Posing for dad

carmel6942

Here are some pictures of my daughter taken while on spring break in Florida. C&C Welcome and always appreciated.

I want to do my first B/W conversion which one would you choose?
(Thanks Shane for the great tutorial)

1


2


3


4

urbanaries

carmel6942 wrote:

Here are some pictures of my daughter taken while on spring break in Florida. C&C Welcome and always appreciated.

I want to do my first B/W conversion which one would you choose?
(Thanks Shane for the great tutorial)

i'm nowhere near as good as shane at these, but in my experience w/ outdoor pics, the more even the shadows are on the face, the better they convert. #2 facial light is most even, and there's nice detail, textures and of course, this is a great expression for BW (in my opinion). I like the more serious pics in BW....just me though. #3 would be my 2nd choice.

can't wait to see the results!!!

Elaine

I agree...#2 has the best facial expression for a B&W. #1 has a very nice smile though!

Jeff Fillmore

I would have to go with #1- but then I am holding on to those little girl grins as long as I can with my own daughters.

carmel6942

Thanks gdad, Elaine, and urbanaries for the comments my favorites are 1 and 2.

DavidS

I don't have much experience with b/w conversions, but I like the first two photographs the most. Very nice.

SitterS

Carl you are welcome for the conversion. Glad to see it has helped some.

I like the pictures but the one that I would choose would be #1 for the BW conversion. I like the smile and the shadows don't look as dark around the eyes as in #2. Also the highlights are not as bad in #1 around the right eye as they are in #2. That is just my opinion. Look forward to seeing the BW. She is vey pretty girl.

Shane

carmel6942

All right guys and gals here is my first bw conversion. I hope you like it and please tell me what you like and don't like. Thanks again Shane for the tutorial .

asylumxl

I like it, but i use curves to crunch the blacks for some nice contrast. If you don't know how to use curves. what you want to do is click a point on the first line on the curves box, and pull it down slightly.

SitterS

Hey Carl...sent you an email about the conversion.

Shane

carmel6942

Alright guys here is my 2nd try. What do you think of this one? this is going to take alot of practice to get everything just so.





Here is a side by side comparison of both

asylumxl

newer version is my choice

karie

b&w conversion

SitterS wrote:

Hey Carl...sent you an email about the conversion.

Shane

Hey shane...can i get this email on the conversion?!

carmel6942

karie wrote:

Hey shane...can i get this email on the conversion?!

Thank you Shane for all the help. I never could have done this without all of your assistance. I really appreciate all the time you put into showing me what needed done.


Here is the link for the tutorial from Shane that I used on my first conversion. Below that is the body of the email that shane sent to me about the conversion. Hope this helps you out as much as it did me.

http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?p=513723#post513723


Try adding a selective color layer and going to black in the drop down
box.
Use the black slider and slide to the right for more contrast in the
blacks.
If you add too much in an area you can always add a layer mask and
paint
back that specific area.

Next try a curves layer to brighten up her face. I add a curves layer
and if
you point the cursor on the specific area that you want to adjust and
hit
the control key and click the mouse at the same time it will place a
marker
on your curve in that area. It is easier for me once the point is
placed on
the curve to hit the arrow key and this will take the point up or down
according to whether you want to lighten or darken the area. I can do
this
better than doing it with the mouse. I sure hope that all makes sense.
You
can get the skin tone where you want it and then add a layer mask and
paint
back the areas that are too light.

Also try using a brightness/contrast layer to add some pop to the
picture.

One other thing that I always do near the end is duplicate the layer
and
change the blend mode to soft light. To me this always seems to give
the
picture a little pop. Reduce opacity to where it looks good. I always
go for
16%. It just works for me.

You probably already know these things but just thought I would send a
few
extra steps that I do to my BWs. Hope it helps. Let me know if you have
any
questions.

SitterS

Carl,
I just posted two other options for tweaking the BW that may work for those that don't have CS or higher. The steps are at the end of the link you posted above. It has to do with adding a hue/sat layer and or a color balance layer before you do the conversion.


Shane