[Leica] B&W conversion methods

[Ken Carney]

Bob,

Yes, I think I tried a little too much.  Here is one with less drama in 
the darks:

http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/kcarney/_MG_2525BWTX2.jpg.html

Probably I need to quit being so cheap and buy that Leica 246 and a 
couple of lenses, if they haven't ruined it with that shitty new sensor 
:).  Somewhat seriously, though, from what little I know it does seem 
odd that less information would equal a better image?

Ken

On 5/5/2015 3:40 PM, Robert Adler wrote:
> Hi Ken,
> Good job controlling the whites! Definitely can see the improvement.
> Included in Tony's curves are videos by another photographer (forgot his
> name) on how to use Tony's curves. In one of them he shows a great way to
> bring out details in Zone2/3 blacks. I've tried it on a couple of images
> and it works very well. May be a good way for you to bring out more detail
> in your blacks: at least on screen it looks like its a very sudden drop off
> to black.
> Best,
> Bob
> (and congrats on finishing your last tax season!!!)
>
> On Tue, May 5, 2015 at 1:30 PM, Ken Carney <kcarney1 at cox.net> 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
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Leica Users Group.
>> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information
>>
>
>