Digital BW, The Print

Hi Remononaz1:

I recommend that you experiment with the white balance and tint adjustments when converting to B&W. You will probably notice that noise will vary considerably as you move the slider (of course, the image tonality will also shift quite a bit depending on what the original colors are in the image). Also, one of the best things about LR4.1 (LR 3 as well) is the noise reduction tools. They are not just under noise reduction, but also in the detail slider in the Sharpening section. That can have a huge effect. The new selective noise adjustment tool in LR4 is also great since noise is often a problem just in select areas.

I recently posted some information about a Lightroom 4 workshop and included a before and after shot of a Nikon D800 image captured at ISO 6400. I was pretty amazed at how I was able to control noise and retain highlight detail even though my original capture was overexposed. You can see the post here:

http://tinyurl.com/8752ulh

All the best,

Andrew

Andrew Darlow
Editor, The Imaging Buffet
http://www.imagingbuffet.com
Author, 301 Inkjet Tips and Techniques:
An Essential Printing Resource for Photographers - http://www.inkjettips.com
facebook.com/andrewdarlow

On Apr 4, 2012, at 11:07 AM, remononaz1 wrote:

> David:
> 
> I read and appreciated your article on Lr4. I have been using Lr4 since the beta came out though I had not used Lr earlier so I am not familiar with Lr3. I have the production release of Lr4 now. 
> 
> I agree with your observations that you can really wring out the lights and darks with the 2012 process but I have observed two situations where things come apart:
> 
> - I shot a number of seascapes in very hazy lighting. When I went to convert these to black and white I needed to significantly decrease the blue luminance to gain contrast. If you push this too far, you get a grainy effect, especially in clouds, that looks like streaking rain. I suspect this is due to the lack of red and green in the images. The cure is to back off a bit, though at the loss of contrast. 
> 
> - I also observed situations, in similar but not so blue images as noted above, where I got very grainy noise in the darks area of clouds, even though I was shooting low ISO. This 'noise' disappered when I went to 100% viewing but showed up in a print. It seems almost to be more of a display issue than an immage issue. I'm not sure exactly what is happening. 
> 
> Overall, though, a great product. 
> 
>