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Playing With B&W Conversions

Bobby Deal

New member
So I have been experimenting a lot with different processes for my B&W conversions lately. Specifically with blending multiple layers with different conversion methods and blending modes. What I would like to know is which of the following 3 versions of the same image you all prefer and why.

Original Natural Light Shot

586488798_2SQ8T-L.jpg

Version 1.
Basic Custom Conversion using Phohtoshop Black and White Dialog Adjustments

646213709_a5Q5o-L.jpg
]​

Version 2.
Original B&W plus the addition of a duplicate layer with a custom cyan to white gradient map, blending mode Soft light opacity around 60%

646213846_dQ6dJ-L.jpg
]​

Version 3. Composite of version 2 with an additional duplicate layer of original B&W conversion with adjustments to blue channel in Channel mixer to deepen shadows, blending mode Vivid Light opacity 25%

646213766_m8LFW-L.jpg
]

© 2009 Bobby Deal Vegas Vision Studios
 
I like the Orginial version the best, Now for the edits.
#1, face looks a little too dark, looks like her lips are too black on the one side.
#2, I like the best out of all the edits, Can see a little more detail in the lips, and around the eyes.
#3, Same as #1.
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
There's no substitute for sienna and grass in photography!

So I have been experimenting a lot with different processes for my B&W conversions lately. Specifically with blending multiple layers with different conversion methods and blending modes. What I would like to know is which of the following 3 versions of the same image you all prefer and why.


Original Natural Light Shot



586488798_2SQ8T-L.jpg



Bobby,

This picture brings us life on a platter. She's lovely, has war paint and grass in her hair. The earth colors and her look are a positive combination that spell teasing, fun, playfulness and of course fertility. We are built to appreciate these forma and colors with a lot of emotional underpinning. To do more, one needs a lot of fine work with dodge and burn to build features to express what we can enjoy in color.

Most often, I disagree with Nicolas Claris in his dismissal of a lot of modern works in B&W as he asserts that the color is what gives the image life. In fact one derogatory remark that someone once made that the B&W versions are "drained of life, as if one would attach a spigot at an ankle vein and then simply let out all the blood until life has left a pale still body.

Here, I must say that the B&W conversions drain the life essence of your beautiful and fun picture. You original works well.

I think it's a challenge to derive an outstanding B&W picture from a color image where color is inherant to the composition and ambience.

Still, with reassignment of color to tunes and local dodge and burning, this image might well be transformed into something unique and worthy, something that grabs the spirit of life again. I'd love to see that, but how?

Asher
 

Bobby Deal

New member
Thanks Asher, in all reality I am not hoping to turn this image into a B&W gallery print. I simply picked it for the tone mapping experiments because of the predominance of black and white in the image to begin with.

What I am hoping to accomplish in my experimentation is to achieve a tone similar to this with perhaps a touch more cyan undertones to create skin tones that are nearly metallic in tone and sheen. BTW this heavily compressed thumbnail does not do justice to the original print ready iamges I saw on Daveed's screen last time he was here in the studio. The prints from this series hang in a nightclub here in Vegas and the tone mapping in them is amazing.


© Daveed Benito Photos By Daveed

I have also been playing with the same technique of blending a standard process B&W with a soft light layer gradient mapped based off of skin tone such as this

643342743_msdXc-XL.jpg

© 2009 Bobby Deal Vegas Vision Studios


Which may actually be getting me closer to the skin tone I want but it leaves a lot of red behind giving the clothing a sepia look, resulting in more of a duotone then monochrome. Although in this particular image the jacket was a rusty sepia kind of brown to begin with.

I too disagree that B&W strips the life from an image. While I am a HUGE fan of bright deeply saturated color I also love the warm comfort of a classic monochrome. Without the color the subject must be strong enough to stand on it's own. If the subject is dull and lifeless then the B&W will be dull and lifeless. To my eye there are many images that have detail I can only see in a monochrome format. Details that the color will mask. If color is the life blood of the modern image then I would have to say that monochrome is the soul, the very barest essence of the image and what is life without soul?
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
I have also been playing with the same technique of blending a standard process B&W with a soft light layer gradient mapped based off of skin tone such as this

643342743_msdXc-XL.jpg

© 2009 Bobby Deal Vegas Vision Studios


Which may actually be getting me closer to the skin tone I want but it leaves a lot of red behind giving the clothing a sepia look, resulting in more of a duotone then monochrome. Although in this particular image the jacket was a rusty sepia kind of brown to begin with.

