Color or B&W

[ombre]

Looking at potential images through a different "lens" lately as I've been playing with black and white from color in Photoshop. As always, contructive criticism is very welcome.

Original Image



B&W Image




Another Image at same location

[Frank Fletcher]

I like the feel of the bw conversions!

That being said, subjectively, if it were mine, there are things I would change.

In your color photo - your conversion has saved highlight detail at the expense of your midtone contrasts - making the deck and the people look relatively "muddy". Also, the top right corner is burnt out. Highlights tend to draw the eye and my gaze is drawn off the subject and then off the image... which leads me to the BW conversions.

Both the BWs have large areas of blocked shadows and highlights - although they work much better in your favor as a BW than in color. The gaze of the fishermen draw you out to sea and into the sunset quite nicely. I really like the tones in the deck in your second conversion best - probably from an increased use of the red channel. However, the dodging/burning you used around the fishermen are a little too obvious. A softer edged brush, or a more feathered selection would have been less clashing.

Just for kicks, I did something dangerous on these forums, I did my own 5 minute take on the color one. A BW conversion would not have been useful here because I am using the Gimp instead of Photoshop. If you want to see the slight edit i made, feel free to contact me - as I find it quite rude to edit somebody elses artwork in a public forum without express permission. I do have screenshots of the step-by-steps.

Once again, congratulations - I definitely feel the BW conversions work better for me than your original color!

Frank.

[ombre]

I'd like to see your stab at it.

[weatherwise2]

I agree with Frank. The BW and 2nd edit with crop is better. The white burnout is too distracting and draws your eyes to it and away from the action on the deck.

[Frank Fletcher]

ok - here are my basic steps. I've left the effect exaggerated ... uh ... for effect. I'd probably tone back my version a bit more in reality. Also note that I'm only working from your posted jpeg - probably not the original file.

#1 The original file as called up in the Gimp:


#2 The curve adjustment


#2a Curve dialed back to 60%


#3 Decreased the blocked highlights in the the right corners


#4 After the quick session of editing


#5 Before and After



So like I said, I'd probably tone back the effect as well as darken the deck back to get the mood. I did the exercise to make sure I wasn't full of hot air and talking big.

Frank.

[Frank Fletcher]

whoops - one mistake.

I noticed that when editing the curves, I pulled down the blue slightly to dramatize/darken the sky. That introduced a slight green cast to the sky/ocean. I meant to get rid of that by changing that layer's blend mode to "value". Forgot to do that... so the green cast remains.

Frank.

[ombre]

Thanks Frank! Now you've challenged me to go to the next level in Photoshop. There goes my American Thanksgiving weekend!

DAVE