some plate blending to restore the cheek detail in color:
Make a duplicate layer
Apply image green channel to duplicate layer RGB
Blending options -> luminosity
Now we may need some more adjustments to restore nice color balance, but we have much more facial detail to work with. I'm thinking this might also be a better place to start with the black and white conversion. Perhaps if you start here, when you blur, the cheek detail will survive better.
I agree that your image to the right above has much more facial detail. I just finished reviewing the use of the cyan channel in portraits.
My weak efforts. I shall try the blur etc. stuff at a later date. This time around I only did Pathfinder's silver, platinum trick, plus lots of heavy levels and contrast.
Overly Complicated Conversion
Ok, so maybe you don't have Photoshop... If you have Matlab (with the Image Processing Toolbox) you can use it to do color to black and white conversions!
>> A = imread('wall.jpg');
>> a = double(A)/255;
>> H = fspecial('gaussian',8,4);
>> b = imfilter(a,H);
>> m = a.*b;
>> s = 0.5 - (1-a).*(1-b);
>> o = m;
>> idx = find(a > 0.5);
>> o(idx) = s(idx);
>> o = o*2;
>> r = o(:,:,1); g = o(:,:,2); b = o(:,:,3);
>> z = 0.35 * r + 0.75*g + 0.1*b - 0.2;
>> imwrite(z,'wallbw.jpg','JPEG');
Ok, so maybe you don't have Photoshop... If you have Matlab (with the Image Processing Toolbox) you can use it to do color to black and white conversions!
[/indent] Original:
black and white:
Here's my try at converting the color image to B&W.... Done in Photoshop 7
Adj Levels
Curves
Convert in Mode to B&W
Re-Adj Levels
Curves
Contrast
Converted to DuoTone
Black
PANTONE Warm Gray 8 CVC
Coverted to RBG Color
Comments
B&W:
The original:
Here I used channel mixing - red 35, green 75, blue 10. I think I got a good "dynamic" look but I wanted the white trim and glass to 'pop' more. Tried softening to make the white trim shine a bit but only got really artificial looking effects. I ended up just toning down the letters on the sign to highlight the upper building:
Any other ideas? Thx.
Keith
A Texan back home again!
I basically did the same thing that I did to my image.
I hope this helps!
Here is an attempt.
Me bad!
Hutch
Pathfinder and Lynn, please post details of the glamour blur technique. I've been trying to reproduce, but I think I'm missing something.
I think that you both want to blur this shot because you don't like the shadows under Pam's eyes. Is that true? On the other hand, I think you both probably agree with me that it would be good to have some detail in the cheek. Is that true? Whatever happens under the eyes, I think it would be good to retain the sharpness in the hair, jacket, eyes, eyebrows, eyelashes, etc. Is that true?
It would be good to have a clear set of goals for this image.
By the way, why is this a good candidate for conversion to B&W? Is it because something is missing from the color version? We can use some plate blending to restore the cheek detail in color:
- Make a duplicate layer
- Apply image green channel to duplicate layer RGB
- Blending options -> luminosity
Now we may need some more adjustments to restore nice color balance, but we have much more facial detail to work with. I'm thinking this might also be a better place to start with the black and white conversion. Perhaps if you start here, when you blur, the cheek detail will survive better.My blur technique is:(link from Waxy)
http://info.zavalaphotography.com/tutsoft.html
duplicate my layer
on the dup. hefty dose of gaussian blur (around 7 for a large meg pic).
then with a soft brush I brush off the blur with a 50% opacity brush.
Then I use a small brush and remove the blur 100% from eyes, teeth, jewelry.
Sometimes I dodge the white parts a tad, and sharpen the eyes a tad to make them glitter. Then I lower the opacity of the blur layer to where I want the finished shot to be. I don't always like too much sharpening in the hair either, I feel it can look too...... sharp.. If it's a male I sharpen much more. Bear in mind I'm practising for glamour look here.
I like the fact that there is not much detail, should be a little more in the cheeks granted but I'm looking for a slightly surreal look. Looking at the photos again, I think the detail around her eyes detracts from the expression in them... but there again.. I might be totally losing it..
Back to you later.
Lynn
Keith
A Texan back home again!
Here is my Photoshop version again:
and here is the version I did in PSP:
I just loaded PSP on my machine to see what it was like, and see if I could duplicate the effect I got in Photoshop.
I found I was able to do the exact same steps that I did in Photoshop.
I stole the glamor treatment from a post on dpreview at http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1007&message=8378036
which references this site http://www.dustylens.com/glamour_look.htm
Actually www.dustylens.com is a an interesting site with several interesting pages - worth a look............
Moderator of the Technique Forum and Finishing School on Dgrin
My weak efforts. I shall try the blur etc. stuff at a later date. This time around I only did Pathfinder's silver, platinum trick, plus lots of heavy levels and contrast.
Catapultam habeo. Nisi pecuniam omnem mihi dabis, ad caput tuum saxum immane mittam
http://www.mcneel.com/users/jb/foghorn/ill_shut_up.au
Ok, so maybe you don't have Photoshop... If you have Matlab (with the Image Processing Toolbox) you can use it to do color to black and white conversions!
>> a = double(A)/255;
>> H = fspecial('gaussian',8,4);
>> b = imfilter(a,H);
>> m = a.*b;
>> s = 0.5 - (1-a).*(1-b);
>> o = m;
>> idx = find(a > 0.5);
>> o(idx) = s(idx);
>> o = o*2;
>> r = o(:,:,1); g = o(:,:,2); b = o(:,:,3);
>> z = 0.35 * r + 0.75*g + 0.1*b - 0.2;
>> imwrite(z,'wallbw.jpg','JPEG');
black and white:
Here's my try at converting the color image to B&W.... Done in Photoshop 7
Adj Levels
Curves
Convert in Mode to B&W
Re-Adj Levels
Curves
Contrast
Converted to DuoTone
Black
PANTONE Warm Gray 8 CVC
Coverted to RBG Color
I wanted to see the bricks a bit more...