[Leica] B&W conversion methods

[Steve Barbour]

> On May 5, 2015, at 4:55 PM, Ken Carney <kcarney1 at cox.net> wrote:
> 
> 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?***


***I assumed that was easy to understand (even to be expected) when I saw the images of Brassai, Doisneau, HCB, Winograd, many others....


steve

 






> 
> 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
>>> 
>> 
>> 
> 
> 
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