High Drama B&W

Zanotti

I have seen some techniques that make a dark, boding B&W photos. Kind of a goth type treatment.

I cant seem to describe it any better, so its hard to search or google.

jdryan3

I'm not sure if this is a comment or a question, but assuming it is a question, I'll bite.

Sounds like something with a lot of contrast and shadows. Initially that will be a function of the lighting when you take the shot. In PP you can boost the contrast. For conversion to B+W, there are a number of books and links on various PS methods for black & white (I'm assuming you mean digital and not wet darkroom). Try Scott Kelby's Photoshop CS2 for Digital Photographers or Michael Freeman's mastering black and white digital photography . There is the channel mixer method, double hue/saturation layer method, channels method and calculations. And more. And various combos of the above.

I like good B+W and spend a whole lot of time working at it. Throw in various printers and paper, and you can have a lot of fun & frustration. getting a good, much less great, B+W image. But when you do get it, WOW!

Good Luck!

nevilleb

I'd say creating High Drama B&W photographs involves several factors; the reflectivity of subjects, the light, time of day, play of light and shadow, as well as post-processing techniques.

Consider the photo below - made during one of my exploaratory trips to Goa, India.

As luck would have it, it was a dull, overcast day. Flat light, overcast white sky. The flat, even lighting was perfect for the image I had in mind.

The B&W conversion was done using Fred Miranda's B&W Pro plugin for Photoshop - check it out, it's a pretty nifty thing to have in your bag of tricks.

nevilleb

SitterS

Try Scott Kelby's Photoshop CS2 for Digital Photographers or Michael Freeman's mastering black and white digital photography . There is the channel mixer method, double hue/saturation layer method, channels method and calculations. And more. And various combos of the above.


I have tried so many ways to convert to BW but have started using a method that I got out of a book by Kevin Kubota using the gradient map. Use it exclusively for all my BW conversions.

dlphotography

Bw
I think it's more in the lighting - one point with no fill. Also, have fun with the "burn" tool in photoshop! ...and lots of contrast

Is this what you were talking about?

com3

high contrast. most of it has to do with lighting, for sure. there's post processing done too...

com3

it's my favorite style of BW.

com3

last one.

rahmonster

Hane you tried googling the Greg Gorman technique? I love my contrasty BWs and I use this method alot.

LiquidAir

One thing to search for is the Film Noir look. Noir is a common tag on Flikr so you can look there. Here is one place I look for inspiration:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/castlephotos/tags/noir/


Here is a sample shot I took trying to get a Noir look. This shot was all light; the conversion to B&W was trivial.