BW conversion question

sarasphotos

Hi all,

On Christmas Day my gentleman friend and I took a walk around Olympia Park in Munich which is very near his house. The area is the site of the 72 Olympics and the stadium and many of the event buildings are still in use today. I love the tent-like rooflines of the buildings and marvel that structures from the early 70s don't look dated to me.

I took a few shots hoping to highlight the rooflines and did a bw conversion. What do you think works better, bw or color? Could I have done anything else in the bw conversion to bring out the angles and lines? What works better, landscape or portrait? Criticism and comments welcome.

--Sara

1)




2)

Richard

First of all, cool shots .

I prefer the landscape version because I like the lines of the lower edge of the canopy, which are mostly lost in the portrait framing.

I tend to favor color for this one. The mesh work of the roof stands out more partly because of the golden yellow, which is nice in itself. I think you could bring that out even more by using the Dan Margulis method outlined in his book Professional Photoshop (fifth edition). Basically, that involves doing all your color adjustments on one layer, then adding a B&W layer on top of that in luminosity mode. You do all the contrast and structure adjustments on the B&W layer, and you can exaggerate the effects you want there and control their impact by adjusting the opacity of that layer or even masking it if necessary. I know it sounds complicated, but once you get the hang of it, it's really quite powerful. I use it as part of my normal workflow.

One nit: I'd clone or crop out a tiny bit of tree branches on the left edge.

sarasphotos

Thanks, Richard, appreciate your comments! I don't think I even cropped this, so I'll take another run and crop out those branches. Frankly, I'm so lazy (and time-challenged) that I do 99% of all of my pp work in Lightroom - kind of a waste of that Photoshop CC license. So I'll take a pass at it this evening and do some beefing up of my Photoshop skills.

Cheers, Sara

sarasphotos

Ok, Richard, I took a pass at the photo both by increasing yellow luminosity and saturation in Lightroom and by adding a b&w luminosity layer in Photoshop. Here are the results:

1) Lightroom


2) Photoshop


Curious to know if there are any preferences...

Cheers, Sara

Thelensspot

Sara, I agree that the color option is better here and I like the second posted "Photoshop" shot vs the LR version...although they are VERY close. The colors just seem a little more vibrant to me in the PS version. The mesh that Richard referred to makes the picture that much more interesting and it seems to be accentuated in the second version (both PS and LR).

I really like B&W and "usually" favor it but I think here the fact that there is a very large area of sky present robs the ability for B&W to be the best option.

This is a really nice shot and I love the composition but I favor the landscape as well.

Take care,

Wayne

Stumblebum

Second round is fantastic!
Note to self - always listen to Richard!
Cheers!

sarasphotos

Thanks guys, just this kind of input is why I so value this community. Learning new things and getting feedback is so important.

Thanks Richard for reminding me that I could use Photoshop a little more often. There are so many techniques that I've learned and forgotten... :-( The b&w luminosity mode is a great tip and was very quick to do!

Cheers, Sara

travelways

Difficult crop - I was always challenged by this kind of shots I like #1

CCoop

Minority opinion here ... I prefer #2 BW, as the tighter crop functions as "part for whole." The energy of the angled lines carries the shot, supported by the limited view of the woven mesh at the bottom. I might bump up the contrast to enhance the lines. Either way, love this shot! Great eye, and great discussion!! --Carter