B+W Tigers

During the Wetpixel shark trip back in March we had a couple of days of marginal water quality. The visibility was crap and the water color was an icky green/brown/blue so I ended up with quite a few shark images that were good compositionally but just didn't look good in color. By switching to B+W I think I've been able to salvage some of the images to the point were I can show them rather than relegate them to the reject file. What do you think?

Hi Larry,

I agree - I think they look great in black and white. What I see on my monitor though (calibrated trinitron) is that the blacks appear a bit clipped (too much black) anad the whites don't realy pop as much as I'd like them to (from being there).

I hope that constructive criticism makes sens.

Cheers

James

Thanks for the advice James. The weak link in my workflow right now is the cheap laptop I use to edit. I did punch up the contrast because they looked a little flat on my monitor. I should probably invest in a decent computer/monitor.

Larry, I agree they look great as B&W shots.

I do wonder as to how you did your black and white conversion. Are you using the Channel Mixer in Photoshop?

I have found this to be the most controllable and powerful way to do these conversions, and think it would give you a better "tonal range" in these shots.

Also, as it can be used as an adjustment layer, you can always go back and tweak it at a later date.

For what it is worth, I am viewing these on a laptop at the moment, and it seems like I am seeing the same thing James is...

To convert I simply went to image>mode>grayscale. I took a look at the channel mixer and I'm not sure how I would use it. It only seems to convert one color channel.

As far as the clipping is concerned, I'm a little puzzled. I opened the first image in Photoshop CS and checked image> adjustments> levels and at least according to PS there is only minor clipping at the white end and none at the black end. I looked at the histogram and it curves almost from the black pointer all the way to the white with some spikes between 55 - 90. I also checked by doing ALT and clicking the black or white pointer and again I only see a little white clipping in the sand and none at the black pointer.

What am I not getting. Should I not be ajusting levels so that they extend all the way from black to white. I'm just trying to understand this so I get it right.

Thanks,

Larry

Larry -

Try the channel mixer - Layer>New Adjustment Layer>Channel mixer

A window will pop up - click "OK" to create the new layer. Then the channel mixer box will pop up. There is a small box marked "Monochrome" at the bottom - click it then play with the channels around the following %s - Red -20%, Green 70%, and Blue 10% - tweak as needed. You can then flatten the image and work on contrast, brightness, etc. As a final step you can add either a "warm" or "cool" tone to your B&W by Image>Adjustments>Color Balance and adding just a touch of blue or red to the final image. It will be interesting to see your tiger pics done with both methods for comparison...

regards-

- MP

Larry,

What we may be seeing is that there are not that many discreet gray levels between black and the dark grays. This is common with older DSLR's that take most of the darker tones and move them toward black. They do this to hide noise in the shadows.

Try Matt's technique and I believe you'll get better results. Best if you start w/ RAW and strive to keep the darker tones - you may get noise in the color conversion, but it'll "disappear" when you got to B&W.

HTH

James

OK, it was a pretty lousy weekend weather-wise here in NH so I spent some time this afternoon trying some of the suggested techniques. The differences seems pretty subtle to me but what do you think? Are any of these better in terms of tonal values/ clipping.

1

2

3

4

Yes! I like the first and third variations the best. There is just a lot more "glow" to the shark now and you can see the subtle details now.

Cheers

James

Nice job Larry!! The first variation is a much better pic imho. I agree with James that the shark is better defined and not as dark as at the beggining. Also, there's a nice range of gray tones in the whole pic. The other variations are too mid-gray for my taste, and although some of them might make the shark look a little better, the overall pic is too washed out since the black point is too gray (at least in my calibrated monitor). Though you can fix this easily with a little burning if you like how your shark looks in pic #2 or #3.

Peace,

David.

I think that B&W can be a good solution when the water conditions are not good, your pics look quite nice this way! In the last variations I liker the 3rd one the best.

Good photos of this incredible animal!

Larry,

Is that Babycakes at 16-gig refuge on the last day of our trip?

Cheers

James

James,

Good call....you nailed it.