Malibu Pier B&W

[StefaninLA]

I never really got into black and white photography, although I love it. To me its even harder than color, to get a nice spread amongst all the variables betweeen black and white.

Looking for constructive critique on this one.

Thank you.

 

[Tim Tucker]

That's because most of your common editing techniques equalise values, they don't separate (see above). With this one you're not even close to white, look at your histogram, it's just a lot of middle grey with little separation.
When you do B&W think colour as much as luminosity as it's the colour filtration that provides a lot of the tonality of traditional B&W shots. It's a bright scene and should have a lot of contrast to start with, where's it all gone?

This is not a good edit as trying to push contrast on the luminosity only with something that's already quite flat is only going to introduce posterisation, but here it is anyway:

 

[StefaninLA]

I appreciate the input Tim. Thanks

 

[LilyBee]

I love the pic and I really dont think its shading is too bad. Black and white balancing is important or so I am told I do this by in Lightroom with black and white pics making sure the white is up to the point where hotspots appear you dont want that and I up the black until there is a little bit of pure black showing. A lot of pics also fare well with a bit of upped contrast and upped clarity.

 

[Gary A.]

If you shoot B&W enough, you'll start to see in B&W ... You start to see in tones and shades not color ... You understand that there isn't any difference between green and red. Et al. (As previously stated, your image is too muddy, lacking in contrast.) Better metering would help. Shadow detail and extensive dynamic range is overrated.

 

[StefaninLA]

Thanks ladies and gents, certainly something im practicing to get better