I accept that, but I don’t know if I’m really able to do so. I don’t seem to have any choice, as the D780 (and M10) are both going to give me color files regardless of what I want. But when I went out to buy dinner, I was very specifically looking for scenes that I hoped would look good in B&W. I only found one, and shot it from several angles, but only one of them looked good to me - but I learned that lesson long ago, and captured more than what I wanted, so I would be free to crop it later. Since my camera/lens doesn’t have perspective control, I left enough room so I could do that in PL as well.
I eventually did get what I wanted, and the various shapes only came together the way I originally wanted in one photo.
Trying to think in B&W, I boosted the contrast more than I planned, to make it more obvious. I suspect that @Wolfgang will boost the contrast to double what I did, but for better or worse, this image is what I set out to do.
Very close - change “take” to “edit” and you’ll be spot-on! As in, what things to consider doing first, which will make the subsequent changes more appropriate. Yeah, impossible, and unobtainable.
I didn’t mean to say that converting to B&W was or wasn’t trivial. What I meant is regardless of anything I do on my D780 or my M10, the camera is going to create a full-color RAW file.
Everything else comes afterwards.
Most of the time, I will do some other editing first, but then select “Color Rendering”, and then “Black & White Film”. I then look over my choices, but somehow I usually select “Fuji Neon Acres 100”, as that seems to match what I’m after - lots of other choices, but I always come back to this one film. Maybe that’s because I seemed to always select Kodak Plus-X when I was shooting film a lifetime ago. From then on, I try to make the image on my screen match the image that is in my mind. I try lots of things for testing, but I already have an idea of what I like. I wouldn’t call it “trivial” by any means. Still, the Fuji film has an uncanny way of creating what I’m already imagining - and I sure can’t say that for the other films I’ve tried. That @Joanna like it is also a huge plus for me.
I don’t think you’re missing something, but more likely I am. Maybe you can please edit the above image the way you do things, and can I please look over your .dop file?
Back to the image, I thought about making the concrete a little darker, but I like it the way it is. This is what struck me like a lightning bolt, as I was walking up to this area - I stopped, thought about it, moved around a little, and got an image that included what I wanted in my final image, knowing that as I corrected for distortion the way I did, a lot of my image would be lost. I might crop away the whole left side, and part of the right side, keeping the middle part which was the most interesting thing, but I decided not to…
I was curious what tools might be available to help me edit the image once I’m working with it in B&W. I found this page, with a lot of ideas, some of which I think will be very useful:
Too sleepy to try any of this tonight, but will give it a go tomorrow.
I think to do this, I need to go back to the original image, and start all over again.
In the meantime, I think this version is better than what I posted earlier. Watching that video gave me some other ideas… It may be uglier, but it’s closer to what was really there, dirt and all. 780_0631 | 2023-04-29.nef.dop (624.3 KB)
Thank you for posting that. I read it earlier, but it didn’t strike home until just now. I may never “catch up” with the rest of you, but hopefully I’m (slowly) improving.
I took several photos earlier today, most of which were “easy”. This one intrigued me the most, or maybe I should say challenged me the most. Maybe I’ll go back there on a rainy day, so I’ve got reflections in the image.
First question. Why did you use Tone Curve, Smart Lighting, Selective Tone and Contrast, all to do the same thing - increase contrast? What was wrong with just the Tone Curve?
Thanks for putting a smile on my face. It took me four things to modify, compared to only one as you pointed out, to achieve an almost identical end result. Switching back and forth the difference between our two images is that the concrete in my version is slightly darker (dirtier).
I can either think that you are much more efficient in how you use the PL tools than I am (which is Obvious with a capital O), or I am still in the first grade. Or both.
I’m smiling because I don’t know which version I prefer, which has never happened before. Your version is a little “prettier”, but after all my efforts to show the dirt on the concrete, I did achieve that goal.
That’s all? Or are there more questions to come?
I see there is also a VC1 with color. I’m surprised that I prefer the B&W versions more than the color version. The color version reminds me of what I saw. The B&W versions remind me of what I feel.
I may appear “efficient”, but that comes with lots and lots of practice with the tone curve. Something I have been using ever since I started using them in Photoshop around 18 years ago.
Don’t forget, the steeper the line, the more contrast - the flatter the line, the flatter the contrast. Then it’s just a matter of using the mouse to find what level in the image you want to change and modifying the curve for that level.
e.g. to really boost (too much) the contrast, I can measure the level of the concrete, which comes out at around 150 and then create an almost vertical section of the line around there…
Of course, this is only for demonstration but, you get the idea.
A good image starts with what Ansel Adams called “pre-visualisation”. It takes time to get used to it, but Helen taught me a lot about “seeing” in B&W - looking for strong lines, patterns, contrasts, etc.
Try scrunching up your eyes so that you only see abstract fuzzy shapes, or look through a strongly coloured filter like a red one, which removes a lot of the colours.
I replaced my .dop file with yours, and I now have two .dop files.
When I open the image, I see three (VC) selections
(M) Looks like image I originally edited, and posted here
(1) Looks like the original color image, straight from the camera, and
(2) Must be your image, as there is no watermark.
