[Ultima]

Hi guys, i've been interested in black & white conversion for many years now and just love the texture that it can bring out in photo's. Would love to see everyones B&W photo's, also hear some tips etc on how you do the conversion.

Heres one of mine to get you going.

Use B&W Pro plugin for Photoshop, levels and curves, hue and saturation, USM to get a little more contrast, bit of dodging and burning where I thought it was needed and finally upload to flicker.

Regards Martin

P.S. Original size can be found here

[hongkonguk]

Great idea for a thread! I love B&W. My most viewed pic on flickr is the first B&W conversion I did. I usually desaturate to turn it B&W then add some contrast where required.

This is my most viewed on flickr

And one that is more recent

[Ultima]

Love the second one hongkonguk, the hand looks 3d too me and the tone is great. Like the first but I'd like to see a little more contrast but just my opinion.

Regards
Martin

[Liquid101]

A couple from me.

Basically just converted to greyscale, copied the layer, made two different versions, one with higher contrast than the other, then used the eraser and layer opacity to mix. Flattened layers and tweaked levels.

[hongkonguk]

I know what you mean about the first one. But it was one of my earliest attempts at B&W and has been my most viewed so I just left it as is.

[hongkonguk]

Love those ones Liquid! Especially the first and third one. And the second...

[Ultima]

Liquid, they are stunning mate The tonal range is tremendous. Will give your technique a try.

Martin

[SweetGirl]

Very nice guys and really glad that this thread has been started.

There's something about black and white photos

Liquid..Awesome photos (as usual). Really love #2

Hongkonguk .. #2 for me

ashworthacca ... lovely. is that a HDR shot.

[Magslad]

Some great photos there folks - love the first one Liquid. Thought I'd add one of my own - converted using the 'Scott Kelby workflow' (i.e. create gradient map adjustment layer, tweak channels, flatten image).

[braiden]

Liquid 1&2 for me, excellent work, as always, here mate

Magslad great perspective on that shot.

Some extremely good photo's in this thread already.

[Ultima]

Originally Posted by SweetGirl

ashworthacca ... lovely. is that a HDR shot.

No it not HDR, just very high use of USM to create loads of contrast.

Martin

[Ultima]

Originally Posted by braiden

Magslad great perspective on that shot.

Agreed Again I really like the tone of this one.

Martin

[Ultima]

Another one here, pretty much same conversion as before but added some noise to get a fast B&W film effect. Not really sure if it works to be honest but like to experiment.

Martin

[braiden]

Originally Posted by ashworthacca

No it not HDR, just very high use of USM to create loads of contrast.

Martin

Ashworthacca, your shot is really unusual, got that medieval look and atmosphere about it.

Really nice shot with a lot of mood.

Forgive me if the the answer is obvious, but what do you mean by "just very high use of USM to create loads of contrast."

[Ultima]

Originally Posted by braiden

Ashworthacca, your shot is really unusual, got that medieval look and atmosphere about it.

Really nice shot with a lot of mood.

Forgive me if the the answer is obvious, but what do you mean by "just very high use of USM to create loads of contrast."

Thanks mate

If you Filter, sharpen, unsharp mask and start with Amount 68% Radius 50 pixels, that should give the image a contrast boost. You just have to be careful that it doesn't give you any holo's round the edges of buildings etc. Just play with the amount and radius to suit your taste.

Martin

[Chunder]

I tend to use a b&w conversion to "rescue" a photo - either to remove unwanted colour confusion, or to mask a lack of sharpness. Often as has been pointed out already, the b&w adds a sense of grandeur to an image, and gives it a really different atmosphere...

Here's a few of my faves:

I've got a Flickr set dedicated to monochrome images although I think that going back and re-working some of them Liquid101's technique may well help to make some of them substantially better...

[braiden]

Wow chunder great set of images, number one really does it for me though

[Ultima]

Chunder, No1 is great, If I remember right I voted for that one in one of the competitions.

Martin

[Ultima]

Heres another one.

Martin

[Tobers]

I'm really getting into monochrome. The key for me is the ability to change the actual colours on the original image quite radically to make certain areas of the picture stand out on the final B&W image.

I've just discovered that Lightroom is so easy for doing this, much simpler than in Photoshop, so my particular desire to make skies black has become much more effective.

Also, getting a good tonal range so the picture doesn't look too gray is quite tricky, but rewarding when you get it right.