This picture is still alive because likely it didn't just rely on flashy color for its vibrancy. That's, I think the key to choosing images for B&W conversion where one wants to preserve emotions one experienced with the original.

I too disagree that B&W strips the life from an image. While I am a HUGE fan of bright deeply saturated color I also love the warm comfort of a classic monochrome. Without the color the subject must be strong enough to stand on it's own. If the subject is dull and lifeless then the B&W will be dull and lifeless.

The principal take-home lesson here is that we need to be open to new possibilities of presentation. Cameras, after all, are quite dumb as far as art is concerned!

If by looking at man's soul in a photograph we really mean discovering intentions, feelings and values, then that interests me a lot! Here I agree that removing the mask of attractive color can unveil detailed nuances that allow us to read expressive features that were hardly noticeable. Then some folk might express that they can see into that subjects "very soul"!

Asher
 

Bobby Deal

New member
I will reiterate
If color is the life blood of the modern image then I would have to say that monochrome is the soul, the very barest essence of the image and what is life without soul?

To capture life without soul is to capture life with no emotion.

Coat it in all the flowing rhetoric you can write but in the end life without soul (read that as the essence of emotion) is pointless and to me it has nothing to do with any God it is simply emotion but we wander into tangents now.

No disrespect but I don't come to places like this for the philosophical / theological enlightenment although I will admit that your prose is eloquent to say the least :) I come here to share and learn about photography. In this case how to convert a better monotone image that yields a metallic skin tone. This is what I am hoping for in this thread. Discussions of God and Politics are off limits for me.
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
.......

Coat it in all the flowing rhetoric you can write but in the end life without soul (read that as the essence of emotion) is pointless and to me it has nothing to do with any God it is simply emotion but we wander into tangents now.

Bobby,

That's precisely my view too as you express it! My philosophical rant is moved where it belongs here.

Bobby, in art, almost everything we do must incite the human emotions. But it also might be possible to have art that's purely intellectual, especially in B&W. However, we can leave this for another discussion too.

In the meanwhile back to B&W.

I was considering that your first example is the hardest to transform to B&W because its power is mostly derived from color. The picture is so delightful that we don't want to let her go. Maybe if we'd see one of the derivatives first, they may be more interesting. However, having seen the richness and living delight of the first one, subsequent B&W is hard to accept in exchange.

Bobby Deal said:
I have also been playing with the same technique of blending a standard process B&W with a soft light layer gradient mapped based off of skin tone such as this

643342743_msdXc-XL.jpg

© 2009 Bobby Deal Vegas Vision Studios


On a technical point, "soft light layer gradient mapped based off of skin tone" how did you achieve that? Simplistically, did you overlay a gradient?

The man in this picture is already interesting and lively in his own right. It's a good picture, full of vibe and is presented well. It seems natural in its duotone appearance. I'd imagine that now I'd not like as much the original color image from which it was derived. Still, I'd wager that this second image is inherently more amenable to being converted to B&W than this lovely first image you shared.


586488798_2SQ8T-L.jpg

It's hard to make suggestion what one might do, one has to just try. Would you like us to do that?

Asher
 

Bobby Deal

New member
Bobby,

I was considering that your first example is the hardest to transform to B&W because its power is mostly derived from color. The picture is so delightful that we don't want to let her go. Maybe if we'd see one of the derivatives first, they may be more interesting. However, having seen the richness and living delight of the first one, subsequent B&W is hard to accept in exchange.

OK as you put forward questions I will answer them before I leave. The answers you are free to do with as you please.

The image was choosen for the experiments becuase in color or black and white it would contain strong contrast and a high dynamic range. It is a color image of a predominately black and white subject. What better image to perform these tests on?


On a technical point, "soft light layer gradient mapped based off of skin tone" how did you achieve that? Simplistically, did you overlay a gradient?

Sort of but not really.

I created a duplicate layer of a standard B&W conversion of the image> then created a gradient map (gradient maps are more accurate in tone mapping then simply overlaying a gradient) based off a color sample of the skin on the face of the original color image> then applied that gradient map to the duplicate B&W Layer then changed the blending mode for that layer to Soft Light and blended it with the original B&W Layer by reducing the opacity of the gradient mapped layer until I had a tonality to the image that waspleasing to my eye.


