Vince68 wrote:
Okay so yesterday I posted a color image and a B&W conversion of that image, asking for thoughts and comments, tips, etc. On the B&W image, I did not do any adjustments to the color image first. I took the raw file, decreased the Vibrance and Saturation sliders in Lightroom, then made adjustments to the image. A few Hogs that commented said that when doing a B&W conversion, the color image should be adjusted first, then convert to B&W.
So that is what I did with this image. I made my adjustments in Lightroom, then made a copy, then went to the HSL adjustment and changed the image to B&W, and made other adjustments. I then sent the image to Aurora 2019 and let it convert the single image to HDR. I made adjustments to the image in Aurora and came up with this B&W.
I am attaching both the color version and the B&W. Any comments to either image are welcome and appreciated. As I said yesterday, I prefer color, but I do like B&W too, but I have not done much B&W at all and do want to improve at it.
Okay so yesterday I posted a color image and a B&a... (
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What I'm going to say will likely come across as sounding hyper-critical, Vince, but I hope you'll take what'll be said in a positive, supportive, and hopefully instructive way:
Your stated concern, in both this post and in your previous post, is more
how to best convert color to b&w than it is with how to produce a 'best version' of either image you converted. That's fine; the how's and why's of doing so are great ways to expand your photography in general and your vision in particular, and learning ways to do either is worth the time and effort. On the basis of that, kudos to you.
But whether as the initial steps into a learning process or as a refinement of that process through the use of software capabilities, shouldn't the image come first? Whether that image is a throwaway test case or an image you really, genuinely
like, shouldn't the goal be to make as good a photograph as well as you possibly can? And in the instance of the image in this post, have you? Which leads me to the critical part....
I don't 'believe' either version; either the color or the b&w conversion.Without seeing your original image in its unmodified 'raw' (hopefully camera RAW, but if you shot it as a .jpg then so be it) state, I can only guess at what range of tones might exist. Likewise, I can only guess at why you'd have HDR'ed it, and my guess could easily be wrong. Was the interior darker than you wanted it to be? Had the outside background foliage become washed out as a result of trying to balance subdued interior light with brighter exterior light? In effect, was the overall exposure accurate for what you sought to convey?
The coloration in your hdr-ed version is strange. I'd accept that strangeness in an image that was intended as an abstraction, but my guess would be that abstraction was not your intent. (As an aside, Linda's comment about warm advancing / cool receding isn't inaccurate, but it isn't universal either. Similarly, the idea that light tones catch or focus or direct 'the eye' while dark tones do the opposite isn't entirely accurate either. Simply put,
it depends-- on what the subject or scene demands, and where YOU want that emphasis placed.) The oddness of the coloration could be handled in any of a variety of ways, and assuming you have some sort of raster editor (since you're using Lr, might you have Ps, too? Or anything that allows the making and blending of layers?), what you might try is to layer your hdr-ed layer on top of your un-(or lightly-) modified image, then decrease its opacity and try one or more blending modes. Odds are, you'll find a combination of these that balance the inside/outside light while keeping the tones and colors 'believable' if not entirely SOOC-ishly accurate.
Your b&w conversion is based on what, then? A problematic color version? Whatever sharpening you did is really not the issue. The issue is that the tones are not 'believable' one against the next.
More could be said. 'How To Do Stuff' tutorial-ish replies are not simple, and less so are replies that go beyond what an OP may want to hear. Not looking to make any enemies, or come off as appearing to be some sort a know-it-all. But I AM trying to be honest.