Black and white HDR... Critique please...

[shiftingcolors]

Constructive criticism is welcome... I don't mind if you tell me you don't like it, as long as you explain why...

 

[vipgraphx]

I will admit first hand that I am no pro when it comes to black and white but, I can say that this image lacks depth. It needs some contrast bumps. It is a tad bit blurry as well so I wold use some method of sharpening.

 

[Josh66]

It doesn't really look 'HDR' to me - it just looks B&W. Looks like it was a pretty overcast day too.

 

[CouncilmanDoug]

there's no black or white in this picture, just gray

 

[bogeyguy]

Anyway, it's a nice photo of Pittsburgh, I assume from Mt. Washington.

 

[Bynx]

The photo is too small to give accurate comments about. Its not sharp but rather fuzzy. Is it full frame or has it been cropped? It does look like an HDR that was converted to B&W but with no further work. It looks kind of flat and could have used some Gamma Correction. Any good HDR image makes a great B&W -- every time.

 

[shiftingcolors]

I will admit first hand that I am no pro when it comes to black and white but, I can say that this image lacks depth. It needs some contrast bumps. It is a tad bit blurry as well so I wold use some method of sharpening.

I appreciate the feedback... I took a closer look at the full resolution photo and I think the focus was sharp... This photo was uploaded was loaded from a resized file on my iPhone, so perhaps that resulted in a lack of sharpness. Do you think that contrast bumps would result in a greater sense of depth?

 

[shiftingcolors]

It doesn't really look 'HDR' to me - it just looks B&W. Looks like it was a pretty overcast day too.

This photo was certainly a 3 exposure HDR image... +2, 0, -2... The timing was unfortunate though... What was a beautiful afternoon quickly turned into a dreary overcast twilight... The original HDR image had an awful blue/grey cast, so I decided to go B&W... Thanks for the feedback.

 

[shiftingcolors]

there's no black or white in this picture, just gray

Any recommendations?

 

[shiftingcolors]

Anyway, it's a nice photo of Pittsburgh, I assume from Mt. Washington.

Thanks buddy... You are correct... Mt. Washington

 

[ann]

there's no black or white in this picture, just gray

Any recommendations?

add contrast.

 

[grapnell]

 

[AlanE]

Nice edit.. 100% better IMO

 

[shiftingcolors]

<img src="http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=8289"/>

This is a nice improvement. Did you just use a simple bump in contrast and/or sharpness, or a more complicated adjustment layer?

 

[grapnell]

duplicate layer, sobel edge detect the new layer, slight gaussian blur, color invert, then overlay it.