roguewave Posted October 13, 2008 Share #1 Posted October 13, 2008 Advertisement (gone after registration) As I mentioned in William's post, I do most of my work, both color, conversions of color to B&W and B&W scans in the LAB colorspace. Here is a rather flat image I took today at Wave Hill, an old historic home in Riverdale, where Ignacio Berroa, the finest Cuban drummer & percussionist gave a concert with his quintet. If you have never heard him, go know & be enlightened by his CD released last year, Codes. There is simply no one with his mastery & grace. He has been Gonzalo Rubalcalba's percussionist for many years. Back to imaging: This image was chosen not because I think it's all that interesting, but because it includes a wide range of tones and colors. I used my Digilux3 & version 1 of the R Summilux 50, shot open @ 1.4. & ISO of 100. Very shallow deepth of field. Better to show the effects throught the image. In steps, here is the general process I used to convert to B&W & then process the image. I went a bit to the extremes in hopes of showing the total range of effects. All images have been reduced to 240k 1)RAW DNG image Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here… Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members! A) IMAGE, MODE – LAB APPLY BLENDING – VIVID LIGHT OPACITY – 30% LAB C)NEW LAYER D)HUE/SATURATION -100% (CAN FIRST PLAY WITH CHANNELS AS DESIRED) E)FLATTEN & SAVE F)NOTE OVERALL FLATNESS G)Add Adjustment Layer - curve or BRIGHTNESS/CONTRAST. H)FLATTEN & SAVE I)NEW LAYER J)Add Adjustment LAYER K)Lower Contrast & Lighten - Mask & Paint Background as needed L) FLATTEN M) Add new layer & Adjustment layer to make Darker & add Contrast. Mask & Paint Background as needed. N) FINAL CURVE ADJUSTMENT O) FLATTEN ADJUSTMENT P) NEW LAYER Q) FILTER, SHARPEN, UNSHARP MASK 118 – 0.8 – 17 R) Edit, Fade Unsharp Mask, 100% LUMINOSITY S) MASK LAYER & PAINT SHARPNESS T) Flatten That's all folks. Link to post Share on other sites Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members! A) IMAGE, MODE – LAB APPLY BLENDING – VIVID LIGHT OPACITY – 30% LAB C)NEW LAYER D)HUE/SATURATION -100% (CAN FIRST PLAY WITH CHANNELS AS DESIRED) E)FLATTEN & SAVE F)NOTE OVERALL FLATNESS G)Add Adjustment Layer - curve or BRIGHTNESS/CONTRAST. H)FLATTEN & SAVE I)NEW LAYER J)Add Adjustment LAYER K)Lower Contrast & Lighten - Mask & Paint Background as needed L) FLATTEN M) Add new layer & Adjustment layer to make Darker & add Contrast. Mask & Paint Background as needed. N) FINAL CURVE ADJUSTMENT O) FLATTEN ADJUSTMENT P) NEW LAYER Q) FILTER, SHARPEN, UNSHARP MASK 118 – 0.8 – 17 R) Edit, Fade Unsharp Mask, 100% LUMINOSITY S) MASK LAYER & PAINT SHARPNESS T) Flatten That's all folks. ' data-webShareUrl='https://www.l-camera-forum.com/topic/65291-using-lab-to-convert-to-bw/?do=findComment&comment=682761'>More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted October 13, 2008 Posted October 13, 2008 Hi roguewave, Take a look here Using LAB to convert to B&W. I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
sharookh Posted October 13, 2008 Share #2 Posted October 13, 2008 Ben - Your image in B/W through the Gorman method. Slightly warmer - as if printing on good old Grade 2.........! Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here… Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members! Link to post Share on other sites Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members! ' data-webShareUrl='https://www.l-camera-forum.com/topic/65291-using-lab-to-convert-to-bw/?do=findComment&comment=683227'>More sharing options...
Marquinius Posted October 13, 2008 Share #3 Posted October 13, 2008 Gorman's method, solid color almost black (but deep red tone), levels & curves, flattened, adjustment layer shadow/highlight 5% shadow, 15% mid tone contrast. No further sharpening as that was already done in original. Marco Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here… Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members! Link to post Share on other sites Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members! ' data-webShareUrl='https://www.l-camera-forum.com/topic/65291-using-lab-to-convert-to-bw/?do=findComment&comment=683463'>More sharing options...
