black and white photos

[kodakan]

hello guys, Any tips converting photos to black & white? Below are my attempts using photoshop. For the picture with the hydrant, I moved the saturation slider all the way to the left to remove the colors. Is there a better way to do that? I thought both photos are a bit bland. Appreciate any advice.

#1

#2

my pics are ok to edit

 

[stevemunoz]

I believe the look you are going for in these photographs is usually termed Selective Color. If you search for that in Youtube, you'll find a slew of videos showing you how to do this. Seems like your doing alright yourself though, but if you want more insight into techniques, then Youtube would do a better job than any text response.

Hope this helps,

Steve M.

 

[JCoombs]

I'm definitely not the one to critique, but from my new perspective to photography it looks pretty good in my opinion.

 

[kodakan]

I was looking to get some constructive criticism as I felt it could be improved. But I'll take the compliments! thanks

 

[er111a]

not really a fan of selective coloring, but good angels

 

[aliciaqw]

I like doing my BW conversions in Adobe Camcera Raw.

 

[FattyMcJ]

not really a fan of selective coloring, but good angels

Where are these angels you speak of?!


OP:

#1 would be a winner if the post wasn't coming out of his head, but I like the "thought" emotion you can see on his face.

I'm not awake enough to give critique on #2, not sure what would make it better. Off the top of my head, I'm not a fan of the selective coloring, but I like that you're trying it. Selective coloring is like adding vignetting, sometimes it works, others it doesn't.