Second Stab at B&W Conversion

[MWC2]

I received some pointers on my b/w conversion last night and I tried to put them into action this evening. Please let me know if I'm on the right path. I hope I'm at least heading in the right direction, lol.

I really tried to pay attention to not blowing my whites this time.

 

[frisii]

What tool are you using to control the tonal range? The upper part/shoulder of the curve seems too steep. The highlights look too bright.

 

[adrianakyan]

I think #1 is overexpose. (her hair..right side.. and teeth)
like #2 better but the left side of her arm is darker.. and the lower right of her right arm is overexpose b/c of the light coming in..

 

[joealcantar]

Believe the eyes are throwing me off with the oversharpening. Can you post a color image of second image to try something on the hot spot on arm. Really all depends on the paper you pick to print on.
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Shoot well and thanks for sharing, Joe

 

[D-B-J]

The shadows are a bit dark for this type of portraiture. IMO

 

[MWC2]

Believe the eyes are throwing me off with the oversharpening. Can you post a color image of second image to try something on the hot spot on arm. Really all depends on the paper you pick to print on.
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Shoot well and thanks for sharing, Joe

Here is a totally unedited version, only sharpened for the web.

These wont be printed, they are just practice shots for me to work on. I figured out why the first two were looking over sharpened, it was because they were. When I was playing around I must have got side tracked, I had them sharpeded twice.

 

[gsgary]

Here's one of my quick conversions, but what happened bottom right corner

 

[MWC2]

bottom right hand corner, the dog decided to peek out the blinds and when he stuck his nose between the blinds and the window a way to strong of a sun beam hit her lower arm.

Welcome to the Texas sun at 6:30 pm, still way to harsh of a light for photos.

 

[subscuck]

How exactly are you processing the conversion? The highlights are still blown (teeth, hair), and there's a definite lack of mid tones.

Gary's edit is much closer to what I would expect in a B&W conversion.

 

[RauschPhotography]

Here's one of my quick conversions, but what happened bottom right corner

Skin looks way too dark in this conversion.

 

[ann]

with gary's version, the skin tones are not correct in terms of grayscale. This is a blonde child, and her skin value needs to be higher than middle gray. The meter is reading that tone a a middle value, but it needs to be corrected with exposure and pp.

I don't mind the OP's version so much, altho, i am a fan of neutral black and white images and it could have a bit less contrast.. The highlight in the corner is an easy fix, just burn it in to match the rest of the arm.

 

[KmH]

What is that (gag me with a spoon) background?

To guage exposure I look for skin highlights to be between 235 and 240 in the red channel. I had to add just over a full stop of exposure to attain those numbers.

I'll be back after I have has time to do a B&W conversion from the color photo.

 

[mrpink]

heres my stab.....



6024594042_1ed0d2a2b7_z (1)-2 by Matt Francosky, on Flickr





p!nK

 

[RauschPhotography]

Mr. Pink, your conversion looks alright but the skin smoothing looks a bit too much?

 

[frisii]

MrP!nk ..It looks better but IMO the sharpening radius is a bit too large.