B/W Conversion

DavidTO

I took this photo yesterday (the original is RAW), and tried a B/W conversion. I'm not happy with it, the clouds seems to have noise that I never noticed/can't see in the color. I used Fred Miranda's B/W Workflow plug-in. I don't remember at this point what I did, but I'm interested in getting better at it.

Any ideas on how to get a better conversion? Please post your results and how you got there, if you're so inspired.

pathfinder

DavidTO wrote:

I took this photo yesterday (the original is RAW), and tried a B/W conversion. I'm not happy with it, the clouds seems to have noise that I never noticed/can't see in the color. I used Fred Miranda's B/W Workflow plug-in. I don't remember at this point what I did, but I'm interested in getting better at it.

Any ideas on how to get a better conversion? Please post your results and how you got there, if you're so inspired.




[IMG]http://davidrosenthal.smugmug.com/photos/12294408-S .jpg[/IMG]

David,
There are any number of ways to convert to B&W from color as I am sure you know. Convert to greyscale just gives a flat image in PS. Channel-mixer monochrome has a lot of adherents. FredMiranda has plug-ins to convert to B&W also. I've tried all of these, but I prefer the method taught by Greg Gorman. You can find it here on his website http://www.gormanphotography.com/gorman.html

Just click on the B&W Conversion tutorial. I have used this method for most of my B&Ws because of the control allowed and after a few times it is very quick and easily editable. It allows you to go directly to a sepia or a platinum blue or straight pure B&W. It is the technique I used for this image a while back...

DavidTO

pathfinder wrote:

David,
I prefer the method taught by Greg Gorman.

Pathfinder,

Can't argue with that shot, I love that shot of yours.

Anyway, here's my go at it. What do you think? I was confused about whether to run curves on the lower layer, the adjustment layer, or to flatten as you mentioned you do. I ended up putting two adjustment layers on top of the whole thing (like flattening, I guess), and masked them so that I could curve the clouds and the moutains separately. There is much less noise in this method than the other methods I tried, but there is still this vertical banding that I can see in the shot (edit: you need to view the original file to see what I'm talking about). Am I being too critical, or does it bother any one else? I shot it at ISO 100, so my DigiRebel won't get any more noiseless than that...

pathfinder

DavidTO wrote:

Pathfinder,

Can't argue with that shot, I love that shot of yours.

Anyway, here's my go at it. What do you think? I was confused about whether to run curves on the lower layer, the adjustment layer, or to flatten as you mentioned you do. I ended up putting two adjustment layers on top of the whole thing (like flattening, I guess), and masked them so that I could curve the clouds and the moutains separately. There is much less noise in this method than the other methods I tried, but there is still this vertical banding that I can see in the shot (edit: you need to view the original file to see what I'm talking about). Am I being too critical, or does it bother any one else? I shot it at ISO 100, so my DigiRebel won't get any more noiseless than that...

Were you trying fof a sepia look here? Do we have access to the original file? I did a conversion to B&W from the 600 pixel image here on drgrin and it looks like this,,,, I don't see the vertical banding you are referring to tho.. I did not try to do seperate adjustment layers for the sky versus the mountain altho that is something that can be done too.

DavidTO

pathfinder wrote:

Were you trying fof a sepia look here? Do we have access to the original file? I did a conversion to B&W from the 600 pixel image here on drgrin and it looks like this,,,, I don't see the vertical banding you are referring to tho.. I did not try to do seperate adjustment layers for the sky versus the mountain altho that is something that can be done too.

Yes, I was, I'm working on a straight b/w now, post it in a few. I got distracted converting a bunch of other images, all of which convert easier than this one. I think that I may be expecting too much of this image.

Yes, I made the originals available, and you can see the banding there. Open the image in a new window and change the "L" to an "O". Careful, they're big.

DavidTO

Here I did the straight b/w conversion.

You know, this method is very similar to one outlined in Scott Kelby's book. It's just different enough that it stands out. It's the selectioin/inverse/color part that's different and really sets it apart.

pathfinder

DavidTO wrote:

Here I did the straight b/w conversion.

