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B&W conversion. Critique please (re-edited photo added)

Discussion

6 replies
Posted by Bob Falcone on March 16, 2015 at 10:03 AM
B&W conversion. Critique please (re-edited photo added)
I'm still learning B&W conversions (see other thread below), and converted this shot of an old barn. I used the Topaz BW Effects 2 plug-in. Thoughts?
Posted by Monika Chace on March 16, 2015 at 4:58 PM
Bob, it looks a bit bright/light to me, but often when printed, things look 10-20% darker. It looks like a barn that's been weather-beaten smooth. Often, the weather-beating creates a lot of interesting texture & detail, which I'm not really getting here, but maybe it was all smoothed out. If there is detail in the wood to be brought out, I would suggest doing that. The door in particular looks like a new replacement & the wall doesn't look all that old, either. I think you could increase the blacks. Another thing (which I don't know if Topaz has this) is to use a subtle vignetting to help increase the depth.
Posted by Bob Falcone on March 16, 2015 at 6:06 PM
Thanks Monica. I got some of the same feedback on Facebook, too. How does this look?
Posted by Howard Cihak on March 16, 2015 at 6:26 PM
Bob. your 2nd effort is much better. Just for fun. you might want to see what it looks like if you boost the contrast some more.
Posted by Monika Chace on March 16, 2015 at 10:20 PM
Bob, that looks better. I would back off the processing on the wagon wheel a bit. Can you pull more detail out of the thing on the lower left? Also, I like the crop on the 1st with more of the roof line. If you feel like you need to crop it, I'd crop it so the top of the roof line lines up with the door frame (just the top board cropped out). Frankly, I wouldn't worry about straight lines on these old buildings as they're likely to not have any! (I used to live in a cabin built in 1876 and it was gracefully settling into the contours of the earth.....). Hey, here's a crazy idea: what about cropping it to just show the bottom half of the door & implements?
Posted by Doug Koepsel on March 19, 2015 at 9:59 AM
Bob, considering the roofline and hard shadow of the dark plow, might you consider a much tighter crop of just the wheel and part of the door?
Posted by Bob Falcone on March 20, 2015 at 9:42 AM
Thanks Howard, Monica and Doug for the suggestions!