Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2014/02/20

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Subject: [Leica] Lluis' B&W tonality
From: lluisripollphotography at gmail.com (Lluis Ripoll)
Date: Fri, 21 Feb 2014 00:36:43 +0100
References: <8D0FBA15ABED5B6-AA4-9CF0@webmail-d248.sysops.aol.com>

Thank you Susan, Gerry, Bob, Larry and others ? I really think I don?t 
deserve such mentions, I?ve saw after years the B&W of many of many of you 
are sharing with us, everyone has his own style and I don?t know if I can 
explain my workflow as a certain rule ? , IMHO is a question of the personal 
preferences. Even so I can explain why I work.

I normally work in manual mode and in digital I prefer a little under 
exposure than over exposure. Usually I prefer use old lenses, IMHO they give 
more medium tones and less crispy images to work. When I process the DNG I 
have certain ?own? rules, I try to avoid or at least minimize the extreme 
tones of the Dynamic Range, Absolute Black (Zone 0) and absolute white (Zone 
X), usually I start marking the white and the black points, after I do a 
first arrangement using the extended Dynamic range that offer Capture One 
(medium tones for shadow and lights), after this I work with the curve to 
obtain the contrast I want, finally I work on the classical controls of 
Exposure, Brilliance and Contrast an if it is necessary I correct the 
previous values I?ve do. I edit the image in Photoshop and I click in to the 
Automatic levels, generally I accept what PS does. If the image is too flat 
I try to improve it with Silver Efex Pro.

IMHO Capture One is a great tool for work the B&W, it has different B&W 
presets, and I have also build mines. The same thing with Silver Efex Pro, 
I?ve never use the standard presets, I?ve build some own presets, but rarely 
they work for a new picture, I have to modify different things. 

When I work I always take care of the histogram, and I try to cover all the 
range. Silver Efex Pro offer the histogram and the 10 zones, this is useful 
for me, I can better correct extreme Zones 0 and 10.

I don?t know if this can be interesting for you, I think is nothing new, 
last Summer our friend Geoff was with me looking my workflow, I work by my 
instinct and I think difficult made, as you say, a tutorial, this sounds for 
me too pretentious?

I hope have answered your question ? 

Thank you very much!
Lluis


El 19/02/2014, a las 16:49, lrzeitlin at aol.com escribi?:

> Lluis,
> I am always impressed by the tonal quality you manage to achieve in your 
> B&W pictures. Especially when viewed on the new high resolution screen of 
> my Macbook Pro. We may differ on matters of composition and subject 
> selection but your B&W images are far superior to the bulk of those shown 
> on the LUG. I mean no disrespect to other photographers but your pictures 
> are in a class by themselves.? It can't all be the Leica Monocrom.? The 
> results are just as good with every camera you use, even old film cameras. 
> The big question is how do you do it??
> Could you describe your workflow from shutter click to posting on the 
> internet as a tutorial for less adept photographers. I would like to be 
> able to get your results in B&W images.
> Larry Z
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Leica Users Group.
> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information



Replies: Reply from rgacpa at gmail.com (Bob Adler) ([Leica] Lluis' B&W tonality)
In reply to: Message from lrzeitlin at aol.com (lrzeitlin at aol.com) ([Leica] Lluis' B&W tonality)