You know, this method is very similar to one outlined in Scott Kelby's book. It's just different enough that it stands out. It's the selectioin/inverse/color part that's different and really sets it apart.

I had not read that section of Kelby's book, but after reading it I see that you are correct there is a similarity - with the addition of a color adjustment layer in the darker areas of the image - I have not played with altering the selection of luminosity - bigger, smaller, GB'ing or other things - but I think they all could be tried before adding the solid color layer.
I pulled down your original image - kind of grainy for ISO 100 I thought - not sure why. Your image was shot at f3.3 at 1/250th at ISO 100.

Sunny 16 would yield f16 1/100 at ISO 100 or f11 at 1/200th - thus if this is a sunny expsoure this would be three stops overexposed but that is obviously not the fact here .... Exposure was influenced by the shadowed areas beneath the clouds - that would be about right - 2 or 3 stops - and the clouds are close to overexposure maybe?

Anyway I did not see the banding you described - I upped the density of the image by creating an overlay blending layer before going to B&W with Gorham's method. Here is my result -


You can download the original until tomorrow evening. Thoughts pro or con? No banding that I can see on the originals - color or B&W. This was shot as a jpg? Lots of light variation between the clouds and the shadows beneath.

After posting this post I can compare your version and mine and they look very similar -

DavidTO

pathfinder wrote:

I pulled down your original image - kind of grainy for ISO 100 I thought - not sure why. Your image was shot at f3.3 at 1/250th at ISO 100.

I think it's grainy, too. I shot it at the programmed setting. Was walking with family, kids, not a lot of time to think about settings, I was also trying to hide the houses/buildings, etc.

pathfinder wrote:

You can download the original until tomorrow evening. Thoughts pro or con? No banding that I can see on the originals - color or B&W. This was shot as a jpg? Lots of light variation between the clouds and the shadows beneath.

This was shot as RAW. Maybe the graininess is a factor of how I'm processing the RAW file to jpeg. I'll have to look into that. Anyway, the beauty of the LAB lightness channel conversion is that you avoid all the jpeg chrominance artifacts, yielding a cleaner image. Unless, of course, you're me, and you've got unexplained noise in your image.

Anyway, thanks much for the help, you've definitely pointed me in the right direction.

pathfinder

DavidTO wrote:

I think it's grainy, too. I shot it at the programmed setting. Was walking with family, kids, not a lot of time to think about settings, I was also trying to hide the houses/buildings, etc.



This was shot as RAW. Maybe the graininess is a factor of how I'm processing the RAW file to jpeg. I'll have to look into that. Anyway, the beauty of the LAB lightness channel conversion is that you avoid all the jpeg chrominance artifacts, yielding a cleaner image. Unless, of course, you're me, and you've got unexplained noise in your image.

Anyway, thanks much for the help, you've definitely pointed me in the right direction.

I am curious about the grain - this is an image I shot with my 10D a year ago and converted to B&W via GG's method - and it does not have that level of grain - but I am sure it was shot in Av mode. I found the images with the 10D were of a much higher quality when shot in Av or Tv versus the Basic modes - landscape, portrait, macro etc.


This was also shot with a 10D at ISO 100 and it does not have that level of grain either

DavidTO

pathfinder wrote:

I am curious about the grain - this is an image I shot with my 10D a year ago and converted to B&W via GG's method - and it does not have that level of grain - but I am sure it was shot in Av mode. I found the images with the 10D were of a much higher quality when shot in Av or Tv versus the Basic modes - landscape, portrait, macro etc.

Well, I can't see how shooting in P would have more grain than Av or Tv, they're all RAW on my camera, but I'll check it out.

Nice shots.

wxwax

Simply gorgeous.

wxwax

I tried a version using the Zero-Zero method, then a contrast layer, and finally a mask to lighten the too-dark left bottom corner, to bring back detail. I should have backed off a bit in the clouds, but you get the idea.