B&W aint easy!

d1a1s1 · May 16, 2007

Im tryin!

mysteryscribe · May 16, 2007

Very nice and if it were easy everyone would be doing it. Would take the fun out of it

d1a1s1 · May 16, 2007

mysteryscribe said:
Very nice and if it were easy everyone would be doing it. Would take the fun out of it

Of course you are right. Seems like the sun can ruin a B&W shot a lot easier than a color. It has a way of washing out the neutrals. Maybe Ill hit that church this afternoon. Thanks Mysteryscribe.

julius · May 16, 2007

Nice shots. Are you shooting film or doing a conversion? I love BW

It could do with a little more contrast imo. I don't think there are any true whites in the first two.

What program are you using for post processing? If you are using photoshop, if you have a look at the levels in image>adjustments>levels you can see that the graph drops drops before reaching the far right which is the bright whites. If you yank that little arrow on the far right a bit to the left it should fix it up for you.

d1a1s1 · May 16, 2007

^^ Thanks for the Tip. That was my favorite of the day. I plan on hitting those trash cans again though.

cedew · May 16, 2007

When you go back to take photos of the trash can, try to avoid taking them at the normal standing height. Show me an angle I don't see every time I walk by a trash can. I like the second one, and think it may benefit from a more dramatic angle on the lettering, focusing less on the light fixture. The third one is okay, but I think the lighting and crosswalk hurt the image.

As always, don't read too much into anyone's opinion online, and take it all with a grain of salt. I feel like I need to say that here more than anywhere else...

d1a1s1 · May 17, 2007

cedew said:
When you go back to take photos of the trash can, try to avoid taking them at the normal standing height. Show me an angle I don't see every time I walk by a trash can. I like the second one, and think it may benefit from a more dramatic angle on the lettering, focusing less on the light fixture. The third one is okay, but I think the lighting and crosswalk hurt the image.

As always, don't read too much into anyone's opinion online, and take it all with a grain of salt. I feel like I need to say that here more than anywhere else...

Well thats a disclaimer you can leave out of your responses to my posts. Im here to learn, ANY feedback helps, Thanks

mysteryscribe · May 17, 2007

I dropped the gamma on this making darker nothing more... With a slightly darker image you can get a little more drama. Lighter usually mean bright airy and a happy subject. Well that isn't true always but mostly. It is easier to control the mood of your photos in black and white.

d1a1s1 · May 17, 2007

^^ I see what you mean. Point well taken, looks better.

Alex_B · May 17, 2007

good to see this B&W forum filling up and being well accepted

With the second one it is the composition which bothers me ... will play with it

Alex_B · May 17, 2007

I know heavy editing only reflects the taste of the person doping it, so do not take my edit too serious! Here we go:

added contrast and darkened a bit. well and some rotation and cropping as you can see.

mysteryscribe · May 17, 2007

Ya cropped off the bottom of the signs shadows not good... I took it down rotated it -6 degrees cropped it for the shadows and cloned in the edges to fill the crop looked pretty good, but then in all my stupidity I lost it.

Alex_B · May 17, 2007

mysteryscribe said:
Ya cropped off the bottom of the signs shadows not good... I took it down rotated it -6 degrees cropped it for the shadows and cloned in the edges to fill the crop looked pretty good, but then in all my stupidity I lost it.

you are right here .... about the shadows, but that was because I could not save them anyway due to the rotation and change of format.

I was to lazy to clone for the edges, then it might have worked.

a pity you lost your edit as you were less lazy here ...