[Leica] B&W conversion methods

[Jim Nichols]

You did well.  That is a very challenging image, with its wide range of 
tones.

Jim Nichols
Tullahoma, TN USA

On 5/5/2015 6:50 PM, Ken Carney wrote:
> Thanks for commenting and I think you are right, that I went a little 
> overboard.  Here is hopefully an improvement:
>
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/kcarney/_MG_2525BWTX2.jpg.html
>
> Ken
>
> On 5/5/2015 4:15 PM, CJ andS wrote:
>> Difficult scene for a B&W conversion. The black adjustment removed most
>> detail in people pants and shirts creating walking specters. Looking 
>> at the
>> color I don't see that there are too many blacks anyway except small
>> sections of the lamp post or the back struts of the bench for 
>> example.  A
>> more subtile conversion without taking personal tastes or artistic
>> endeavors into consideration should show tonal difference between the 
>> back
>> of the bench by the persons behind and the diagonal strut 
>> underneath.  I'm
>> only imagining that is possible but in a darkroom situation I would be
>> trying to get that sort of distinction from the tones.
>>
>> On Tue, May 5, 2015 at 4:46 PM, Jim Nichols <jhnichols at lighttube.net> 
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Ken,
>>>
>>> Nice job, but you are doing a much more sophisticated job than what 
>>> I am
>>> attempting.  I have abandoned Adobe, so the plug-in approach doesn't 
>>> work
>>> for me.  I open a RAW image in Picture Window Pro, make adjustments 
>>> and end
>>> up with a reduced-size TIFF file.  I take these to Focus Magic 
>>> and/or Neat
>>> Image, as need be, saving the image as a TIFF or JPEG as the mood suits
>>> me.  I then take that to Silver Efex Pro 2 and use its tools to 
>>> change to
>>> B&W.
>>>
>>> Recent image:  Original TIFF
>>> http://www.gallery.leica-users.org/v/OldNick/P5054571.tif.html
>>>
>>> Final Converted Image:
>>> http://www.gallery.leica-users.org/v/OldNick/More+Rhody+Blooms.JPG.html
>>>
>>> Jim Nichols
>>> Tullahoma, TN USA
>>>
>>>
>>> On 5/5/2015 3:30 PM, Ken Carney wrote:
>>>
>>>> In looking over some recent threads on critiques and b&w printing, I
>>>> thought it might be worth while to have some discussion on 
>>>> converting files
>>>> to b&w.  I'll post my approach, and maybe others can suggest 
>>>> improvements
>>>> and describe other approaches.  Here are the files in color and as
>>>> converted to b&W:
>>>>
>>>> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/kcarney/_MG_2525-Edit-Edit-Edit.jpg.html 
>>>>
>>>> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/kcarney/_MG_2525BWTX.jpg.html
>>>>
>>>> I opened the file in Nik Silver Efex Pro, but could have used 
>>>> Photoshop
>>>> or Lightroom b&w tools.  I have Nik, Alien Skin, Topaz and DxO 
>>>> packages but
>>>> don't care for them for adjustments. For example in SEP the tones 
>>>> affected
>>>> by the sliders are pretty broad. Instead, I used Photoshop masks as 
>>>> sold by
>>>> Tony Kuyper (thanks again to Bob Adler).  My camera has a range of 
>>>> about
>>>> six stops, somewhere between slide and negative film, or in Zone 
>>>> System
>>>> terms say Zones 2 through most of 8 as I measured it.  In this image I
>>>> thought the brights needed some contrast so I selected a Zone 8 
>>>> mask and
>>>> used an adjustment curve to pump up the brights a little. There is 
>>>> some
>>>> spillover, but the curve mainly only affected the brights in Zone 
>>>> 8.  Then
>>>> I did the same thing with masks for Zone 2 and 3 to get the blacks 
>>>> down to
>>>> taste. Finally I added a little grain (TriX) with TrueGrain.  This 
>>>> software
>>>> uses drum-scanned film stock for the grain, as opposed to digital
>>>> interpretations of grain.
>>>>
>>>> So there you have it.  Because of the flexibility of using Photoshop
>>>> targeted masks and adjustment curves, it took about five minutes.
>>>>
>>>> Ken
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
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>>>>
>>>>
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>>>
>>
>>
>
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