Then I see your snapshot, and I see my two edited images, with watermark, and three of your images.
As I played the video, especially the part with the HSL tool, it all made sense. I can change the color of things in my image, and the changed color will appear differently when I see it as a B&W image. I need to practice this several times before I could ever say I understand it.
It’s one more tool in my toolbox, that I might be able to use based on what I see and learned in the video. I don’t know enough yet to really appreciate this new technique - but I intend to work with it.
My thoughts are I need to learn how to crawl before walking, and walk before running. You are in the racing range, and I am in diapers crawling - well, maybe walking by now.
I went back to the “walkway” photo around 2pm this afternoon when I thought the lighting would be appropriate - perfect. I set a reasonable exposure, set the lens as far wide as it would go (24mm), and tried different places to stand. Just as I found a perfect spot, a fellow on a bicycle came along, and before I could think about it, I instantly captured one photo, and then another a split second later. The first one was better, as it was still a photo of the walkway. The second one was a photo of the guy on the bicycle.
In Photolab, I was going to use the HSL method, but I was surprised to see the image was already B&W. Turns out that I had clicked the box above HSL, which turned on Style-Toning, which was set to B&W. At that moment, the image looked pretty good, but was too “flat”. No contrast. On a whim, I added the “S-curve” like usual, and I got my contrast back, but according to the histogram, nothing was white. Plus 0.5 in exposure fixed that. I cropped out the top to remove distractions, and cropped out the bottom because there was too much concrete. Finally, I turned on ClearView Plus and set it to zero, gradually adding more, while viewing the image at full size. A setting of 20 looked good to me. I thought I was done, but the bicycle rider’s face was too dark, so that was brightened just a little with a control point. I thought about making the garbage can a little brighter, but why? Last thing I did was to user the REPAIR tool to get rid of some of the most annoying dirt on the walkway surface.
M = your colour version
1 = my B&W version
2 = processed with the HSL tool *)
*) pulled the blue HSL channel all the way to the left + some adjustments
More or less for demonstration purposes, as personally I don’t like to darken a sky so much
(looks somewhat like a night shot + illumination by some huge flood lighting).
I have strange feelings about all those photos, as they look “artsy”, but they don’t really show what I wanted to show about the building under construction. I liked my mobile-phone image I posted long ago, but it was horrible - I think a box-camera might have done better. Meanwhile, I’m struggling with the concept of how much I can modify an image? Is there a limit? Maybe not, but I’m already getting too close to Luminar for comfort. Sky is no good? Replace it. I keep thinking about stuff like that.
Anyway, I went back to the building today, and watched as they prepared, then hoisted into position, one of the remaining concrete sections they are installing all around the building. I took lots of photos of the whole procedure, but only one of them had what I wanted - something that shows the building, and one more of the concrete pieces being installed, as many workers as possible, the crane (not possible), and something to give the viewer an idea of what installing these things is like - and I also wanted it to make for a pleasing image. Out of all the images, only one gave me what I wanted - am posting it here. I used smart lighting which lit up some of the background stuff just a little, and I set ClearView to 20 - not sure if I needed it at all. I used a different control point for each of the workers, to brighten up their face just a little.
I don’t see any purpose or point in making it B&W - I like the colors on the guys clothing. I cropped it tighter to show what I consider the most important stuff, but un-did that to show more of the overall image.
Since there was no fog, mist or haze, you had absolutely no need for ClearView Plus.
Always start with the fine contrast sliders and, only if they are not strong enough, move to Micro-contrast, the, only as a last resort, think about using ClearView Plus
Yep, using Clearview Plus for other than fog, mist and haze should be a last resort. As I have pointed out before Clearview Plus can occasionally add value to other images depending on various factors and if used carefully! But, in my experience, on well exposed images those occasions are relatively rare.
Sorry, I guess I got distracted.
Blue sky comes back, along with the colors on the “ceilings” (not sure what to call them), and the cropping is what I prefer.
I think it was @Joanna who wanted to try to make the floors “horizontal”, but I prefer what I saw and photographed.
For the longest time, I avoided ClearView Plus like the plague.
I thought we decided here it is OK to use, but ONLY in very small amounts.
Isn’t it just one of the several ways to get the desired effect?
I can go back to using only Contrast and Fine Contrast, as I’ve done for a year or so now.
Quick question - what I thought I learned from you was to use the Contrast Slider which seemed to have an effect on the entire image, and then to use the Fine Contrast Slider, which seemed to have an effect mostly on the “smallestl details” of an image. Maybe I’m wrong about this.
I hardly ever use Micro Contrast. At least not deliberately. Sometimes my settings seem to apply it on their own, and then I put it back to zero.
When I look around the internet for explanations, I find lots of things, but I have no idea if you would approve. For example: https://tutodxo.com/en/contrast-sharpness/
From recent comments you’ve made, I wonder if I should even be using Smart Lighting, as even that apparently has an effect on contrast.
More reading and testing is needed, but not now - too sleepy.
Yeah, impossible, and unobtainable.
