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Chicago
Nov 20, 2009 16:08:41 GMT -5
Post by drako on Nov 20, 2009 16:08:41 GMT -5
I went to a training Chicago for a few days and was able to carve out a day to scamper around "The Loop" Millenium Park The Art Institute of Chicago
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Chicago
Nov 20, 2009 16:10:37 GMT -5
Post by drako on Nov 20, 2009 16:10:37 GMT -5
These were shot with Kodak V570 pocket wide (digital) camera. Converted to grayscale in Photoshop 6.0. I will appreciate any tips and tricks regarding optimizing BW in Photoshop ... I'm certain the tonality of these could be improved if I had a methodology!
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Chicago
Nov 21, 2009 10:21:46 GMT -5
Post by nikonbob on Nov 21, 2009 10:21:46 GMT -5
Johnny
Wish I could help but I don't use PS and even then I have have no laid down methodology. Just try playing with the various controls till you get something that you like the look of. If you work on a copy of the original you can't destroy anything. You could also try Picassa, which is free, and allows you to use filters and such in the B&W conversion part.
Bob
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PeterW
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Chicago
Nov 21, 2009 21:33:04 GMT -5
Post by PeterW on Nov 21, 2009 21:33:04 GMT -5
Hi Johnny,
Some nice pics of Chicago with good viewpoints.
With regard to converting from colour to mono, you say you converted to grayscale, which is fine, but you don't mention any editing afterwards to adjust the tonality.
There are three ways you can go about it using PS: Levels, Shadow/Highlight and Curves.
AWAYS WORK ON A "SAVE AS" COPY PICTURE SO THAT IF THINGS GO HOPELESSLY WRONG YOU CAN GO BACK THE ORIGINAL AND START AGAIN.
I used to use Levels quite a lot. It's quick and easy and in general it does a very good job.
You can get to it from Image -> Adjustments -> Levels but the quick and easy way I always use is with the keyboard. Just hit Ctrl + L.
You'll get a box with what looks a bit like a mountain range. Make sure the Preview box is ticked so you can see what the effect of each move is on the picture. There are three sliders at the bottom of the "mountain range". Moving the left hand one to the right darkens the shadows. Moving the right-hand one to the left brightens the highlights. You'll notice that moving either of the two outside sliders also moves the middle slider which is the mid-tones control; move it to the right to darken the midtones or to the left to lighten them.
So that I can judge the effect of either of the two outside sliders I return the middle one to its central position each time. The mid-tone slider doesn't affect pure blacks or pure whites.
Lastly I move the middle slider either left or right to get the mid-tones as I want them.
You can also use Levels with colour pics and, if your colour pic is RGB you get a choice of four adjustments, one for each colour channel - red, green or blue - and the default setting for overall adjustment. If it's CMYK you get five adjustments, Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black plus an overall setting. In Lab Color Levels gives you three settings: Lightness, a and b. The Lightness works just like the other modes, but you can get some interesting variations using channels a and b.
There are two more sliders under a strip at the bottom of the main box where it says Output Levels. These are mainly intended for pros who know where the final picture is going to be used, eg newspaper, glossy magazine, poster, television and so on, and what printing process is going to be used. Provided you've got your printer and monitor properly colour balanced it's best for home use to leave them alone. If, on the other hand, your colour inkjet makes, say, the reds too dark or the blues too light you can try adjusting output levels but, of course, you can't get a preview of them. Experimenting can be a little expensive on ink.
As I said, I used to use Levels a lot, and still do use them, but recently I've been playing with Shadow/Highlight. I don't think there's a keyboard shortcut for this so I get to it by Image -> Adjustments -> Shadow/Highlight.
This time you get a group of three boxes, Shadows, Highlights and Adjustments. The Shadows and Highlights boxes have three sliders: Amount, Tonal Width and Radius. The usual default setting for Radius is 30, and I leave this where it is.
Once again make sure the Preview box is ticked so you can see on the picture what you're doing. Play with the Amount and Tonal width of the Shadows and Highlights, experimenting to see what you get. I don't use the Tonal Width a lot unless I'm dealing with either a very flat or very soot-and-whitewash picture, but try it to see the result.
In the Adjustment Box, Brightness does just what it says, brightens or darkens the whole picture. Mid-Tone Contrast is a very useful slider to bright out more detail in clogged-up shadows, or to play down the detail if it's intrusive. Try it to see the result. I would suggest leaving the White Clip and Black Clip boxes alone at their default settings of 0.01%
I haven't mentioned Curves. Some people say they do the same job as Levels but are superior because they give you more control. At the moment I don't get on very well with them. I think I need a lot more experience of them to be able to say whether or not I like using them.
Lastly, keep trying things and experimenting. The more you do the better you get at it.
I do most of my Photoshopping on scanned-in and descreened images of old magazine pictures, old adverts, old postcards and so on where the originals are long gone to make them suitable for modern repro processes. Sometimes I add colour wash to a mono line drawing to make it 'line and wash'. I've also been known to add a more interesting sky, though you have to be very careful about light direction, and put green fields or trees as the view through a window on internal shots in place of an uninteresting view of next-door's brickwork. I also occasionally make restored copies of old faded or damaged 'heirloom' family photos for friends. But that's all another story.
Some of the tricks and dodges I have to use aren't in the usual books. I learned them by the kindness of PS pros passing them on. The guys (and gals) who produce cgi (computer generated images) from scratch really know their onions. Quite recently I was shown how to change the colour of printed text from black to any colour you want.
Once you get into image editing you find there are more problems to overcome and more and more to learn. Some of the colour chromolithography printed images of the 19th century can be 'interesting' to deal with, to say the least. I wish today's facilities had been available 50 years ago. I might have been quite good at the whole thing by now!
Sorry to go on rambling. Hope this rather long-winded post helps.
Have Fun!
PeterW
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Chicago
Nov 24, 2009 15:14:20 GMT -5
Post by drako on Nov 24, 2009 15:14:20 GMT -5
Yes, very helpful, Peter! I appreciate your effort.
My pics above were indeed played with in Levels, but I will give the Shadow/Highlight function a go.
One thing I did do that was kind of cool was to straighten the fence in the first photo. The original looked odd as the fence slanted downward to the right. So I selected it and "stretched it straight" using the Skew function.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Chicago
Nov 24, 2009 20:28:43 GMT -5
Post by Deleted on Nov 24, 2009 20:28:43 GMT -5
I think that sometimes simply desaturating an image before converting to grayscale can improve the tone range.
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