B&W conversions (C&C welcomed)

Boutte · Dec 8, 2010

I grew up shooting and developing black and white and thought I'd see what i could do with some of my color photos. Tell me what you think.

KenC · Dec 8, 2010

The first three look too dark in the shadows. The first is a nice composition, but there is a lot of haze in the distance - you might be able to do some selective contrast adjustments for this. The second has too much sky and ground for my taste - some close-ups of that building would be interesting. The third doesn't seem to have a real point of interest for me. The last is a really nice rainy day scene. The circle in the lower left corner and the dark strip in the lower right leading into the scene work well. The only comments I have are that the building on the left is leaning, so either a crop/tilt or a perspective correction would help, and the umbrella on the right could be darker.

Boutte · Dec 8, 2010

I tried to correct the tilt but I don't know how to do it with out distorting the rest of the pic.

Frequency · Dec 9, 2010

@1: as already pointed out the dark regions are too dark to keep a balance; but the image is powerful due to the cloud patterns and the balloon.

I really loved the second image

Yes, third image is actually good, but lacks a point of interest as pointed out

I liked the fourth image very much; it imparts the feeling of walking in rain

Do you have the last one in colour, to show

?

Regards

Boutte · Dec 9, 2010

Frequency said:
@1: as already pointed out the dark regions are too dark to keep a balance; but the image is powerful due to the cloud patterns and the balloon.

I really loved the second image

Yes, third image is actually good, but lacks a point of interest as pointed out

I liked the fourth image very much; it imparts the feeling of walking in rain

Do you have the last one in colour, to show ?

Regards

I like this picture but it needs a lot of work. Adding the clouds was very time consuming.

Boutte · Dec 9, 2010

Is this better?

KenC · Dec 10, 2010

Better in the foreground, but the buildings in the background are also lighter/less contrasty. I think this needs selective adjustment because there was some haze decreasing the contrast in the distant buildings, but the foreground was too contrasty. If you're using PS, adjustment layers are the best way to do this. You can use the layer mask on the adjustment layer to control where the adjustment occurs by making part of it black (blocks the adjustment) and part of it white (allows the adjustment). There are plenty of tutorials on this from Adobe and others. If you are using Elements or some other software, it should still be possible to do this, but the associated key words may be different.