 Much has been said about how to convert colour photographs to black and white photographs, but still there are many people out there thinking that converting a colour photograph to black and white is as simple as converting it to grayscale, usually from a JPG-file direct from a digital camera.
For some it might work, but if you want really good black and white you must make sure you have different exposures on different parts of the image, so to do local dodging and burning, to the different zones in the image is essential. Also, to have a properly exposed RAW-file to work with is preferred if you want the best possible end result.
You could use an assembled bracket sequence of files to extend the dynamic range even further, and continue working on it in Photoshop using the HDR function. We're not going to do that here, but instead we will use just one single Nikon D200 NEF-file and enjoy the benefits of shooting in the RAW file format.
What is a good black and white photograph?
A good black and white photograph is a photograph with a lot of dynamic range that has a high level of contrast and detail in both shadow and highlight areas.
A little history: The Old way
The technique I used up until Lightroom 2 was released, was to use Adobe Lightroom (RawShooter before that) to develop a good starting point for my work. I loaded that file into Photoshop so that I could modify it with a technique that involves setting up a series of curve adjustment layers on regions in the image that I'd like to adjust exposure on. But this was still adjustments made to a 16bit TIFF file, so it was not optimal. Fortunately for us, technology evolves every day, so now I'm able to do all these adjustments from my preferred 'RAW-converter' which currently is Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2.
The New way
I'm going to use Lightroom 2.0 Beta for this exercise, because it has a local corrections feature now that are very handy and can therefore replace Photoshop entirely for this type of work. The best part is that we are now manipulating the RAW data directly instead of a TIFF raster file—this I think is optimal quality for our work.
So where do we start?
First you need to make a proper capture of the scene you're photographing. In our case it's a landscape shot captured in 2006 with a Nikon D200 @ ISO 100 and Nikkor AF-S 12-24mm ƒ4 lens set @ F11 and 17mm focal length. The shot is taken in Trollstigen, Norway for those interested. Below are the original, intermediate and finished version.
Developing: First steps
My first step is to get a rough exposure correction for the entire picture in place, even using the auto feature in Lightroom 2 Beta, it has become quite sophisticated, so I use that sometimes to get a good starting point for my corrections.
Next I convert the image to mono and start manipulating the colour channels. I really like black sky and white clouds for my landscape shots. So to darken the sky I adjust the blue and aqua channel to darken the sky to almost black, for pictures with clear blue sky, this will work very well.
Usually at this point some parts of the highlights could be blown (as in this case), so I adjust those with the highlight control. In this case though that wasn't enough, so I had to use the clone tool in Lightroom to clone in some parts of the surrounding clouds, to bad I was a bit sloppy at the time of capture, we all want to save time in post, so lesson learned, exposure is essential!
After some work on a general exposure an balance corrections I start to work on the details.
An eye on the details
The details in this case is to brighten up the almost black shadow areas in the mountain and the water in front as seen in the intermediate shot. This is where the new features in Adobe Lightroom 2 comes into play.
I place adjustment points in the areas I like to adjust, and than play with the controls till I'm happy with the result. For this particular shot I was able to adjust the exposure to lighten up these dark areas of the picture. I than did some more adjustments to the local clarity and contrast, so now I feel the picture has some punch to it. It has details, it has a wide dynamic range, so I'm quite happy with the result.
At the top of this post you'll see an image developed using this technique. The subject is Mardalsfossen in Nesset, Norway. I think it works out quite well.
Final words
I did say this was going to be a tutorial right, well, as it turns out it became just some notes instead, I guess I'm not that good at writing tutorials. I will try and do a more detailed write-up on this subject when I have more time on my hands.
Anyways, I hope it will be to some help for someone out there. |
