Tutorial: Simple Black and White Conversions

Clearly on a roll, I'm back for Week 2 of my summer tutorial series.  Week 1 here.

Here are some very simple ways you (a normal person with any camera) can improve your black and white conversions using Google+ Creative Kit, which happens to be free for anyone to use.  Simple and free and accessible to anyone- that's what these little photography tutorials are about.

You might think, "Um...Black and White conversions.  I just click "Black and White", right?  What's so complicated about that?

Nothing.  You're right.  That is very simple.  But these quick tips give them an extra nudge towards greatness and really help improve the effect of the monochrome conversion.  Also, the editing you'll do to emphasize a black and white image differs from what you'll do in color.

I convert to monochrome for several reasons. First, anything that goes on the walls of my house is converted- this allows the photographs in my home to unify in a cohesive way.  Second, anytime color is just super boring; like my white skinned child with not much but a butter-colored wall or beige couch behind her.  That's just blah to look at.  The conversion can help bring interest.  Third, when color is cra-zy or distracting.  Like, when my kids are in insanely different clothes with colors and patterns or labels that don't jive together or with the surroundings.  That can really pull the eye around the image and the conversion allows focus to be on the subject and tones down the random distractions.  Lastly, when color is poor and the texture is grainy because it's dark and I've used a very high ISO.  I actually love images like this- they have a very strong editorial feel.

Dimension and Contrast

One of the reasons Black and White is so spectacular is the play with light and dark, contrast and definition.  This is what Ansel Adams did so well.

Here is an SOOC snapshot of Patience. 

This image is a great candidate for black and white because of all of the great contrast and interest happening, especially in the water. Lots of organic shapes to emphasize here.  Also, her crazy sweatshirt and hat combo- that goes away too.

The After:

The Google+ Recipe:

1. Converted to B&W. (Tip: Have a color that looks wonky in the conversion?  Check out what the color filter does.)

2.  Added a layer of Daguerreotype. (Learn about that dude!) Faded to 94% (meaning it's at 6% opacity.)

What am I doing here?  I'm warming up the conversion just a bit.  I still want a black and white image- but rather than a very cool gray, it's almost a greige, if you will.  You want subtlety, not Sepia, which I think belongs solely in photographs taken in old timey photo booths.

3. I brought the Clarity up to 5%.  This brings out the definition in the lines.  I also Sharpened at 5%, which adds more depth to the lines in the water, her hair, the stones at the edge, etc.  Subtle.

A big reason I chose this image was for the distractions.  Hudson's foot is in the far right edge and there are branches in the way at the top left corner.  If you don't see these in time to avoid them when you take the shot, and you don't have Photoshop so you can remove them, converting the image can really tone down those distractions.

Get Some Creamy Silver Lightness

Here is an SOOC of my friend's daughter Evelyn

(Full disclosure I did run this through CS3 only to remove some scratches on her face.)

This image is a great candidate for a creamy and light conversion as there is quite a bit of lightness here already and this treatment just highlights it.  You could even take these steps and push your image even brighter than this one, but I chose to keep the subtle definition in her hair and other features.  It's a delicate balance, especially in online editing programs with less control.  But you can still do so much. Read on.

The After:

The Google+ Recipe:

1. Converted to B&W.

2. Added a layer of 1960's. This is another "browning" option- again, be subtle.  Removed rounded corners and Faded (adjusted opacity) to 97%.  This, again, takes the cool edge off that conversion and warms it up a bit.

3. Adjusted Exposure +27 (pretty significant change- much more than appropriate for the color image) and raised Highlights +2.  Watch your highlights and don't clip them! (Don't let them get overblown in your lightening fury.)  Google+ won't tell you you've gone and blown them out so you need to keep an eye on them.  See mine?  The blanket behind her head is quite a bit brighter than the other areas of the image- in this processing program I can't pick and choose where I lighten, so I need to work within that boundary.

You probably won't want to add extra contrast or clarity here, as what you're really trying to achieve is a low-contrast monochrome image.

Last Thoughts

Remember that each image is unique.  These "recipes" are just inspiration- you will tailor your own editing to suit each image you convert.  So the basics: warm it up just a bit, adjust the exposure, highlights and shadows to play with the light (without clipping your highlights!), and finally, adjust contrast, sharpness and clarity to bring out even more definition.  Subtle is usually best.  Try it out- an ordinary blah black and white conversion is usually just a few clicks away from something much more special.

Tutorial: Light, Color, Speed and Motion

Throughout this summer I hope to create a series of tutorials explaining how you can stretch your photography creatively, focusing on skills you can master with any camera and (when applicable) with free editing tools online.