The man in this picture is already interesting and lively in his own right. It's a good picture, full of vibe and is presented well. It seems natural in its duotone appearance. I'd imagine that now I'd not like as much the original color image from which it was derived. Still, I'd wager that this second image is inherently more amenable to being converted to B&W than this lovely first image you shared.


No not so much. Both images held about the same levels of color and high contrast tones to them. They both had a significantly high dynamic range the only real difference is that the image of the man was exposed to the right in anticipation of conversion from the start.

586488798_2SQ8T-L.jpg

It's hard to make suggestion what one might do, one has to just try. Would you like us to do that?

Asher

No I would prefer you did not. I was looking to share techniques not to find an editor.
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Bobby,

Thanks for explaining your gradient mapping technique.

I think that besides the features you suggest of high contrast and tonality, the picture of the girl has more emotion that, IMHO, is linked to the color scheme. As far as editing, no one wants to serve that function. We just need the O.K. to work on your file to explore the possible approaches that might be relevant to this particular picture.

Ultimately it's only your eye that counts so none can edit this for you only suggest approaches.

Asher
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Hi Bobby,

I have spent some more time with your first image and realize her painted left side of her face is more gentle and perhaps is better in lighter tones in B&W. Direct conversion renders her left face dark.

Heres my approach to such an image. I'd not use the direct Photoshop conversion, rather add a hue sat layer and above that a channel mixer layer set to monochrome. In hue sat, try moving the

  1. Master: lightness, sat and hue: 0 +32 and +41, 32 respectively in the master channel.
  2. Red: lightness, sat and hue: +83, +24, +33
  3. Yellow:lightness, sat and hue: +42 +11 +33

In the Channel Mixer layer the settings would be: +50, +25, +25

There would be no special blending between the layers.

I think you will find the resulting B&W image carries much of the emotions of the original, it's still alive and in your words, it still has its soul intact.

I hope this is helpful!

Asher
 

Bobby Deal

New member
Thanks Asher, it is an interesting technique, I ran through it with the settings you provided and it did indeed provide a nice B&W.


Like the two versions from this AM it is not quite what I am looking for on these either but it is much closer then the others.

But a little more playing around with the technique I used on the photo of the male model and a change of the base tone to the gradient map and now I am getting really close. Still missing that touch of platinum I am looking for but this has all the contrast I knew the image could have.

 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Thanks Asher, it is an interesting technique, I ran through it with the settings you provided and it did indeed provide a nice B&W.


Like the two versions from this AM it is not quite what I am looking for on these either but it is much closer then the others.

But a little more playing around with the technique I used on the photo of the male model and a change of the base tone to the gradient map and now I am getting really close. Still missing that touch of platinum I am looking for but this has all the contrast I knew the image could have.

1
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Excellent! I like your final result. I worked out my suggestions using my laptop but on this 24" iMac, my version seems too dull. The adjustments you made are indeed fine. She still has the feelings we thought were lost and that's the important thing.

One little niggle. There's a squarish rectangular painted area around the right check pointed black stroke that is at the level of the lips approx. This feature has been lost in your final steps. That area in the original helps to give some interest to the right cheek. If one takes the first image above and adds a simple curve layer, one can lift up the whole curve from to the right of center and a little to each side and then the rectangular subtle zone is preserved and is pretty.

Asher
 

Bobby Deal

New member
I actually cloned out that stroke of black paint on the websized version because at this size it simply looked like a dirty smudge to me but I did leave it in the print resolution version of the image
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Film Simulation using DXO FilmPack V2

Bobby,

Here's another approach with your quest to transform the image, but not lose its life! I've been looking at the film simulation products. I tested the DXO Filmpack V2, DXO Labs, from France. What a pleasant surprise. One can download a MAc or PC version for trial. There's a standalone version and specific plugins for photoshop CS2, CS3 and CS4.

I was impressed the the conversion of your picture to Agfa APX™ 25 and Ilford F Plan Plus 50 B&W film styles. The additional use of their "warming filter" seems to be a worthwhile touch. I'd love to know what you think.

Asher
 
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