Black and White with no grey

FetchMeMyTools · 31 Dec 2008

Hello,

Im just trying out a few processing techniques in LR2 and CS3, and have come a cropper.

Im after the look of a photo where it is high contrast black and white with hardly any grey in between. It is very popular within the photography that the waste-of-money- Venture photographers do.

An example is this kind of photo :

Is there a way to process your photos to look like that ?

Ta

DiddyDave · 31 Dec 2008

A bit like this do you mean?

DD

cyclone · 31 Dec 2008

A high contrast curve over a B&W photo should do it I think.

DiddyDave · 31 Dec 2008

cyclone said:
A high contrast curve over a B&W photo should do it I think.

Not really as it doesn't suit every shot

Basically, you have to start off lighting and shooting in a way to get that effect. Mine's got too much modelling on the shot, so the light should actually have been much closer to the camera

Then don't overexpose (which seems the obvious way to do it), but shoot it correctly. For mine, and this is the easy way methinks...

Convert to BW in PS using the Green filter (gets rid of many skin blemishes)

Use Contrast slider at 100%

Use Contrast slider again at 50%

Add Diffuse Glow as 0,1 or 2, 10-12 settings

Sharpen

Done - takes 30 secs or thereabouts, charges out at £1,000 Venture pricing

For more control you can use layers to retain detail in eyes or sharpen them separately to add more emphasis

HTH

DD

cyclone · 31 Dec 2008

Fair doo's.
Can you elaborate this bit?

Convert to BW in PS using the Green filter (gets rid of many skin blemishes)

Always interested in new B&W conversion techniques.

FetchMeMyTools · 31 Dec 2008

DiddyDave said:
A bit like this do you mean?

DD

Brill, thanks for that .... lovely, lovely shot by the way.

Ta for the advice, im going to crack on and try this tomorrow.

:woot:

DiddyDave · 31 Dec 2008

cyclone said:
Fair doo's.
Can you elaborate this bit?

Always interested in new B&W conversion techniques.

Soz - been away for some time, and off shortly for the New year festivities too

It's been common for donkey's years in BW portrait photography to use a green filter over the lens, this is as it's the opposite colour to red (i.e. the colour of spots, pimples, capillaries near the skin, etc.) and so it 'hides' them

Today of course, we shoot in colour and apply the green filter later in PP

-

Also, FMMT, glad you like the shot - it's just a normal one for me that I processed and heavily cropped to illustrate the technique, I don't normally do this sort of stuff myself, but as I like it too I think it'll be making a comeback soon

Happy New Year

DD

FetchMeMyTools · 31 Dec 2008

one small thing, my "diffuse glow" option is greyed out and unusable in CS3, along with a load of other filters.
Any idea why ??

DiddyDave · 31 Dec 2008

FetchMeMyTools said:
one small thing, my "diffuse glow" option is greyed out and unusable in CS3, along with a load of other filters.
Any idea why ??

Probably you're in the wrong 'Mode', or you're using a 16bit image

Save it as a psd and try again, if still no joy make sure you're in rgb mode, if still no joy...

Ask someone else !!! :lol:

DD

Dan82 · 5 Jan 2009

DiddyDave said:
Not really as it doesn't suit every shot

Basically, you have to start off lighting and shooting in a way to get that effect. Mine's got too much modelling on the shot, so the light should actually have been much closer to the camera

Then don't overexpose (which seems the obvious way to do it), but shoot it correctly. For mine, and this is the easy way methinks...

Convert to BW in PS using the Green filter (gets rid of many skin blemishes)

Use Contrast slider at 100%

Use Contrast slider again at 50%

Add Diffuse Glow as 0,1 or 2, 10-12 settings

Sharpen

Done - takes 30 secs or thereabouts, charges out at £1,000 Venture pricing

For more control you can use layers to retain detail in eyes or sharpen them separately to add more emphasis

HTH

DD

You dont have to shoot for it, it can be done in PS.
Simplest and quickest method is as followed.

Desaturate you photo.
Open levels (ctrl-l)
Move the white and black slider in to raise the contrast of the photo, untill you have a normally exceptable black and white.
Duplicate the layer and change the blend mode soft light (Repeat this step if necessary)

The last section, (softlight) will make it look like that effect.