This week I will walk you through the steps I took to create this series.

Location: Arrowhead Park

Time of Day: Early Evening

Quality of Light: Warm, Bright, Indirect- about an hour from the golden hour.

The rundown:  We were walking through Arrowhead Park and the kids stopped to pick up stones near the water.  I noticed that the water near the shore was dancing in the light with the gentle current, and immediately knew what I would do with it. 

It was a perfect time to play with light, color, speed, and motion.

Because the light was glowing and bright, it brought out facets in the reflection on the surface of the water.  There were awesome reflections of color from the trees on the bank and the clouds in the sky as well.

In the first set of shots I took, I played with faster shutter speeds (1/400+ on my Canon.)  You can achieve faster shutter speeds on any camera (in good light) by using the Sports Mode.  The water was moving, but with a faster shutter speed I can stop the motion.

With a slower speed and a steady hand, I capture motion.  This is where you can really get creative- you can hold steady and capture the motion of the subject, and you can also mess around with moving the camera as well in certain motions, patterns, etc.  It's digital.  Experiment.  For these, though, I held steady and let the water do the moving.  In the second set of images, I played with slower speeds (1/40 and 1/60.) Here is an example:

Same image, different settings.  That's a run-down on how to use motion and speed creatively.  If you have questions, ask!

Now let's talk about color.  You probably have several color settings in your camera.  In addition to the color treatment adjustments white balance offers, you also most likely have a standard mode, a vivid mode, monochrome (black and white), and maybe more.  More here.  Some people like to keep their cameras in vivid, because this mode will saturate the colors more, and adds contrast.  Go ahead and play with it!

I keep my Canon in Standard.  Always.  I teach people with all makes and models of cameras and there really is a huge difference between them when it comes to how they capture color.  What I love about mine in Standard color mode is that it captures a low contrast, evenly-toned neutral image.    It almost has a pastel appearance.  I like this because, if I want more saturation or more contrast, I can bump those up manually later.  I think it's obvious by viewing the photographs on my blog that I don't mess around with a lot of wacky post-processing, but I do fine-tune the saturation and contrast to my liking on nearly every image I post.  Typically it's just a bump up a couple of notches (students usually can't see the difference between the original and edited version), but when I'm editing more abstract or artistic images, the difference is more dramatic.  Either way, I want final control over the saturation and contrast.

It's playing with the saturation (how rich the colors are), color tones (adding heat or cooling down color) and contrast (adding definition) that can give you the results I'm about to post.  Adjusting the exposure can change things up too (darken darks, lighten highlights, and overall lighting changes.)  My camera, in Standard, recorded a low-contrast, neutral image that I could then adjust myself.  It is surprising the many colors that were "in there" that I just needed to pull out (I knew they were there because I could see them in the trees and sky at the time.)  I will note, too, that I underexposed these images slightly, to protect the rich colors from getting washed out in the originals. 

So again, using only the exposure, color and saturation, and contrast sliders in Google+ Creative Kit, I got so many different results. 

Here is my straight out of camera (SOOC) high-speed image:

Here are the variations:

Now here are my two slower speed SOOC images:

 

 

 

And some variations:

 

 

 

 

 

What I love about these slower speed images is the impressionistic "brushwork" created through the use of speed and motion, as well as the texture it creates with the water and color- similar to an oil painting. 

 

You can experiment with shutter speed and motion in many ways.  Try this out with moving people, birds, or even traffic.  Have fun, and share your images with me if you try it.  It's never too late to try something new.

Mirror.

I am always telling students to try as hard as they can to stretch their creativity with their cameras.  Photography can be so much more than smiling faces.

I tell them to take one photograph.  Then find three, four, or even five more ways to photograph the same subject.  Break rules and do something unusual because this is digital photography; experimentation is free.

And so, I try to follow my own advice and dabble in a few little experiments every week.  If nothing else, it gives me more examples for class.

This morning I noticed I was wearing some bold, defined shapes and thought this could make a great base for an un-focused profile- almost an impressionistic "wash" of sorts.

Here is the result. My bathroom mirror was dirty, lending to a hazy layer of texture, and the walls of my shower offer some vertical variety for the background.  The morning light is filtered nicely through the blinds, giving a soft, evenly lit tone.  I overexposed slightly to enhance this.  In the end this is identical to the SOOC shot, save for bumping up the temperature two degrees.  It is so important to stretch your camera's abilities first, coupled with environmental details, rather than relying on post-processing for these things (though good processing has its place!) 

I don't know how I feel about it yet, but the more I look at it, I think I might end up digging it.

Either way, if no one hates it, then no one loves it!

Happy experimentation.