BW tone advise please

cocasana · February 27, 2008

I'm experimenting a color tone technique: what about this one..? Thanks, C

PS. Converted with the double hue-saturation layers, + a color balance, + 3 different coloured layers, different blendings, differet blend if...

cocasana · February 27, 2008

2 recipie
2 recipie

cocasana · February 28, 2008

Feedback has been so interesting that I couldn't keep myself from posting a third one!

jeffreaux2 · February 28, 2008

Well I'll bite!!!

It seem to me that both of these images were taken in less that ideal light. The hard shadows indicate harsh direct sunlight. This can be tough to deal with. Do I let the highlights blow....or do I let the shadows plug?

Your conversions seem to cover the gamut of black(shadows) to white(highlights) pretty good to my eyes...and regain midtone contrast as well.

I am not on fire for the tint of the second one, but that is really a matter of taste.

From your "PS" it sure sounds like a lot of work went into it.

So whats that all mean.....
It means I think the conversions look great!!

Thanks for sharing.

cocasana · February 28, 2008

Thank you Jeff for stopping and comenting.
Yes, light was less then ideal. When i picked up this shot I thoght that a contrasty image could be interesting for a BW conversion. In the beginning my first goal was to reproduce a silver gelatin effect. Then I thoght that playing with "blend if" could be interesting to restrict filters effects to certain areas. Still have to work on it because the effect is less then evident, but nevertheless I thought that the result was reasonably interesting and I was looking for feedback!
Thanks again,
Carlo.

PS. your website and blog are very interesting!!!!

jeffreaux2 · February 28, 2008

cocasana wrote:

Thank you Jeff for stopping and comenting.
Yes, light was less then ideal. When i picked up this shot I thoght that a contrasty image could be interesting for a BW conversion. In the beginning my first goal was to reproduce a silver gelatin effect. Then I thoght that playing with "blend if" could be interesting to restrict filters effects to certain areas. Still have to work on it because the effect is less then evident, but nevertheless I thought that the result was reasonably interesting and I was looking for feedback!
Thanks again,
Carlo.

PS. your website and blog are very interesting!!!!

Well, Thank you for the !!!'s on my webspaces!

pathfinder · February 28, 2008

Cocasana,

I am not sure I understand exactly how your processing was performed.

The first image looks like a heavy sepia duotone and I prefer it to the greenish cast of the second image. The dog's conversion is lovely.

I think I get a similar effect with Greg Gorman's B&W conversion in the final step of multiply blending the B&W layer with a colored layer which can be a yellow-brown or a blue or whatever desired.

That is how I did this image of a canon in bright sunlight

Or this image of Bent's Fort from a few years ago

jeffreaux2 · February 28, 2008

Hey PF those look great too, and you included a great link as well.

Love the detail in the first.

pathfinder · February 28, 2008

Thanks, they are just vacation snapshots

cocasana · February 28, 2008

Hi pathfinder thanks for stopping and commenting.

How I did them? A rather classical BW conversion (2 hue-saturation layers method, also know as Russel Brown method), + a color balance layer. Then 3 layers filled with different colors; mostly Soft light blending mode, different Opacity, different Blend if values to enlight shadows, midtones or highlights (the result isn't that noticeable).

I know that there are a lot of actions or plugins out there that can do almost (better) the same job, but I was trying to find my way. If there is any. And if it leads somewhere... During this exploration I wanted to check the path. Thanks for letting me know what you think about it, so that I can evaluate how far I am from finding something interesting!
Carlo

BW tone advise please

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