Guest WPalank Posted October 13, 2008 Share #4 Posted October 13, 2008 Very nice technique Ben. For some reason I thought you were shooting B&W Film these days and did not understand the Lab conversion. Al is right in the world again. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
roguewave Posted October 14, 2008 Author Share #5 Posted October 14, 2008 Very nice technique Ben. For some reason I thought you were shooting B&W Film these days and did not understand the Lab conversion. Al is right in the world again. Yes, I have been shooting a lot of B&W film. T Max 400. The process is still the same however. I scan my films in both color & B&W with my Epson V700. I take the flattened scans (Very Large Tiff files) and start there. With the "color" scans (sometimes I like to use the film's base color) I import to LAB & do the same conversion. With negs from my R8 & Summilux or Summicron lens, I just go the B&W route from the start. Those lenses are so sharp, I don't want to mess things up for "effects". Hope that adds additional clarity. BTW, I have started using your method of employing burn & dodge adjustment layers. Very handy and I find that it makes me more thoughtful about my first moves. Lots more room to move things around this way. Thanks, as always, for the illumination. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marquinius Posted October 14, 2008 Share #6 Posted October 14, 2008 One day we will have to add it all up and see if we can find a common workflow. I think it will always end up with personal tweaks and twists, but more and more I start thinking about writing an action that will lead you through these steps in a logical order. The problem of course is, that you always influence the next step by the step at hand. In PS Elements I seem to remember a field where you can change something and see the results over a range of examples of your picture. Hmmm, some more thinking to do. And perhaps I should just accept that I should "learn" these steps by heart, just by doing them regularly. Very insightful topic, this. Thanks Ben! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Photoskeptic Posted October 14, 2008 Share #7 Posted October 14, 2008 Advertisement (gone after registration) Ben, that was just excellent, thank you. Sharookh, I feel Gorman's method to be too contrasty. Just my two cents. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest WPalank Posted October 14, 2008 Share #8 Posted October 14, 2008 BTW, I have started using your method of employing burn & dodge adjustment layers. Very handy and I find that it makes me more thoughtful about my first moves. Lots more room to move things around this way. Thanks, as always, for the illumination. Ben, have you thought about working with a Wacom Intuos 3 tablet? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
haribo Posted October 14, 2008 Share #9 Posted October 14, 2008 Ben, have you thought about working with a Wacom Intuos 3 tablet? I'll second William's suggestion. Couldn't live without one. On a side note, a very simply conversion method which requires no plug-ins or creating complicated actions, is using calculations in Photoshop. Go to Image folder, and then Calculations. Go with 100% red and 50% green. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
farnz Posted October 14, 2008 Share #10 Posted October 14, 2008 ... In PS Elements I seem to remember a field where you can change something and see the results over a range of examples of your picture. ... Marco, Do you mean Image menu>Adjustments>Variations? Pete. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pierovitch Posted October 15, 2008 Share #11 Posted October 15, 2008 Photoshop Lightroom 2 is the easiest of all select photo - develop panel - Treatment Grayscale. Then you have all the dodging, curves and masks to play with. All nondestructive. The subtlety of adjustments is amazing. Ansel would love it. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marquinius Posted October 15, 2008 Share #12 Posted October 15, 2008 Marco, Do you mean Image menu>Adjustments>Variations? Pete. Ah,yes, thanks. Please note that I'm NOT suggesting to use "variations", but that I tried to picture something working like that: the problem with all conversions is that you essentially need something in which you can slide all variables. But .. LR2 seems to do te trick. Marco Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
haribo Posted October 15, 2008 Share #13 Posted October 15, 2008 Photoshop Lightroom 2 is the easiest of all select photo - develop panel - Treatment Grayscale.Then you have all the dodging, curves and masks to play with. All nondestructive. The subtlety of adjustments is amazing. Ansel would love it. Yes indeed, Lightroom is pretty good. I believe, though, it's always good to have other options. Off the top of my head i know about 6 or 7 ways to go about it. Btw, here's a tip how to make Lightroom's B+W conversion even better. 1. Don't convert right away but rather treat your photo like a colour photo first, exposure, blacks, fill light and such. 2. Then move the Saturation slider to '0'. (important!) 3. Open the HSL palette and only then click B+W in it's selection. You will notice in most cases you'll end up with a stronger, better looking conversion 4. Press Auto Adjust. After doing steps 1-3 auto adjust works just fine to improve things even more. In some cases settings need even further adjustments or none at all. That's up to personal taste. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
charlesphoto99 Posted October 15, 2008 Share #14 Posted October 15, 2008 Photoshop Lightroom 2 is the easiest of all select photo - develop panel - Treatment Grayscale.Then you have all the dodging, curves and masks to play with. All nondestructive. The subtlety of adjustments is amazing. Ansel would love it. Problem I find is that the local adjustment tool seems to work really slow in LR2, at least for me. I find working in PS to be much faster (I do lots of dodging and burning) esp once one has created some actions. I really wish i could do it all in LR. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest WPalank Posted October 15, 2008 Share #15 Posted October 15, 2008 Yes indeed, Lightroom is pretty good. I believe, though, it's always good to have other options. Off the top of my head i know about 6 or 7 ways to go about it. Btw, here's a tip how to make Lightroom's B+W conversion even better. 1. Don't convert right away but rather treat your photo like a colour photo first, exposure, blacks, fill light and such. 2. Then move the Saturation slider to '0'. (important!) 3. Open the HSL palette and only then click B+W in it's selection. You will notice in most cases you'll end up with a stronger, better looking conversion 4. Press Auto Adjust. After doing steps 1-3 auto adjust works just fine to improve things even more. In some cases settings need even further adjustments or none at all. That's up to personal taste. The Benzanator comes through! Harald, I must say that I just tried this technique and really liked the result. Only, in line 3) of your directions I think you mean click Grayscale rather than "click B+W in it's selection." In step 4), where do you press "Auto Adjust"? I find that hitting Auto in the HSL panel does nothing. Whereas going back up to The Basic panel makes it significantly darker and squishes the Histogram. Which you can then bring back to taste by sliding the Brightness slider to the right. A warning to the non-cotrasty B&W people, this technique, at least in my hands, lead to a fairly contrasty B&W. Here is my result after using the LR2 technique on an image I recently submitted to the People section entitled "Karen Refugee". I did slightly split-tone the image, yellow for the highlights and selenium for the shadows but really dropped down the opacity. Then I dodged and burned in PS along with duplicating the layer, changing the Blending mode to Overlay (making the look even more contrasty) but reducing the opacity of that layer to 25%. I think I like this conversion more than the one I submitted to the People section. Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here… Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members! Link to post Share on other sites Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members! ' data-webShareUrl='https://www.l-camera-forum.com/topic/65291-using-lab-to-convert-to-bw/?do=findComment&comment=685347'>More sharing options...
