Black & White Conversion

elsaspet

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Dallas
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www.visionsinwhite.com
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I got some great advice yesterday for proper black and white conversion. Now to see if I made good use of the advice! First photograph in color for reasons of comparison, and second using the color techniques I was taught. OTE

paulcolorweb.jpg

paulbwweb.jpg

All suggestions appreciated.
 
hmm I think black and white is better here. First of all ... the red dot on his forehead is not so distracting :) but to be honest, I prefer b&w here because the colour one looks rather snapshoty for me here. I like how you converted it, very nice tones and levels.
 
Thanks Mentos. Actually, I chose the photo for converstion not because of the composition, but because I thought it would be one of the harder to convert. I love a challenge. I'm looking for critique on the conversion itself. I'm attempting richness of tone that you find in true film B&W conversion.
I'm glad you like the B&W. I used to do a simple desaturation with additional changes in contrast. (See my crappy avatar for an example of my old method) It sucked! I love the tonal quality of other photos I find here, so thats what I am trying to learn. Thank you Mentos!
 
As far as I can tell the conversion was a success. You didn't get any overblown spots or any ultradark spots in there. Whatever you did, it worked!
 
My only criticism would be that it could use more contrast...but then again I am a fan of high contrast images. This has an overall grey tone to it. I did the same technique as you mentioned, but increased the contrast and brightness, and also adjusted the levels. Here's a quick example, but it can be much better:
paulcolorweb.jpg



It all depends on how you like your bw shots...it's hard not to get things blown out with high contrast but the burn tool is good for that ;)
 
the conversion appears to have come very well. It is always a struggle to convert to a true B&W image from color. What techniques did you use?
 
I think the conversion looks really good and it captured very natural tones. I can see the interest in Amanda's version, but it looks more artsy and manipulated to me than the more subtle tone of the original conversion. Definitely just two takes that appeal for different reasons. Nice job on the conversion!
 
Well Cool! I really like Amanda's conversion too. I like the heavier black tones. The original was a little gray, I agree.
I can't wait to play with it more.
Thank all you guys for your responses. :)
 

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