Two BW Portraits

[Nacho]

Hi Folks, I just joined and posted in the de-lurking thread. Here are two recent portrait attempts. Both done in available light, with the BW conversion done in Photoshop CS3. They are explorations, so the processing is not so great yet. The boy's face is too white for instance, and some light patches might be distracting. Then again, I was going precisely for a smoother look in the skin. Too much I think. The other one, is my self-portrait, and all I used was the computer monitor illumination. As distracting as the reflections on the eyeglasses are, they add a depth I would miss otherwise. I plan on toning down that intensity of white though.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Best,

N

http://www.willamette.edu/%7Encordova/pix/finolino.jpg
EXIF: Nikon D40, ISO 200, 38mm, 1/80, f/4.8, No Flash (with Kit Lens, 18-55mm II)

For this second one: EXIF: Nikon D40, ISO 200, 1/5, f/5.6, No Flash, 55mmhttp://www.willamette.edu/%7Encordova/pix/selfport.jpg

[Icebear]

I like both of them. I agree you could darken the boy, but not much. Your SP is, I think, really good. Exposure is perfect IMO. I don't really find the image of the CRT on your glasses distracting. It's a contextual shot anyway.

I'm curious, how'd you do your B&W conversion. I'm never happy with mine. If you want to post here, I'm sure people wouldn't mind, or your could PM me.

[saurora]

Hi and welcome to the forum! I agree w/Icebear that you could darken the boy slightly....his eyes are wonderful! Your SP is super and your B&W conversion is really good. I hope you will share your technique here in this thread! Looking forward to more great portraits. Good stuff! :thumb

[Manticore]

I really like both, but the 2nd one is my favorite. You did a really great job at the B&W conversion and I'd really like to learn how you did it.

Nice job:clap

[Elaine]

I agree...very nice conversions and the second shot is really great!

[wheresdavid]

both look great, how did yu do them?

[Nacho]

Folks, you are way too kind. Thank you. I'm learning this stuff, so I don't have a process t hat I can say I do consistently. But, in general with the self-portrait I imported it into Adobe Lightroom and increased the saturation and vibrance a bit until I felt the image was right. The image was not quite sharp, but I left everything else for Photoshop. Oh, I shoot mostly in RAW, so the image was an .NEF.


In Photoshop, I create a copy of the original layer and work on that. Normally I also look at the channels to see what each of the RGB channels looks like. Sometimes one of those channels looks great and your task is almost done! Instead of doing a simple Image > Mode> Grayscale, I instead choose to do the conversion by using the Image > Adjustments > Channel Mixer, checking Monochrome (small check box), and playing with the sliders until I find the look I desire. The look I want depends on skin tone, features, gender, ethnicity, etc.

I then go to Image > Adjustments > Selective Color, select Whites from the drop down menu and adjust the Black slider according to the effect I want. I do the same with Neutrals and with Black. I look to make sure that the light parts of the image come out nicely. For the self-portrait I was looking for detail in the skin texture.

Once I had the conversion the way I wanted it, I moved on to sharpening (I look at the image at 50%).

That is the generic version. Right now I have not solidified it into a process mostly because I'm finding my way though this still. Here's a discarded image from the same shoot as the self-portrait (it is a bad image, but can be saved a bit). Perhaps we can all play with it a bit and check in with each other about our conversions?

http://www.willamette.edu/~ncordova/pix/sample.jpg

And here it is after a quick conversion:

http://www.willamette.edu/~ncordova/pix/sample2.jpg

I had the BW nice and sharp but then applied a lens blur filter to the eyes hand, shirt and scarf. Not sure if I like the effect but I wanted to highlight only parts of the image, and since that eye was blurry to begin with... (I started this image with a high pass layer, switched it to overlay, flattened it, and then did the BW conversion. I also used the lasso tool to make a loose selection around the body, used the magic wand holding down Option/Alt (Option/Control on the Mac), clicked into the background space around the body to subtract that residue, then inverted it, went to Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation, and moved the Lightness slider all the way left in order to turn the background all black. I finished with lasso-selected Smart Sharpen to the beard, a bit of the stubble, and the skin under the right eye visible through the eyeglass. I used Smart Sharpen because with hair (as with fur or other "high frequency transitions" (small detail or texture) I believe it controls better the rendering of the detail without making it look too crispy or overdone.

There are mistakes in selecting, but I did this very quickly, my apologies.
Thanks again for all the kind words,

gassho,

N

[PaulThomasMcKee]

Thanks so much for sharing your process! I've bookmarked it so that I can refer back to it at some point - I've got to give it a try.

All three of these turned out great to my eye. It's amazing how much detail you were able to bring back and the B/W conversion is quite nice. Super stuff!

paul

[Nacho]

Thank you Paul. I'm not sure that this is yet a process, but it worked for these images. I have to add that this is for RGB images. I've picked up most of what I do through a patchwork way -- reading approaches by others, exploring, and also reading what I can about skin tone and lighting. A book I found pretty helpful, although I wish it had more step by step for beginners was Skin by Lee Varis (Sybex, 2006). Still totally a newbie at this, but the motivator was trying to learn a bit more about Photoshop (about which I'm still clueless!).

*I have to smile, my 8-year old son watches Yu-gi-Oh, and characters are always going on about "secret jutsus" (secret tae-jutsu), special fighting techniques. I was just reminded of that with this BW process. I'll have to tell him his dad is trying to learn a photographic jutsu!

Thanks again. I hope others post what they do, I'm sure to learn from it, and that nourishes my photographic imagination!

gassho,

N

[rwells]

I really like your first photographs, and I very much like your BW process. I'll have to try and follow it, as best I can.

Anyway, here is my shot at the BW conversion:


http://www.willamette.edu/~ncordova/pix/sample.jpg


http://rw.smugmug.com/photos/206134235-L.jpg

[Nacho]

Sorry it took me a while to respond, R, thank you for taking the time to play with the image and do your conversion. By the looks of your conversion it was pretty easy no? : )

Cool. I'll try to post a few more later, thanks again,

N