haribo Posted October 15, 2008 Share #16 Posted October 15, 2008 The Benzanator comes through!Harald, I must say that I just tried this technique and really liked the result. Only, in line 3) of your directions I think you mean click Grayscale rather than "click B+W in it's selection." In step 4), where do you press "Auto Adjust"? I find that hitting Auto in the HSL panel does nothing. Whereas going back up to The Basic panel makes it significantly darker and squishes the Histogram. Which you can then bring back to taste by sliding the Brightness slider to the right. A warning to the non-cotrasty B&W people, this technique, at least in my hands, lead to a fairly contrasty B&W. Here is my result after using the LR2 technique on an image I recently submitted to the People section entitled "Karen Refugee". I did slightly split-tone the image, yellow for the highlights and selenium for the shadows but really dropped down the opacity. Then I dodged and burned in PS along with duplicating the layer, changing the Blending mode to Overlay (making the look even more contrasty) but reducing the opacity of that layer to 25%. I think I like this conversion more than the one I submitted to the People section. Thanks William Yes of course, I mean Grayscale. My mistake. When clicking Grayscale in the HSL palette a different set of sliders, the grayscale mix becomes available. At the bottom it says Auto. Well, just checked in LR2 for the first time and it seems to be slightly different as in LR1. Just got a new Mac Pro the other day. I'm running LR2 now but haven't had a chance yet to familiarize myself with it thoroughly. PS: I could show you a dodge and burn technique I came up with in Photoshop that would blow your mind... Guess, i said already too much Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
haribo Posted October 15, 2008 Share #17 Posted October 15, 2008 William, What do you think of this subtle change? (Hope you won't mind me fooling around with your excellent photo.) Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here… Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members! Link to post Share on other sites Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members! ' data-webShareUrl='https://www.l-camera-forum.com/topic/65291-using-lab-to-convert-to-bw/?do=findComment&comment=685396'>More sharing options...
roguewave Posted October 15, 2008 Author Share #18 Posted October 15, 2008 Glad to see that this forum is generating such good stuff. As I stated early on, I don't believe that there's a RIGHT way. All these methods work, some more elegant than others. William, yes! I use the Wacom, after your initial recommendation I bought one and woodshedded enough to finally stop cussing. It couldn't have sooner for my wife. Harald, you hit a big nail on the head. I firmly believe you need to make the color image look good before conversion to B&W, regardless of method. As a request, it might be of interest to everyone, if you all could try a color image conversion to B&W in the LAB colorspace. Even if you decide it's not for you, it would be great to get some feedback about what you like and don't like. Selfishly, I'd like to learn more from all of you. Again, just like Robert Duvall said in Network, I think this new forum will be a "Big.....hit!" Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
haribo Posted October 15, 2008 Share #19 Posted October 15, 2008 dang, can't really tell when uploaded. let's try putting them side by side 1. William's photo (as above shown) 2. my little tweak Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here… Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members! Link to post Share on other sites Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members! ' data-webShareUrl='https://www.l-camera-forum.com/topic/65291-using-lab-to-convert-to-bw/?do=findComment&comment=685399'>More sharing options...
Guest WPalank Posted October 15, 2008 Share #20 Posted October 15, 2008 Thanks William Yes of course, I mean Grayscale. My mistake. When clicking Grayscale in the HSL palette a different set of sliders, the grayscale mix becomes available. At the bottom it says Auto. Well, just checked in LR2 for the first time and it seems to be slightly different as in LR1. Just got a new Mac Pro the other day. I'm running LR2 now but haven't had a chance yet to familiarize myself with it thoroughly. PS: I could show you a dodge and burn technique I came up with in Photoshop that would blow your mind... Guess, i said already too much Harald, I Have no problem with you playing with my images. Nice job. Please, let's see the Dodge and Burn technique. Maybe time for you to start a thread on that subject if you don't mind. And yes, I am using LR2. Ben, As usual,excellent points! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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