#1 This one has had the blue sky darkened a lot, and the yellow brought out to highlight the flower:

#2 I changed the reds & oranges a lot on this shot which brought out really good details in the bricks, and darkened the bricks at the end of the alley giving much more detail.

I'm yet to get anywhere near the amazing standard of this guy. And this page has his editing process detailed

Toberssssssss

[imcarm]

Some real stunning Black & White images from everyone

Here's a couple from me:

[Liquid101]

Originally Posted by Tobers

Also, getting a good tonal range so the picture doesn't look too gray is quite tricky, but rewarding when you get it right.

What exactly do you mean by tonal range?

Personally, I like to have infomation in every pixel and in areas of shadow and highlight. ie no black pixels, and no white ones. Ideally, with a lovely curve of detail in the histogram with nothing missing. It may not look as punchy and dramatic as other images, but it does contain more detail.

The photographs in the link you posted are indeed punchy and quite stunning, but closer inspection of the histograms of these images shows just how much detail is missing. Great chunks of shadow detail are just pure black, and large parts are completely blown out to white, with complete gaps of infomation in some tones. While this looks nice and punchy as an 800 pixel image on screen, in print it's going to look pretty ropey. This is often the problem with digital monochrome prints compared to traditional wet prints.

Just my 2p

[Tobers]

Indeed, good points well made. I dont think I mean completely black blacks and completely white whites, except in very small areas of the image. But generally I think the "punchier" pics have a lot of contrast but without losing the detail, which is the tricky bit.

[Ultima]

Great pics Tobers, love the contrast.

Liquid, couldn't agree more, it is very difficult to get a good range and not to lose information in the shadows and highlights but very satisfying when you do and to me makes a better overall B&W photo.

imcarm, great simple conversions, I really like them. The simple conversions I seem to have trouble with, always wanting to go that bit further to achieve more contrast etc when I really shouldn't.

Martin

[Tobers]

Great thread everyone. Top pics so far...anyone got any more?

Here's another of my faves to keep things ticking over. I'm off up to Malham in Yorkshire in a couple of weeks and will annoy my wife & kids greatly by getting out there for some landscape shots with a view to converting to B&W. Hopefully the skies will be good and it wont be chucking it down.

[Ultima]

Tobers, that's another wonderful photo. The black horse on white background and the great sky, magic.

[imcarm]

Ok one more from me, athough I think I got to carried away with the burn tool

[Ultima]

A portrait from me.

B&W Pro, play with curves and 4% gausian blur to get a slight high key glamour effect, duplicate layer with mask and add 20% gausian blur. Brush out effect from face neck and shoulders to leave blur effect to background only. Add border. That's it really.

Martin

[tomson]

Originally Posted by Liquid101

Personally, I like to have infomation in every pixel and in areas of shadow and highlight. ie no black pixels, and no white ones. Ideally, with a lovely curve of detail in the histogram with nothing missing. It may not look as punchy and dramatic as other images, but it does contain more detail.

The photographs in the link you posted are indeed punchy and quite stunning, but closer inspection of the histograms of these images shows just how much detail is missing. Great chunks of shadow detail are just pure black, and large parts are completely blown out to white, with complete gaps of infomation in some tones. While this looks nice and punchy as an 800 pixel image on screen, in print it's going to look pretty ropey. This is often the problem with digital monochrome prints compared to traditional wet prints.

Just my 2p

I understand where you're coming from with this but I don't think you can apply that thinking blanket-like to all images. The high contrast b&w style has been used since the dawn of photography - way before digital - and, yes using that style may sacrifice detail at the extremes - but if one chooses to shoot/process that way and the image works then so be it. No one cares what the histogram looks like when a picture is hanging on a gallery wall.

Look at some of Bill Brandt's portraits or Shirin Neshat's b&w work - large areas of solid black and white and anything but ropey.

[Liquid101]

Originally Posted by tomson

I understand where you're coming from with this but I don't think you can apply that thinking blanket-like to all images. The high contrast b&w style has been used since the dawn of photography - way before digital - and, yes using that style may sacrifice detail at the extremes - but if one chooses to shoot/process that way and the image works then so be it. No one cares what the histogram looks like when a picture is hanging on a gallery wall.

Look at some of Bill Brandt's portraits or Shirin Neshat's b&w work - large areas of solid black and white and anything but ropey.

True enough, I suppose it depends what kind of photography floats your boat.

This in mind, I thought I'd reprocess an old colour pic without worrying about the histogram; let myself go a little. Just for fun