Some CC on some B/W images

[MWC2]

Hope everyone is having a wonderful Sunday afternoon. We are stuck inside due to the crazy heat, I believe we are on day 32 of over 100 degree temps. It's getting a little much.

I'm looking for some C&C on comp, B&W conversions and basically whatever else you think sticks out that I might have missed. I'm finding it hard to exposure for a black and white dog so some of my whites are blown in order not to lose detail in the blacks, does anyone have any tips on how to get a better exposure with such a subject?


#1

SS: 1/20
F/3.2
ISO 200

#2

SS 1/25
F/3.2
ISO 200


His eye on the right is "damaged" it's not a photographical or photoshop error. We were out for an evening jog and we both ran into a tree branch, I ended up with 5 stiches in my leg, unfortunately poor Maxwell ended up losing his eyesight in his one eye. Lesson learned always put your contacts in when going out for a jog.

#3

SS 1/40
F/3.5
ISO 200

 

[Rafal]

As far as composition goes I like #1 the most but it does look a little over exposed. I'm a begginner so don't take it to seriously, but maybe if you have a little darker background you exposure would come out better. but I might be wrong

 

[EPPhoto]

As far as composition goes I like #1 the most but it does look a little over exposed. I'm a begginner so don't take it to seriously, but maybe if you have a little darker background you exposure would come out better. but I might be wrong

You are correct...you are a beginner. And you're giving out false information! Having a dark background isn't going to do anything with her exposure. You shouldn't go around giving info out, if you don't know what you're talking about.

That being said...the exposure look fine lol.

 

[MWC2]

As far as composition goes I like #1 the most but it does look a little over exposed. I'm a begginner so don't take it to seriously, but maybe if you have a little darker background you exposure would come out better. but I might be wrong

You are correct...you are a beginner. And you're giving out false information! Having a dark background isn't going to do anything with her exposure. You shouldn't go around giving info out, if you don't know what you're talking about.

That being said...the exposure look fine lol.

thanks, I was thinking the same thing, plus with a darker background I was thinking I would lose detail on his darker fur (he would blend in). As you can see, the white fur is blown in the bottom left corner. I was trying to get as close to perfect exposure as I could for his face and had to sacrifce his chest area.

here is a colour version of #1

 

[KmH]

As far as composition goes I like #1 the most but it does look a little over exposed. I'm a begginner so don't take it to seriously, but maybe if you have a little darker background you exposure would come out better. but I might be wrong

You are correct...you are a beginner. And you're giving out false information! Having a dark background isn't going to do anything with her exposure. You shouldn't go around giving info out, if you don't know what you're talking about.

That being said...the exposure look fine lol.

Funny, it doesn't look OK to me.

In fact a sizable portion of the white portion of image #1 is effectively blownout (exceeds 250 in one or more of the color channels) with no visible detail left.

Perhaps you should heed your own advice.

 

[EPPhoto]

Kmh...look at the color picture...it's not BLOWN out. It's white hair lol...you're not going to see fine details in white hair when converted to B&W.

Plus, had she exposed for the white chest hair to be darker, the face (predominantly black) would be way underexposed. And since the face is the focal point, she exposed as good as she could.

 

[MWC2]

If anyone had any recs on how to set your exposure properly for a subject that is both black and white I would greatly appreciate it. I'm pretty much setting my exposure for the black as I don't want to lose any detail there (black face, dark eyes) then by trail and error adjusting until I find somewhat a happy medium. If there is a better way, please feel free to share.

 

[KmH]

Kmh...look at the color picture...it's not BLOWN out. It's white hair lol...you're not going to see fine details in white hair when converted to B&W.

Plus, had she exposed for the white chest hair to be darker, the face (predominantly black) would be way underexposed. And since the face is the focal point, she exposed as good as she could.

I wasn't refering to the color photo and neither were you in your reply to Rafal I quoted.

You and Rafal posted before the color photo was posted and I specifically referred to image #1, which was germain to your reply that I quoted.

 

[ann]

Where does the idea that there shouldn't be fine detail in whites when converting come from?

How are you converting?

On my monitor (calibrated)they appear to have a pink cast. Perhaps a solid background would be nice, I find the background a bit distracting. The basic idea is nice, just some work with exposure and converting will help.

 

[KmH]

If anyone had any recs on how to set your exposure properly for a subject that is both black and white I would greatly appreciate it. I'm pretty much setting my exposure for the black as I don't want to lose any detail there (black face, dark eyes) then by trail and error adjusting until I find somewhat a happy medium. If there is a better way, please feel free to share.

investigate ETTR - Expose To The Right. Digital exposure is genreally done to capture the highlights and let the darker parts of the image take care of themselves. That is exactly the opposite of how print film was exposed which was expose for the dark parts and let the highlights take care of themselves.

It's about how digital photographs work. http://www.adobe.com/digitalimag/pdfs/linear_gamma.pdf
Half of all of a digital images luminance data is in the brightest stop of exposure. The next brightest stop contained half of what remained.

JPEG can get away with discarding 80% of the color data an image sensor captured, but it retains 100% of the luminance data.

The opening chapter of Bruce Fraser's book discusses the issues in more detail: Real World Camera Raw with Adobe Photoshop CS5

 

[MWC2]

Where does the idea that there shouldn't be fine detail in whites when converting come from?

How are you converting?

On my monitor (calibrated)they appear to have a pink cast. Perhaps a solid background would be nice, I find the background a bit distracting. The basic idea is nice, just some work with exposure and converting will help.

I created my own action to convert (of course each time there is fine tuning needed to get the over all look I want)
basically, I do an adjustment layer to convert to b/w
a curves level with a pretty drastic "S" curve
Add a fill layer with a solid middle grey at about 50% opacity
Levels layer to adjust my blacks to 20, whites to 253
then finally another curves level to give a warmer tone

My monitor is also calibrated.

 

[MWC2]

If anyone had any recs on how to set your exposure properly for a subject that is both black and white I would greatly appreciate it. I'm pretty much setting my exposure for the black as I don't want to lose any detail there (black face, dark eyes) then by trail and error adjusting until I find somewhat a happy medium. If there is a better way, please feel free to share.

investigate ETTR - Expose To The Right. Digital exposure is genreally done to capture the highlights and let the darker parts of the image take care of themselves. That is exactly the opposite of how print film was exposed which was expose for the dark parts and let the highlights take care of themselves.

It's about how digital photographs work. http://www.adobe.com/digitalimag/pdfs/linear_gamma.pdf
Half of all of a digital images luminance data is in the brightest stop of exposure. The next brightest stop contained half of what remained.

JPEG can get away with discarding 80% of the color data an image sensor captured, but it retains 100% of the luminance data.

The opening chapter of Bruce Fraser's book discusses the issues in more detail: Real World Camera Raw with Adobe Photoshop CS5

Thank you, I'll add both of these to my reading list.

 

[ann]

i only mention my monitor being calibrated to let you know i am not seeing neutral black and white.

On you monitor do these have a color cast, or did you want that tone?

 

[ajones7279]

On mine (not professionally calibrated), it does have a color cast, but it may be what you were going for since you said a warmer tone. Almost looks like a desaturated sepia.

 

[MWC2]

Yes I added the colour cast (curves layer to warm it up a little)

Here is the same image PP'd 3 different ways.