Digital BW, The Print

The topic of B&W conversion seems like a hot topic as it is also going on at
the NAPP site now. I'll mention RealGrain from Imagenomic. It can be applied
to 16 bit files, allows for layer use, can add grain, if you want to and
gives you control over selective color channels. The down side is the pixel
limitation that many plug ins can run into with PS. So if you are shooting
new digital; capture it may be very viable, but if you are looking at
working with scans, may be not as much so in 16 bit.  LR, PS have nice
conversions too and for many of us, already in the tool box. 

 

 

Here are a couple of links that you may find useful. 

 

 

 (http://www.plugsandpixels.com/ezine.html) 

(http://www.plugsandpixels.com/imageeffects.html).

 

You may need to copy and paste the addresses here. Plugs and Pixel sis a
site that list many plug ins for PS. It is a site that does commerce so it
is not going to list everyone, but what sites and internet groups don't have
an agenda? 

 

I don't have a connection to it. 

 

 

 

Eric

 

Eric Neilsen Photography

4101 Commerce Street

Suite 9

Dallas, TX 75226

http://e.neilsen.home.att.net

http://ericneilsenphotography.com

Skype ejprinter

  _____  

From: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com
[mailto:DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of pglombick
Sent: Friday, January 25, 2008 7:50 AM
To: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Digital BW] Re: B&W Conversion Techniques

 

I stand by Clayton's method. 

I tried using a few plug-ins, and while sometimes the results are what 
you are looking for and sometimes not, I found that most times I could 
emulate the look of the plug-in in PS anyway, just in more steps. Plus 
I hate giving away the flexibility that layers allows and I like to 
keep things in 16-bit during the editing stage.

While I generally use use the method Clayton advocates (make sure the 
Hue/Sat layer is under the channel mizer on your layers view), I find 
that sometimes I prefer a curves adjustment here either in place of, or 
in conjuction with, the Hue/Sat layer. This allows me to fine-tune 
things even more in the highlights and shadows for each channel. Not 
all images need this, but some do. It goes with out saying, that all of 
these techniques can be applied with masks, as needed.

There was a comment earlier about throwing out the "garbage" blue 
channel. While I may be in the minority here, I find the blue channel 
often contains the element I am looking for to make certain images pop 
or stand out. An example is a field of different lavender types that I 
shot at a lavender farm this summer. Or one time I shot a portait of a 
friend practicing yoga. As he had grey eyes and a fair complection, the 
blue channel gave a dramamtic look to the portrait, while the green and 
red channel version looked rather mundane. True, it usually contains 
more noise, especially in the shadows, but careful noise treatment of 
the blue channel can usually bring this to within acceptable levels.

And, as others here have pointed out, no one way approach best with all 
images. If you take some time to experiment, your time invested will 
definitely pay off.

Paul G. 

 



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