BW Help

[Seadawg]

My Sister in-law asked me to take some photos of her newborn toddler (lol he weighed 11.84 pounds). So, one of the shots i took was with him laying on a little boat with a black sheet as my background. I dropped my shadows and blacks to get the background completely black in the original in PS. I then opened the PSD file in lightroom to do my BW conversion, everything looked (to me any how) great until I exported. I opened the jpeg and there was a lot of noise in the black. I will try to post the photo to see, but as it stands I don't want to put it on my flickr account because it look hideous.

 

[Seadawg]

Well dang, the small image looks fine. When I view the full size image on my Mac its horrible. I will try to upload to flickr and see whats going on with it.

 

[Seadawg]

Do y'all see what I am talking about? Why is it doing that? Best seen on full screen.

Ahoy Maties by choward_01, on Flickr

 

[SnappingShark]

Yeah I see like a fine sand around the blacks - you could just brush over them and underexpose it all?

 

[480sparky]

I don't think it's noise. I think it's reflections of a partly-shiny cloth.

 

[Seadawg]

Im pretty sure it was noise with my ISO being 800. Thats pushing my 60d pretty hard. But I corrected the problem (not sure if was the correct way to do it), I made a selection and made an inverse. I then painted the black with a black brush. It seemed to work, but if you know of another way please enlighten me. Aside from the original question, please feel free to critique the photo.

Thanks,

CJ

Ahoy Maties 2 by choward_01, on Flickr

 

[480sparky]

Noise at 800 shouldn't look like that. It's spread out far too much.

 

[Seadawg]

I see what you are saying, I guess it could have just been lent on the sheet. After I went back and looked at it, I zoomed in and could see it on the PSD file. It was just a big shock when I exported to to a JPEG and looked at it. As the kids now days would say "WTF" lol. I noticed that I cut off his toes with the black brush, it was just a quick and dirty remedy to see if I could get rid of it. I will take my time and do a better job with it.

 

[480sparky]

Try putting the cloth back under the same lighting and see if you get the same effect.

 

[The_Traveler]

It seems underexposed.
Even the handle on the toy toolbox is grey.

 

[Derrel]

That effect looks to me like Lightroom's "portrait sharpening" effect...Lightroom can apply some very heavy-handed sharpening on some of the presets it has, and the images will look fabulous when printed. Again, I don't think this is a noise problem, but a sharpening/export issue from the way Lightroom was used. I have seen this before.

 

[Designer]

Man! It's always me, isn't it?

Not addressing any "noise" or lint, or sharpening issues, but I'm afraid to say that the little boat prop looks like a child-size coffin.

And to have the sleeping baby lying there like that with that black chenille fabric is just too morbid.

Sorry.

(edit) The reason I say anything is because if I see it, then I figure other people see it too.

Better you know now than later.

 

[Seadawg]

Man! It's always me, isn't it?

Not addressing any "noise" or lint, or sharpening issues, but I'm afraid to say that the little boat prop looks like a child-size coffin.

And to have the sleeping baby lying there like that with that black chenille fabric is just too morbid.

Sorry.

(edit) The reason I say anything is because if I see it, then I figure other people see it too.

Better you know now than later.

No need to apologize, i can see what you are talking about. That's why i post here, for good honest feedback. And thanks for that. Unfortunately though, i do not have all of the cute little props for kids so i made do with what i had. Maybe black and white isn't a good option for this particular photo. I will play with the original to see if i can't make it less morbid. Thanks again for the reply and critique.

 

[Seadawg]

That effect looks to me like Lightroom's "portrait sharpening" effect...Lightroom can apply some very heavy-handed sharpening on some of the presets it has, and the images will look fabulous when printed. Again, I don't think this is a noise problem, but a sharpening/export issue from the way Lightroom was used. I have seen this before.

After i looked at the photo zoomed in real tight, it looks like something i created with an adjustment brush. As i mentioned in my last reply, i will stay from scratch with the raw file and see what i can make happen.