Teach me

bunny99123 · Jul 28, 2013

I love B&W, but still learning how to do it correctly. What do you think of this photo? Tweak it to make it better, if you choose to. I learn better by example and explain what you did. Thanks

View attachment 51221

tirediron · Jul 28, 2013

Actually, looking at the image, I think the conversion is pretty good. The blacks in her top are a nice, deep, rich black, her skin tone looks good... I think the main issue is that the exposure on her face was a bit hot to start with, simply because she was looking up, so some of her face tends to get 'lost' because of that. How did you do this conversion?

bunny99123 · Jul 28, 2013

Here the original. As you can see I cropped it. Her face tones are hot.

I am still green. I never noticed that her nose was at the same height as the brim of the fountain. It wasn't a planned photo, but I hope someday to notice surroundings and other objects any time I take a photo.

Thank you

masquerad101 · Jul 28, 2013

tirediron said:
Actually, looking at the image, I think the conversion is pretty good. The blacks in her top are a nice, deep, rich black, her skin tone looks good... I think the main issue is that the exposure on her face was a bit hot to start with, simply because she was looking up, so some of her face tends to get 'lost' because of that. How did you do this conversion?

I agree! Its got a nice composition but it could maybe do with some sharpening. What software do you use?

amolitor · Jul 28, 2013

You could probably play with color channels and get better separation of her face from the background. Fool around with it.

Without color, you're relying on tonality alone to give visual separation of objects, and some things will sometimes blend in unpleasant ways. This isn't bad per se, but could be better, I think.