B&W conversion, critique pls

Trying some B&W conversion routines in PS, would much appreciate your comments (good or bad, I'm big enough...I think).




1000px one can be found in my pbase portfolio.

I am no expert on B&W but for what its worth I think the subject matter is excellent. This is just the kind of pic I would take under the same circumstances and it works well in B&W. The compostion is superb but I would perhaps prefer a tad more forground in front of the boat, not much though. My initial and almost instant reaction when I saw it was . . . lacking in contrast. It's still a great pic though.

Thanks for the comments Peter, tried like blazes to get a bit more contrast but couldn't hit the 'G' spot, was a bit of a bland image to start with anyway.

By the way, you and Matt have got me into big trouble with all your talk of 12-24's and 16-45's ........and Mrs McBrian is not a happy lassie, hence I have had to put some excess kit on ebay...my A 24 f2.8 has gone already but there is an AF140C ring flash there and couple of other lenses.

I wish I had seen your ring flash, I had a AF080C ringflash delivered today but would have preferred the AF140C.

Maybe a flash might have eeked out a bit more contrast, but then the subject might not have been evenly lit.

You think you're in trouble . . .

Is this one better ?

I like them both; the first one has something of the "antique print" about it while the second shows the detail. I think that sometimes there is no right or wrong, you can end up with several or many, interesting images from the same source material.

I have to agree with Ammonyte, the highlights are a bit blown out in the second one but I appreciate its difficult. The second one looks a bit 'clinical', the first one imparts a certain mood that I think makes it the better of the two.

When converting to BW in Photoshop it's worth looking at the red, green and blue channels independently to see if any of those gives you the tonal quality you want. If one does, select it, go to Image>Mode>Greyscale and discard the other channels when prompted.

If you need a mix of channels, then Channel Mixer is the powerful way to convert.

I think one of these methods may cure the tonality of your picture, which lacks sparkle, but which has lots of potential and I think is very worth working on.

Yes, the channel mixer is a good one.
There's also this tutorial I did:
http://www.ephotozine.com/techniques/viewtechnique.cfm?recid=364

And a really easy B&W method is at the bottom of this:
http://www.ephotozine.com/techniques/viewtechnique.cfm?recid=377

But with many B&W images you need more than an "overall" conversion. Each area may require slightly different treatment to bring out the best. My usual method (not that I'm that good at B&W either) is to get a reasonable conversion overall with the channel mixer. Then I add a curves adjustment layer to modify contrast or change the brightness etc. While adjusting I'll concentrate on one area that needs tweaking. Then, when the curves are right I'll fill the layer mask with black (so it hides the curves), and paint with a soft white brush over the areas I want affected.
That way I can build up the effect, but still further adjust the curves etc.

(This image: http://www.ephotozine.com/gallery/showlargepic.cfm?photoid=463830 needed that approach)

Then I tone using the tutorial methods I outlined above.
Have fun!

Oooh - and very sorry about the talk of lenses Just don't let Mrs McBrian get together with Mrs Matt - they'd have a right old time LOL!

Matt

Mix them up with a sprinkle of Mrs Mannesty and you have a recipe for World War III . . . and no survivors

I can just imagine the phrase "Boyz 'n their toyz' echoing many times over . . . and over . . . and over,

or

"What on earth do you want another <ENTER YOUR DESIRE HERE> for, you've got <ENTER YOUR NUMBER HERE> already?",

and best of all,

"You don't use it, sell it!"

Why don't they understand the phrase "It's an investment dear!" ? ? ?

Now who's in trouble....

One guess should be enough but you seem a nice guy, you can have two guesses.

I didn't really want the 10-17mm anyway . . . yet.

I got the AF080C in yesterday, it's back on Ebay today. I call it damage limitation

I might be putting the AF400T back on soon that I got in yesterday too. I hadn't figured before but with my AF500FTZ connected directly to camera hotshoe via 5P cable and with it sitting on top of my hotshoe grip, I already had perhaps a better setup. The AF400T is certainly a very nice gun, purposefully heavy and loads of light output.

Hi Brian,

I was just having a play in GIMP, to get a bit of practice with the histograms. I hope you don't mind, but I used your image as a guinea pig.




the histogram settings for black, midtone and white are 0 : 0.90 : 224 to get this. I had a play with the curves, but as this is pretty new to me, I couldn't get anything better and left them alone. As Ammonyte said, there's a lot of ways to get a good effect.. especially when you start off with a shot this good.

Cheers

Liam

Thanks for all the comments and suggestion's, I'm going to keep playing with this image so please bare with me (tell me when you have had enough).
Liam
Not a problem, but please don't post your results anywhere else except here, kinda want to keep my hands on this one.

Here's my latest atempt.

Brian,

for me, somewhere between your 2nd pic and this last one would suit my taste. In the last shot you have retained the detail in the front portion of the brighter beam that runs from the front towards the middle of the boat. That detail is lost in your second pic.