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First attempt at black&white conversion
Posted By: Fries, 11-06-2009, 05:31 PM

In march this year I bought my first (D)SLR, a K200D, and after reading a lot of info on this site and others I tried pushing the envelope as much as I could with my limited experience on my holiday and hiking trip in Northern Norway. When I came home I liked this picture a lot, but because there was more contrast than color in this photo I assumed it would make a fine B&W. I used Aperture without any plugins and before posting this I made some last refinements. I am wondering if this is good enough or that a plugin like Silver Efex Pro from Nik would render better results...

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11-06-2009, 07:26 PM   #2
Ash
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Looks like a serene, dreamy scene. Definitely would make a good landscape.
Only with this one, I'm struggling to make out the important details in the rocks and the background. The B&W conversion also is just not quite right - dull contrast and ineffective colour transformations.

I'd be more inclined to work with colour on this one, particularly as a setting sun casts brilliant reds, yellows and blues in the sky, complementing the green foliage and earthy coloured rocks. But do take this for what it's worth... <2c.
11-06-2009, 07:46 PM   #3
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Would you mind posting the color version?
11-07-2009, 12:19 AM   #4
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Color!

Ash, thanks for the comments and flippedgazelle here is the color version. I seem to have cropped the B&W one a bit different. The photo was quite underexposed, so thats perhaps a reason for the dull contrast.

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11-07-2009, 12:38 AM   #5
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This one may be quite hard to work with given that the colours in the sky are a major feature of the image, and in itself is blown, whereas the foreground is dull.

Would have been one for bracketing and HDR. Otherwise, a few minutes later, and the contrast would not have been as great and the capture more flattering. As it is, the only way I can see to salvage this one is to dodge and burn selectively to overcome the blown highlights and dull foreground. This method does have its limitations.
11-07-2009, 01:27 AM   #6
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It's a little to dark for the capture.With the sky being a part of the scene,there's not much of a dramatic feel to it with the lack of clouds for B&W to be effective,and probably too late in the evening aswell.But keep trying!
11-07-2009, 05:22 PM   #7
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QuoteOriginally posted by Ash Quote
This one may be quite hard to work with given that the colours in the sky are a major feature of the image, and in itself is blown, whereas the foreground is dull.

Would have been one for bracketing and HDR. Otherwise, a few minutes later, and the contrast would not have been as great and the capture more flattering. As it is, the only way I can see to salvage this one is to dodge and burn selectively to overcome the blown highlights and dull foreground. This method does have its limitations.
I had to work friday evening and saturday so I was not able to get back to you. But thanks for you insights. I actually forgot that part of the sky was blown and just checked my master image and you are right Ash. In landscapes I normally expose for the sky and try to rescue the foreground that to often is a bit or a lot underexposed. In this photo I managed to combine both problems. The conversion to B&W might no be ideal, but the real problem lies with the quality of the photo. Just bought a B+W gradual ND filter that perhaps solves the exposure issue to some extend. I am still testing that. HDR would be in option, but I do not have the software to pull that off yet. In stead of buying the software I recently invested in a screen calibration solution and a new lens (DA 35 F2,8 limited).

QuoteOriginally posted by Barnster Quote
It's a little to dark for the capture.With the sky being a part of the scene,there's not much of a dramatic feel to it with the lack of clouds for B&W to be effective,and probably too late in the evening aswell.But keep trying!
It was perhaps a bit to late in the evening to take this shot, but there were big fish around and I was holding a fly rod. Those two things got connected and lost track of the beautiful landscape around me a bit to long. I will keep trying. And if I run into problems I can't solve I have you and the other forum members as back up. Thanks for the support.

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